TheUniversity of Göttingen, officially theGeorg August University of Göttingen (German:Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, commonly referred to asGeorgia Augusta), is apublic research university in the city ofGöttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 byGeorge II, King of Great Britain andElector of Hanover, it began instruction in 1737 and is recognized as the oldest university in Lower Saxony. Recognized for its historic and traditional significance, the university has affiliations with 47 Nobel Prize winners by its own count.[7]
The University of Göttingen reached its academic peak from the late 19th to early 20th century, establishing itself as a major international center formathematics andphysics. During this period, scholars such asDavid Hilbert,Felix Klein,Max Born, andLudwig Prandtl conducted influential research in mathematics,quantum mechanics, andaerodynamics. The university attracted international students, including prominent Americans such asEdward Everett,George Bancroft,John Lothrop Motley, andJ. Robert Oppenheimer. This prominence was severely disrupted by theNazi rise to power in 1933, when the "great purge" resulted in the dismissal or emigration of numerous faculty members, including many of Jewish origin or those opposed to the regime. The university was subsequently reopened underBritish control in 1945 and began a process of academic reconstruction.
Today, the University of Göttingen is a member of theU15 Group of major German research universities. It is also a part of prominent international and European academic networks such asThe Guild, the ENLIGHT alliance, and the Hekksagon network. The university maintains close collaborations with leading Göttingen-based research institutions such asMax Planck Society, theLeibniz Association, theFraunhofer Society, and theHelmholtz Association. With its extensive collection, theGöttingen State and University Library stands among Germany's largest libraries.
In 1734, KingGeorge II of Great Britain andElector of Hanover, commanded his Prime Minister in Hanover, Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen, to establish a university in Göttingen to spread the ideals of theEnlightenment.Napoleon famously remarked, "Göttingen belongs neither to a State, nor to Germany, and is the University of Europe".[8]
The initial university infrastructure was modest, comprising only ariding hall and afencing house, with lectures held in thePaulinerkirche,Dominican monastery, or professors' homes. A university auditorium wasn't constructed until the 19th century.[9]
Throughout the 18th century, the University of Göttingen was renowned among German universities for its commitment to the free spirit and scientific exploration.Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, a prominent scholar, held one of the first professorships dedicated to experimental physics in Germany from 1769 to 1799.[10] By 1812, Göttingen had established itself as a modern, internationally recognized university, boasting a library with over 200,000 volumes.[11] This period marked Göttingen's ascendancy in academic circles, emphasizing its role in fostering an environment conducive to scientific inquiry and innovation.
In the first years of the University of Göttingen, it became known especially for itsFaculty of Law. In the 18th centuryJohann Stephan Pütter, a scholar of public law at that time, taughtjus publicum for half a century. The subject had attracted students such asKlemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich, later diplomat and Prime Minister of Austria, andWilhelm von Humboldt, who later established theUniversity of Berlin. In the 19th century,Gustav Hugo,Karl Friedrich Eichhorn, andGeorg Friedrich Sartorius, who taught law here, became the pioneers of theGerman Historical School of Jurisprudence. At the time, Göttingen was a very popular place for the study of law in Germany: Even the great German poetHeinrich Heine obtained a doctorate in law here in 1825.Otto von Bismarck, the main creator and the first Chancellor of the secondGerman Empire, also studied law in Göttingen in 1833: he lived in a tiny house on the "Wall", now known as "Bismarck Cottage". According to oral tradition, he lived there because his rowdiness had caused him to be banned from living within the city walls.[12] By the university's centenary in 1837, it was known as the "university of law", as the students enrolled by the faculty of law often made up more than half of the university's students.[8] At the end of the 19th century, the famous civil law scholarRudolf von Jhering, who created the theory of "culpa in contrahendo" (fault in conclusion of a contract), remained a law professor in Göttingen until he died.Lassa Francis Lawrence Oppenheim, known as the father of the modern discipline of international law and author of the famous two-volume "International Law: A Treatise", earned his doctorate in law from the University of Göttingen in 1881.
Likewise, theFaculty of Theology in conjunction with other orientalists and ancient historians across the university became an international center for the study of religion and antiquity.
During this time, the University of Göttingen achieved renown for its critical work on history as well. An Enlightenment institution, it produced theGöttingen school of history. Later,Max Weber, one of the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society, also studied history in Göttingen.
