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Humboldt University of Berlin campus tour: Unter den Linden
What to see at Humboldt University of Berlin: the Main Building on Unter den Linden, Bebelplatz, the Grimm Centre library, Adlershof and student life in the city.
Humboldt University of Berlin was founded in 1810 on the ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt, who argued that teaching and research belong together and that students should learn by taking part in scholarship. That model was copied around the world, which is why this is often called the mother of the modern research university. Its main building stands on Berlin's most famous boulevard, surrounded by museums, the opera and two centuries of German history. This guide covers what to see and how student life here works.
Three campuses across the city
- Campus Mitte: the Main Building on Unter den Linden, the law faculty on Bebelplatz, the central library and most of the humanities and social sciences, all in the historic centre.
- Campus Nord: the life sciences, a short walk north near the Charité hospital and the Museum of Natural History.
- Campus Adlershof: mathematics and the natural sciences, in the south-east of the city.
Berlin has several other universities, among them the Free University in the south-west, founded in 1948 when the city was divided, and the Technical University. The Charité, one of Europe's largest university hospitals, is the joint medical school of Humboldt University and the Free University.
The Main Building on Unter den Linden
The Main Building was not built for a university. It went up in the mid-18th century as a palace for Prince Henry of Prussia, the younger brother of Frederick the Great, and the king handed it over when the university was founded. Its three wings enclose a forecourt open to the boulevard.
At the gate sit two marble statues: Wilhelm von Humboldt, the founder, and his brother Alexander, the naturalist and explorer. The university has carried their name since 1949. Second-hand book stalls have long set up at the railings in front of them, and the forecourt and the garden behind the building are where students sit between lectures.
Inside the main entrance, a staircase carries a line by Karl Marx in gold letters on red marble, a reminder that this was the leading university of East Germany for forty years.
Two centuries of famous names
The list of people connected with the university is extraordinary. The philosopher Hegel taught here, as did the physicists Max Planck and Albert Einstein; Karl Marx studied law here; the brothers Grimm lectured here. Many Nobel Prize winners studied or worked at the university, most of them in the decades before 1933. Statues in the courtyard honour the scientist Hermann von Helmholtz, the historian Theodor Mommsen and Max Planck.
Bebelplatz and the Old Library
Directly across Unter den Linden is Bebelplatz, a square framed by the State Opera, St Hedwig's Cathedral and the Old Library, a curved Baroque building that Berliners nicknamed the "chest of drawers". It now houses the university's law faculty.
On 10 May 1933, Nazi students and their supporters burned around twenty thousand books on this square, by authors they declared un-German. The memorial, by the artist Micha Ullman, is easy to miss: a glass plate set into the paving, through which you look down into a white underground room lined with empty bookshelves. A plaque nearby quotes the poet Heinrich Heine's warning that where books are burned, people will be burned in the end.
The Grimm Centre
The university's central library, the Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, opened in 2009 a few minutes' walk away, beside the elevated railway near Friedrichstrasse station. The architect Max Dudler gave it a strict stone grid outside and, inside, a central reading room of stepped terraces in dark wood, lit from the roof. It is one of the most admired modern library interiors in Germany. Access for visitors who are not members can be restricted at busy times; check the library's own pages.
The Adlershof campus
Students of mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science and geography spend most of their time at Adlershof, about half an hour from the centre by S-Bahn. The site was once an airfield and later a centre of East German research; today the university's institutes share it with one of Germany's largest science and technology parks, with research institutes and companies next door to the lecture halls.
What student life is like
There is no residential campus. Students live across the city, in shared flats or in halls run by the Berlin student services organisation, and travel by public transport and bicycle. Popular districts include Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Wedding and Neukölln. Student canteens, sports courses and language classes are open to students of all Berlin universities.
The city itself is the main attraction: museums, theatres, clubs and lakes are all part of ordinary student life.
Bachelor's programmes are mostly taught in German, with some master's programmes in English.
Visiting as a prospective student
The forecourt, the garden and the public areas of the Main Building are normally accessible during the day. The university has held information days for prospective students and offers advice for international applicants. Check Humboldt University's official pages for what is available and when, since dates and formats change.
Getting there and around
- By air: Berlin Brandenburg Airport is connected to the centre by regional trains and the S-Bahn; allow 30 to 45 minutes.
- To Campus Mitte: Friedrichstrasse station is a ten-minute walk, and the U5 underground line has stops at Unter den Linden and Museum Island, both a few minutes from the Main Building.
- To Adlershof: direct S-Bahn trains run from the city centre.
Where families usually stay
- Mitte: walkable to the Main Building, Museum Island and the Brandenburg Gate.
- Prenzlauer Berg: residential, with cafés and tram links to the centre.
- Around Friedrichstrasse: the most practical for trains in every direction.
Our guide to where to stay in Berlin compares the districts in more detail.
Practical tips
- Combine the Main Building, Bebelplatz and the Grimm Centre in one walk of under an hour.
- Museum Island is five minutes east; the Brandenburg Gate is fifteen minutes west along the boulevard.
- Comparing German universities? See our campus tours of LMU Munich, TUM and Heidelberg.
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Cover photo: A.Savin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
