page_title: Free University of Berlin
section_title: Foundation (1948–2000)
hierarchical_section_title: Free University of Berlin / History / Foundation (1948–2000)
context_page_description: The Free University of Berlin is a research university in Berlin, Germany. The Free University of Berlin is one of eleven elite German research universities in the German Universities Excellence Initiative. Free University of Berlin is consistently ranked among Germany's top ten universities overall, with particular strengths in the arts & humanities followed by the social sciences internationally. These programs are highly competitive, such as the program in Political Science is ranked number 19 worldwide according to the QS ranking.
  The Free University was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period as a de facto western continuation of the Frederick William University, which was in East Berlin and faced strong communist repression; its name refers to West Berlin's status as part of the Western Free World, in contrast to the communist-controlled university in East Berlin.
  In 2008, in a joint effort, The Free University of Berlin, along with the Hertie School of Governance, and WZB Social Science Research Center Berlin, created the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies.
context_section_description: At the end of 1947, first students demanded a university free from political influence. The climax of the protests was reached on 23 April 1948: after three students were expelled from the university without a trial, about 2,000 students protested at the Hotel Esplanade. By the end of April, the governor of the United States Army Lucius D. Clay gave the order to legally check for the formation of a new university in the western sectors. On 19 June 1948 the "preparatory committee for establishing a free university" consisting of politicians, professors, administrative staff members and students, met. With a manifesto titled "Request for establishing a free university in Berlin" the committee appealed to the public for support.
  The municipal authorities of Berlin granted the foundation of a free university and requested the opening for the coming winter semester 1948/49. Meanwhile, the students committee in the German Democratic Republic protested against the formation, the GDR described the new university as the "so-called free university" in official documents until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
  The council-manager government accepted the by-law on 4 November 1948. The by-law achieved prominence under its alias "the Berlin model":
  The university was founded as a statutory corporation (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) and was not directly subjected to the state, as it was controlled by a supervisory board consisting of six representatives of the state of Berlin, three representatives of the university and students. This form was unique in Germany at that time, as the students had much more influence on the system than before. But until the 1970s, the involvement of the students in the committees was slowly cut back while adapting to the model of the western German universities in order to be fully recognized as an equivalent university.
  On 15 November 1948, the first lectures were held in the buildings of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science.
  The actual foundation took place on 4 December 1948 in the Titania palace, the film theater with the biggest hall available in the western sectors of Berlin. Attendants of the event were not only scientists, politicians (the Governing Mayor Ernst Reuter amongst others) and students, but also representatives of American universities, among them Stanford University and Yale University. The first elected president of the FU Berlin was the historian Friedrich Meinecke.
  By 1949, Free University had registered 4,946 students. Until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, many students came from the soviet sector, often supported through the "Währungsstipendium" of the senate.
  On 26 June 1963, the same day he held his famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech at Rathaus Schöneberg, John F. Kennedy was awarded honorary citizen by the Free University and held a ceremonial speech in front of the Henry Ford building in which he addressed the future of Berlin and Germany under the consideration of the motto of the FU. Amongst the attendant crowd are also the Governing Mayor of Berlin Willy Brandt and the Chancellor of Germany Konrad Adenauer.
  His brother, Robert F. Kennedy visited the university in 1962 for the first time and in June 1964 for receiving his honorary degree from the Department of Philosophy. The speech he held at the event was dedicated to John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated just the year before.
  In the late 1960s, Free University of Berlin was one of the main scenes of the German student movement of 68 as a reaction to the global student protests during that time. After the assassination of student Benno Ohnesorg and the attempt on Rudi Dutschke's life, protests quickly escalated to violence in all of Germany. The events of the 68-movement provided the impulse for more openness, equality, and democracy in German society.
  During the 1970s and the 1980s, the university became a "Massenuniversität" (mass/mega university) with 50,298 registered students in 1983. After reunification, Free University of Berlin was the second-largest university in Germany (after
caption: The former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology. Today, it houses the Department of Law
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