Alte Aula (Great Hall), alsoKarzer, at Wilhelmsplatz (built in 1835–1837)
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the University of Göttingen achieved its academic peak. Göttingen maintained a strong focus on natural science, especially mathematics. The tradition began withCarl Friedrich Gauss, who was known as "the Prince of Mathematicians" and taught here in the 18th century. Thereafter,Dirichlet andRiemann took over the chair successively and made significant contributions in the fields of algebra, geometry, and number theory. By 1900,David Hilbert andFelix Klein had attracted mathematicians from around the world to Göttingen, which made it a leading center of mathematics by the turn of the 20th century.[15]
In 1903, its teaching staff numbered 121 and its students 1529.Edmund Husserl, a famous philosopher known as the father ofphenomenology, moved to Göttingen to teach.Ludwig Prandtl joined the University of Göttingen in 1904, and developed it into a leader influid mechanics and inaerodynamics over the next two decades. In 1925, Prandtl was appointed as the director of theKaiser Wilhelm Institute for Fluid Mechanics. He introduced the concept ofboundary layer and founded mathematical aerodynamics by calculating air flow in the down wind direction. Many of Prandtl's students went on to make fundamental contributions to aerodynamics. Between 1921 and 1933, the physics theory group was led byMax Born, who, during this time, became one of the three discoverers of the non-relativistic theory ofquantum mechanics. He may also have been the first to propose its probabilistic relationship with classical physics. It was one of the main centers of the development ofmodern physics.Oppenheimer, the American scientist and "father of the atomic bomb", was one ofMax Born's most famous students and received his doctorate here.
The interior of the university Aula
During this time, the German language became an international academic language. A number of dissertations in the UK and the US had German titles. One might be considered having had a complete academic training only when one had studied in Germany. Thus, many American students were proud of having studied in Germany, and the University of Göttingen had profound impacts on the US. A number of American politicians, lawyers, historians and writers received their education from bothHarvard and Göttingen. For example,Edward Everett, onceSecretary of State and President ofHarvard University, stayed in Göttingen for two years of study.George Ticknor spent two years studying classics in Göttingen. EvenJohn Lothrop Motley, a diplomat and historian, had personal friendship with Otto von Bismarck during his two-year-long study in Göttingen.George Bancroft, a politician and historian, received his PhD from the University of Göttingen in 1820.[16]
Mathematicians celebrating Siegel's Ph.D. graduation, June 1920 at Göttingen: Grandjot, Bessel-Hagen, Rogosinski, Ness, Windau, Siegel (in the trolley), Walfisz, Krull, Emersleben, Kopfermann, Hedwig Wolff, Boskowits, Kneser.
The university is spread out in several locations around the city.
The old Göttingen university campus and library building, called the Collegiate Building,c. 1815
The central university complex with the Central Library andMensa (student refectory/dining hall) is located right next to the inner city and comprises the faculties for Theology, Social sciences, Law, Economics/Business Administration and Linguistics. The departments of Ancient History, Classics, various languages, Psychology and Philosophy are nearby. Located to the south of the city is the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science with its main building, the Mathematisches Institut, on the same street as the German Aerospace Center and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation. In other parts of the city are the departments of Anthropology and Educational Sciences as well as the Medical Faculty with its associated hospitals.
Just north of the city a new scientific center has been built in which most of the natural sciences (chemistry, biology, plant pathology, agronomy, forestry, geology, physics, computer science) are now located, including the GZMB. Other institutes are set around the inner city.
Closely linked with the university is theGöttingen State and University Library (German: Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, or SUB Göttingen). With around 9 million media units and precious manuscripts, the library is designed for Göttingen University as well as the central library for the German State of Lower Saxony (with its central catalogue) and for the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, founded as the 'Royal Society for Sciences'.[18]
The university maintains three botanical gardens: the Alter Botanischer Garten der Universität Göttingen, the Neuer Botanischer Garten der Universität Göttingen, and the Forstbotanischer Garten und Pflanzengeographisches Arboretum der Universität Göttingen.
As of 2023, the university consists of 13 faculties and around 22,484 students are enrolled.[19] 535 professors and over 4,000 academic staff work at the university,[20] assisted by a technical and administrative staff of over 7,000. The post-war expansion of the university led to the establishment of a new, modern "university quarter" in the north of the city. The architecture of the old university can still be seen in the Auditorium Maximum (1826/1865) and the Great Hall (1835/1837) at Wilhelmsplatz.
The University of Göttingen encompasses 13 faculties and a total of 38 additional centers and institutes (including associated centers and institutes but excluding institutes or departments within the faculties themselves).[21]
In theQS World University Rankings 2024, it was placed the 232nd internationally and the 13th nationally.[22] TheTimes Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024 ranked it as 111th globally and 10th at the national level.[23] According to the 2023ARWU World Rankings, the university holds a position within the 151–200 range internationally and between the 6th and 9th domestically.[24] In the 2023 Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), the University of Göttingen was ranked the 97th worldwide and the 6th nationwide.[25] In the 2024–2025US News Best Global Universities Rankings, it was ranked tied for 172nd globally and the 8th nationally.[26]
Within the framework of the 2006–07German Universities Excellence Initiative, it won funding for its future concept "Tradition, Innovation, Autonomy", its graduate school "Neurosciences and Molecular Biosciences", and its research cluster "Microscopy at the Nanometer Range". In the 2012 Excellence Initiative, Göttingen succeeded in obtaining funds for its graduate school "Neurosciences and Molecular Biosciences" and its research cluster "Microscopy at the Nanometer Range". In September 2018, Göttingen succeeded in gaining funds for its research cluster "Multiscale Bioimaging" as part of the excellence initiative's successor, theExcellence Strategy. This cluster lost its funding for the second funding round[27] in 2025.
