Some information and thoughts on the university of Greifswald

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"Study where other people spend their holidays": This nice-sounding  and appropriate remark can often be heard and read at Greifswald and its surroundings. In fact, you can both enjoy a lot of holidays and study much in this region. On the other hand, this remote spot on the German Baltic Sea coastline does not offer many genuine opportunities for someone who wants to earn a lot of money. Apart from the university of Greifswald there are only two other employers, or rather branches of industry which are worth mentioning: a shipyard at the town of Wolgast and finally the flourishing tourism sector.

The economic importance of the university to Greifswald cannot hardly be overestimated. It is absolutely certain that ascent and decline of this town on the Baltic Sea have entirely depended on the university since its foundation in the 15th century. This economic reliance will probably even not change significantly in future. Before the foundation of the university Greifswald profited from the Hanseatic League and its trade, whose economic importance nevertheless considerably decreased in the late Middle Ages. The town can count itself lucky that the university was founded at that very time.

Or to put it another way, Greifswald turned from a Hanseatic town into a university town in the 15th century. On the 17th of october 1456 the solemn inauguration of the university took place in St. Nicholas´ Church. Heinrich Rubenow, the then mayor of Greifswald, who essentially initiated the foundation, became the first principal of the second-oldest university in the Baltic Sea area. However, its actual history started 20 years earlier: The neighbouring university of Rostock  founded in 1419 was forced by political disturbances to transfer its lectures and seminars to Greifswald for a period of six years. Obviously, the inhabitants of our town and the duke of Pomerania must have acquired a strong taste at that time for running an own university. Anyway, several of the professors from Rostock who had taught at Greifswald between 1437 and 1443 switched to the newly-founded university in 1456.

In 1637 the Pomeranian ducal dynasty became extinct. A few years earlier the entire monastery property of Eldena including 24 villages had been conveyed to the university by Bogislaw XIV, the last duke of Pomerania. This large donation did not only make the university very wealthy, but also provided it with sufficient financial means to guarantee its existence throughout the following centuries. After the extinction of the Pomeranian ducal family and the end of the Thirty Years´ War the Swedish kings became rulers of Western Pomerania in 1648 who, of course, have also left their marks at Greifswald: During the reign of Frederic I the today's university main building was built between 1747 and 1750.

An extensive construction programme was finally carried out from the quatercentenary in 1856 onwards when Western Pomerania including Greifswald belonged to Prussia. In the western area of the town centre several buildings of the university clinics were erected in the second half of the 19th century along a street called Friedrich-Loeffler-Straße. Apart from that, the institute of physics, the main auditorium, the eye clinics, the institute of history and the old library were built at the same time near the main building of the university.

clinics, old library and main building of the university

The new library built at the beginning of the 21th century and other new university buildings are situated about one kilometre east of the ancient town centre in a large area along a street called Rudolf-Petershagen-Allee. This area had already been chosen 100 years earlier for further university buildings, but only the construction of some special clinics was finally carried out at this place in the early 20th century.

modern university buildings

As you can see, the university and its buildings spread over two areas, both the western part of the town centre and the area along Rudolf-Petershagen-Allee. Some institutes, however, are sporadically located at other places in the town. To cut a long story short: There is no actual central campus. You can find the university almost in every part of Greifswald except for the outer eastern suburbs where huge concrete buildings dating from the communist era of the former German Democratic Republic offer a lot of living space. This cheap living space might be very attractive for Greifswald´s 12000 students who probably do not have wads of money, but living there you have to accept the extraordinary charm of a less beautiful concrete jungle.

Ernst Moritz Arndt, a famous German author and politician, who was first a student and then a lecturer at the university of Greifswald, did not have the chance to live in today's eastern suburb. He resided in the town centre in a side street near the market square called Bachstraße. The university has borne his name since 1933 and is therefore called Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität. And among the other famous students and lecturers at Greifswald were Friedrich Loeffler, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, Felix Hausdorff, Eduard Norden, Theodor Billroth and Ferdinand Sauerbruch. However, you have to admit that the famous surgeon Sauerbruch only worked two years at the university, but the other ones stayed much longer.

main auditorium

At the beginning of the 19th century, when Sauerbruch taught and worked at the university, there were only four faculties at Greifswald: the Faculty of Law, Medicine, Theology and Philosophy. Today they are also complemented by the Faculty of Science. These faculties are divided into a lot of institutes which offer several degrees. The Faculty of Philosophy and its institutes, for example, offer more than 100 different degrees. It is even possible to study Finnish and baltic languages at the university of Greifswald.