Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a public research university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 27,000 students today. It is the largest, oldest, and most prestigious university in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Until 1866, it was not only the northernmost university in Germany but at the same time the 2nd largest university of Denmark. Faculty, alumni, and researchers of Kiel University have won 12 Nobel Prizes. Kiel University has been a member of the German Universities Excellence Initiative since 2006. The Cluster of Excellence The Future Ocean, which was established in cooperation with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in 2006, is internationally recognized. The second Cluster of Excellence "Inflammation at Interfaces" deals with chronic inflammatory diseases. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy is also affiliated with Kiel University. The university has a great reputation for its focus on public international law. The oldest public international law institution in Germany and Europe – the Walther Schuecking Institute for International Law – is based in Kiel.
History
Kiel University was founded under the name Christiana Albertina on 5 October 1665 by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. The citizens of the city of Kiel were initially quite sceptical about the upcoming influx of students, thinking that these could be "quite a pest with their gluttony, heavy drinking and their questionable character" (German: mit Fressen, Sauffen und allerley leichtfertigem Wesen sehr ärgerlich seyn). But those in the city who envisioned economic advantages of a university in the city won, and Kiel thus became the northernmost university in the German Holy Roman Empire.
After 1773, when Kiel had come under Danish rule, the university began to thrive, and when Kiel became part of Prussia in the year 1867, the university grew rapidly in size. The university opened one of the first botanical gardens in Germany (now the Alter Botanischer Garten Kiel), and Martin Gropius designed many of the new buildings needed to teach the growing number of students.
The Christiana Albertina was one of the first German universities to obey the Gleichschaltung in 1933 and agreed to remove many professors and students from the school, for instance Ferdinand Tönnies or Felix Jacoby. During World War II, Kiel University suffered heavy damage, therefore it was later rebuilt at a different location with only a few of the older buildings housing the medical school.
In 2019, it was announced it has banned full-face coverings in classrooms, citing the need for open communication that includes facial expressions and gestures.
Faculties
Christian-Albrechts-Universität currently consists of the following eight faculties: Faculty of Theology Faculty of Law Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Arts and Humanities Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Faculty of Agricultural Science and Nutrition Faculty of Engineering
Notable people
Alumni
See also :Category:University of Kiel alumni
Franz Boas (1858–1942), anthropologist
Alice Bota (born 1979), journalist
Georg von Dadelsen (1918–2007), musicologist, Neue Bach-Ausgabe
Gerhard Domagk, bacteriologist, Nobel laureate
Andre Franke, geneticist
Johanna Hellman (1889–1982), surgeon
Mareile Höppner, television presenter
Doris König, current judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
Wolfgang Kubicki, politician, vice chairman of the FDP in Germany, from 1992 to 1993 and since 1996 he is faction leader of the FDP in the Landtag, the parliament of Schleswig-Holstein, member of the Bundestag Oswald Pohl (1892–1951), Nazi SS officer executed for war crimes Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff (1944–2013), German art historian and professor Gerhard Stoltenberg, politician, former prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein, former finance minister of Germany Peer Steinbrück, politician, former prime minister of North Rhine Westphalia, former finance minister of Germany Erich Walter Sternberg, composer Sibylle Kessal-Wulf, current judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, Germany's highest court Surya Hermawan, lecturer at Petra Christian University, Indonesia