New Center for the History of Freie Universität Berlin to Be Launched with an Official Ceremony

Official opening event with keynote lecture by historian Professor Miles Taylor

Aerial view of Freie Universität’s campus in Dahlem. From left to right: T
Aerial view of Freie Universität’s campus in Dahlem. From left to right: The Institute for East European Studies, the Otto Suhr Institute, and the building complex that houses the Henry Ford Building and the University Library Image Credit: Luftbild FU Berlin, Fotograf: Reinhard Friedrich / FU Berlin, UA, Foto-S, Sig. RF/0362-06’ 
Freie Universität Berlin is hosting an opening ceremony for the Center for the History of Freie Universität Berlin on Tuesday, January 28, 2025, starting at 6:00 p.m. The objective of the new research unit will be to develop new and critical perspectives on the history of the university. The center will explore the past with due regard to cultural history, urban history, remembrance culture, political history, and institutional history as well as in relation to the history of science and history of knowledge. Professor Günter M. Ziegler, president of Freie Universität Berlin, and Professor Jan Lazardzig, theater scholar and chair of the steering committee for the new unit, will be present at the event. The historian Professor Miles Taylor (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) will hold the keynote lecture in English titled "The Rise and Fall of the ’Free’ University: Higher Education around the World since 1948." Taylor will address the concept of the "free" university in the post-World War II period. Members of the public are welcome to attend the opening ceremony and are asked to register in advance.

The new Center for the History of Freie Universität Berlin began work at the university this winter semester. The idea for the center was set in motion thanks to different initiatives spearheaded by members of the Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Department of Political and Social Sciences, and Department of History and Cultural Studies. "The history of Freie Universität Berlin is a truly fascinating research subject," says Professor Jan Lazardzig, co-initiator and chair of the steering committee. He notes that the university has been strongly influenced by "three great pivotal moments in its history," namely its founding in 1948 as a response to the crackdowns on academic freedom in the Soviet sector of divided Berlin; its reputation as a hotbed of student activism in the 1960s; and its consistent successes in the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments since 2007. The center is poised to apply a critical perspective in analyzing these kinds of established narratives.

The center is particularly interested in using contemporary approaches to writing the university’s history. It plans to incorporate such approaches systematically and apply them to both methodological and theoretical questions pertinent to historiography. This will allow for greater reflection on the transformations observed and put in place at universities as public institutions.

President of Freie Universität Berlin, Professor Günter M. Ziegler stated, "I am delighted that the Center for the History of Freie Universität Berlin has been set up in the wake of our university’s seventy-fifth anniversary and that we can now celebrate this wonderful occasion together. I am very much looking forward to the research that will be produced by this center. The researchers will pool existing initiatives and launch new projects. Their goal will be to competently and critically assess the complex and sometimes controversial history of our relatively young university, which has often been closely intertwined with the societal developments of the past almost eighty years."

The Latin words veritas, justitia, and libertas, which frame the seal of Freie Universität Berlin, stand for the values that have defined the academic ethos of Freie Universität since its founding in December 1948.