The University of Göttingen is a traditional institution with a significant historical standing. This is substantiated by a scientific study on the historical development of world university rankings starting in 2013,[28] which examined a web dataset from 24 Wikipedia language versions, covering 59% of the world's population and accounting for 68% of all Wikipedia articles across 287 languages.[29][30][31] This comprehensive analysis identified the most influential universities globally over the past ten centuries, resulting in the "2017 Wikipedia World University Rankings",[32] where the University of Göttingen ranked the 20th in terms of "web page rank" (search engine data),[33] the 8th on account of "chei rank" (interactive citation data),[34] and the 6th in the world on "2D rank" combining both categories of data.[35]
As of 2002, the University of Göttingen was associated with 44 Nobel laureates according to an official count released by the University of Göttingen in that year.[36][37] By this number alone, the University of Göttingen ranked among the global top 15 universities. Recent Nobel laureates associated with the university areKlaus Hasselmann (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2021),Stefan Hell (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2014),Thomas C. Südhof (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2013), andThomas Arthur Steitz (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2009). Klaus Hasselmann received his PhD in physics from the University of Göttingen in 1957. Stefan Hell has been a lecturer (in Privatdozent capacity) at the University of Göttingen since 2004 and the director of theMax Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in the Göttingen Campus since 2002.Thomas Südhof, currently a professor atStanford University, worked on his doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in the lab of British biochemist Victor P. Whittaker and received his PhD in medical science from the University of Göttingen in 1982.Thomas Arthur Steitz was a Macy Fellow at the University of Göttingen during 1976–1977.
Today, a number of judges in national and international courts of the highest level are still affiliated with theFaculty of Law. As of 2021, four out of sixteen in-office Justices of theFederal Constitutional Court (German:Bundesverfassungsgericht; abbreviated:BVerfG), Germany'ssupremeconstitutional court, are affiliated with the University of Göttingen: two of them (Andreas Paulus & Christine Langenfeld) are, currently, professors at the Faculty of Law of the University of Göttingen, while two others (Ines Härtel & Henning Radtke) obtained their PhD in law (Dr.iur) from the University of Göttingen. Also in 2021,Georg Nolte, a former professor of public international law at the University of Göttingen, took office asJudge of the International Court of Justice on behalf of theFederal Republic of Germany.Hsu Tzong-li, a Taiwanese judge who has served as the President of theJudicial Yuan (Taiwan's constitutional court) since 2016, earned his doctorate in law from University of Göttingen in 1986.
Within theGöttingen Campus the university is organizationally and personally interlinked with the following independent and semi-independent institutions:
The most famous tradition of the university is that PhD students who have just passed theirRigorosum (oral doctoral examination) or dissertation defense sit in a wagon – decorated with flowers and balloons and accompanied by relatives and friends, drive around the inner city and arrive at the Marktplatz – the central square where the old town hall and theGänseliesel statue are located. The "newly born doctor" shall climb up to the statue ofGänseliesel (a poor princess in an old fairy tale who was compelled to keep geese by a wicked woman and later regained her identity), kiss theGänseliesel and give bouquets to her.[39]
There is an old saying about life in Göttingen, still inscribed in Latin nowadays on the wall of the entrance to theRatskeller (the restaurant located in the basement of the old town hall):Latin:Extra Gottingam non est vita, si est vita, non est ita (There is no life outside Göttingen. Even if it is life, it is no life like here).
Sign at Göttingen train station displaying the mottoStadt, die Wissen schafft ("City that creates knowledge", playing also with the German word "Wissenschaft", English "science")
"Ancient university towns are wonderfully alike. Göttingen is likeCambridge in England orYale in America: very provincial, not on the way to anywhere – no one comes to these backwaters except for the company of professors. And the professors are sure that this is the centre of the world. There is an inscription in the Ratskeller there which reads 'Extra Gottingam non est vita', 'Outside Göttingen there is no life'. This epigram, or should I call it epitaph, is not taken as seriously by the undergraduates as by the professors."
— Bronowski, 1973, The Ascent of Man, p. 360
The university offers eight snack shops and sixMensas serving lunch at low prices for the students. OneMensa also provides dinner for students.
Apart from those celebrities mentioned above, notable people that have studied or taught at Georg-August University include the American bankerJ. P. Morgan, the seismologistBeno Gutenberg, the endocrinologistHakaru Hashimoto, who studied there beforeWorld War I, and several notableNobel laureates likeMax Planck andWerner Heisenberg. AnthropologistMarlina Flassy earned her doctorate in Göttingen, before becoming the first woman and indigenous Papuan to be appointed Dean atCenderawasih University. The German inventor of the jet engine,Pabst von Ohain, also studied aerodynamics underLudwig Prandtl. Professor Gunther Heinrich von Berg (Doctor of Law), taught at the University of Göttingen between 1794 and 1800 before he entered politics.
Past prominent professors and students of the University of Göttingen
Iggers, Georg G.The University of Göttingen, 1760–1800, and the Transformation of Historical Scholarship (Council on International Studies, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1980).
Iggers, Georg G. "The University of Göttingen, 1760–1800, and the Transformation of Historical Scholarship"Storia della Storiografia (1982), Issue 2, pp 11–37.
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