Französisches Gymnasium Lycée français de Berlin
Entrance on Derfflingerstraße
Derfflingerstr. 7, 10785 Berlin Germany
Information
Type	Gymnasium
Established	1689; 337 years ago (1689)
Grades	5 to 12
Gender	All genders
Language	German and French
Website	fg-berlin.eu

TheFranzösisches Gymnasium (French:Lycée français de Berlin) is afrancophonegymnasium inBerlin,Germany. Traditionally, it is widely regarded as an elite high school. It is also the oldest public school in Berlin. Its creation was ordered byFrederick William of Brandenburg.^[1][2][3]

It is directly operated by theAgency for French Education Abroad (AEFE), an agency of the French government.^[4]

It was founded in 1689 by Frederick William's son ElectorFrederick III of Brandenburg for the children of theHuguenot families who had settled inBrandenburg-Prussia by his invitation, being persecuted for theirProtestant beliefs in theCatholic Kingdom ofFrance after theRevocation of the Edict of Nantes by KingLouis XIV in October 1685. Its first headmaster was the French juristCharles Ancillon fromMetz.

Since its foundation, the school has had an almost continuous history, occupying several buildings in Berlin. In the beginning, the faculty comprised Huguenot refugees only and the language of education wasFrench. The school soon was attended also by numerousGerman children ofschool fee payingPrussian nobles and officials, and developed into an elite school.

In the course of thePrussian reforms, the Collège Français became a common public school in 1809. In view of the growing numbers of pupils, it moved into a larger building built on Reichstagsufer in theDorotheenstadt quarter in 1873. The school was attended by an above-average number ofJewish pupils, who under theNazi regime — like Jewish teachers — were harassed and finally excluded in 1938. However, despite allnationalist efforts, the French language remained the medium of teaching. After 1943 the school was evacuated from Berlin and the historic school building on Reichstagsufer was destroyed in 1945.^[5]

After the war, the school moved to theWedding district in theFrench sector of what was to becomeWest Berlin. In 1952 the Französisches Gymnasium — Collège Français Berlin was re-established by merging the traditional Huguenot school with the Berlin collège of theFrench Armed Forces.

Several of its pupils (though not all graduated) became prominent in later life, among them the poetAdalbert von Chamisso, the authorsMaximilian Harden andKurt Tucholsky, the engineerWalter Dornberger and the resistance fighterAdam von Trott zu Solz, the singer-songwritersReinhard Mey andUlrich Roski, as well as political scientistGesine Schwan, the presidential candidate of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany in 2009.

The school moved to its current building, inBerlin-Tiergarten, on Derfflingerstraße, not far fromNollendorfplatzin 1972, after it had been located in Berlin-Reinickendorf. It educates bothGerman- andFrench-speaking pupils from francophone countries all over the world. Grades are from 5 to 12, with bilingual classes and teaching starting in grade 7. Other languages that are taught areEnglish,Latin,Ancient Greek andSpanish. Pupils can graduate with either of twodiplomas though many Germans pass both: theAbitur (German high school diploma) and theBaccalauréat (French high school diploma).

• Charles Ancillon (1659–1715), jurist and diplomat
• Paul Erman (1764–1851), physicist
• Georg Adolf Erman (1806–1877), physicist
• Ernst Curtius (1814–1896), archaeologist and historian
• Alfred Clebsch (1833–1872), mathematician
• Hermann Wilhelm Ebel (1820–1875), philologist
• Karl Ploetz (1819–1881), author

• Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey (1711–1797), essayist and philosopher
• Louis de Beausobre (1730–1783), philosopher and political economist
• Ludwig Robert (1778–1832), writer
• Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838), poet and botanist
• Franz von Gaudy (1800–1840), poet and novelist
• Karl Ludwig Michelet (1801–1893), philosopher
• Heinrich Girard (1814–1878), mineralist and geologist
• Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896), physician and physiologist
• Carl Bolle (1821–1909), naturalist and collector
• Max von Brandt (1835–1920), diplomat, East Asia expert and publicist
• Petre P. Carp (1837–1919), politician and culture critic
• Gustav Mützel (1839–1893), artist
• Paul Güssfeldt (1840–1920), geologist, mountaineer and explorer
• Alfred Woltmann (1841–1880), art historian
• Ernst von Wildenbruch (1845–1909), poet and dramatist
• Albert Moritz Wolff (1854–1923), sculptor
• Adolf Erman (1854–1937), Egyptologist
• Richard Witting (1856–1923), politician and financier
• Maximilian Harden (1861–1927), journalist and editor
• Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (1870–1964), general
• Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus (1876–1959), chemist, Nobel laureate
• Edmund Landau (1877–1938), mathematician
• Victor Klemperer (1881–1960), journalist and literary scholar
• Walther von Brauchitsch (1881–1948), field marshal
• Leonard Nelson (1882–1927), mathematician and philosopher
• Kurt Tucholsky (1890–1935), journalist and writer
• Erich Auerbach (1892–1957), philologist and literary scholar
• Wolfgang G. Friedmann (1907–1972), legal philosopher, academic and humanist
• Adam von Trott zu Solz (1909–1944), lawyer, diplomat and resistance fighter
• Joachim Werner (1909–1994), archaeologist
• Wernher von Braun (1912–1977), rocket scientist
• Gottfried Reinhardt (1913–1994), film producer and director
• Albert O. Hirschman (1915-2012), economist
• Klemens von Klemperer (1916-2012), historian
• Magnus von Braun (1919–2003), rocket engineer
• Ken Adam (born 1921), film designer
• John Leonard Clive (1924–1990), historian
• Wolfgang Gewalt (1928–2007), zoologist
• Reinhard Mey (born 1942), singer-songwriter
• Gesine Schwan (born 1943), political science professor
• Ulrich Roski (1944–2003), singer-songwriter
• Dominique Horwitz (born 1957), actor and singer
• Christian Berkel (born 1957), actor
• Peter Fox (born 1971), musician
• Alexander Schnell (born 1971), philosopher
• Alexandra Maria Lara (born 1978), actress

• Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster
• Canisius-Kolleg Berlin
• Education in Germany
• La Gazette de Berlin

German international schools in France

• Internationale Deutsche Schule Paris
• DFG / LFA Buc
• Deutsche Schule Toulouse

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52°30′12″N13°21′20″E / 52.50333°N 13.35556°E /52.50333; 13.35556

• 1689 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire
• Educational institutions established in the 1680s
• International schools in Berlin
• French international schools in Germany
• Huguenot history in Germany

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