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1 | In the name of freedom

Illustration: Yves Haltner

Illustration: Yves Haltner

In the name of freedom. “What is needed is a free university that serves to seek truth for its own sake. Every student needs to know that it is a haven where he or she has an opportunity to develop his or her own personality in a genuine democracy without the influence of one-sided propaganda. Every instructor here should be able to teach and conduct research free of fear and without adhering to any one-sided political doctrine.”

That passage is taken from the founding call for a free university, dated July 23, 1948. The yellowed document is stored in the University Archives of Freie Universität Berlin, the university that was officially founded on December 4, 1948, as a reaction to political oppression against students and faculty at the main university in Berlin, which happened to be located in the Soviet sector of the occupied city. The world has changed a lot in those 75 years, and so has Freie Universität. The university’s core values remain unchanged and as vital as ever: freedom and internationalism.


Sources and additional information

The document calling for the founding of a free university, which then became Freie Universität Berlin, is in the University Archives.