Universität Hamburg

The University of Hamburg, with close to 40 000 students, is Germany's fifth largest university. There are about 850 professors engaged in teaching and research; in addition to that, the university's academic staff numbers 1800 and its technical and administrative staff, 6650. The university has 270 buildings throughout the city, but its center is the Von-Melle-Park Campus in Eimsbüttel, situated near the Dammtor Station (Railway/Metro) and the lake Alster.

The University of Hamburg is one of the younger German universities. Its establishment is documented not in a provincial foundation charter, but in a sober official announcement of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg on April 1, 1919. The roots of the university, however, reach back to the beginning of the 17th century. During the time of the Weimar Republic the young university quickly acquired international standing in a number of disciplines due to its outstanding scholars. The close ties to institutions such as Aby Warburg's "Cultural Studies Library" or Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy's "Institute of Foreign Policy" established new forms and content of interdisciplinary cooperation.

The National Socialist dictatorship destroyed this short flourish, primarily by forcing the firing of around fifty scholars and scientists, among them several of the most eminent at the university. Some, such as the psychologist William Stern, the philosopher Ernst Cassirer and the physical chemist Otto Stern, are memorialized in busts and plaques as are the student members of the Hamburger branch of the "White Rose" who gave their lives in the resistance against the wrongful regime.