Humboldt and the Modern German University: An Intellectual History

312 Pages·2018·4.997 MB·English

by  Johan Östling, Lena Olsson (transl)

HUMBOLDT
AND THE MODERN
GERMAN
UNIVERSITY
An intellectual history
(cid:49)
JOHAN ÖSTLING
Helena Ifill

HUMBOLDT AND THE MODERN
GERMAN UNIVERSITY

Humboldt and the modern
German university
An intellectual history
JOHAN ÖSTLING
Translation: Lena Olsson
Lund University Press
Copyright © Johan Östling 2018
The right of Johan Östling to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
Lund University Press
The Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology
P.O. Box 117
SE-221 00 LUND
Sweden
http://lunduniversitypress.lu.se
Lund University Press books are published in collaboration with Manchester
University Press
Lund University Press gratefully acknowledges the generous financial assistance of
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, which
funded the translation and most of the production costs of this volume.
First published by Atlantis, Stockholm, in 2016, as Humboldts universitet:
Bildning och vetenskap i det moderna Tysklands historia
ISBN 978-91-7353-856-5
ISBN 978-91-983768-0-7 hardback
ISBN 978-91-983768-1-4 open access
First published 2018
This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative
Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence. A copy of the licence can be viewed at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for
any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does
not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or
appropriate.
Typeset
by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited
Contents
List of images page vii
Acknowledgements viii
Preface: Unter den Linden 6 xii
1 The history of the university 1
The university and historiography 1
University history as intellectual history and
history of knowledge 5
The history of the Humboldtian tradition 8
The form and content of the Humboldtian
tradition 14
2 Wilhelm von Humboldt and his idea 23
A modern university 23
Humboldt’s idea 35
Humboldt’s nineteenth century 43
3 The discovery of Humboldt 50
Discovering Humboldt 55
The Weimar Republic 64
The Third Reich 72
Humboldt’s shifting guises 80
4 The rebirth of the university 84
Humboldt during the years of occupation 88
Karl Jaspers and the rebirth of the university 98
Towards a vitalisation 103
Karl Jaspers and the Humboldtian tradition 108
Gerhard Ritter and the liberal university 110
Ideals under review 117
The mandarins and the Humboldtian tradition 122
The wider stage 127
The university reborn 135
vi Contents
5 Tradition under debate 140
A Humboldt for the post-war world 148
The idea of the Berlin university 152
The theoretical university 158
Schelsky and the Humboldtian tradition 162
Ralf Dahrendorf and the liberal university 170
‘Hochschule in der Demokratie’ 179
Debating tradition 192
6 From Berlin to Bologna 207
The morphology of the Bologna process 214
The ubiquity of Humboldt 220
The Humboldtian tradition’s intellectual history
and history of knowledge 223
The Humboldtian tradition and the modern
university 236
Humboldt’s topicality 245
Bibliography 250
Index 285
Images
1 The University of Bologna (© Buena Vista
Images/Getty Images) page xviii
2 The Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology (© ImageRite/Alamy Stock Photo) xviii
3 A picture from the 1930 film Der blaue Engel
(© Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo) 19
4 Wilhelm von Humboldt (© Ullstein Bild/Getty
Images) 33
5 Carl Heinrich Becker (© Ullstein Bild/Getty
Images) 66
6 German students in 1933 (© Ullstein Bild) 75
7 The war-damaged Berlin university in 1945
(© Ullstein Bild) 86
8 Karl Jaspers (© Ullstein Bild/Getty Images) 100
9 Oxford students around 1950 (© Trinity
Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo) 128
10 Protesting students in Munich in 1968
(© INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo) 142
11 Helmut Schelsky (© Ullstein Bild – Hellgoth) 163
12 Humboldt University anniversary celebrations in
1960, in the GDR period (© Keystone Pictures
USA/Alamy Stock Photo) 193
13 Student protests in Magdeburg in 2010 (© Dpa
Picture Alliance Archive/Alamy Stock Photo) 214
14 A photo from present-day Berlin (© Dpa Picture
Alliance Archive/Alamy Stock Photo) 246
Acknowledgements
This book was written during my postdoctoral itinerant years. The
topic, however, I realise now, has followed me longer than that.
Already as a student, I spent time in Tübingen, where I encountered
an academic culture which seemed both alien and fascinating with its
old-fashioned traits and the eccentric personalities of its professors.
A few years later I was a visiting doctoral student at Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, following, at close quarters, the public trial
of strength regarding the university that the Bologna process had
engendered. I was struck by the seriousness and historical depth
of the German debate. Here, issues that in Sweden were mostly
treated as if they were technicalities – the structure of the studies,
the conditions for research, the nature of knowledge – became the
subject of original contemplation and intense controversy.
Since then, I have had the privilege of exploring the Humboldtian
tradition in several scholarly environments. A first foundation was
laid at the Research Policy Institute at Lund University, where I
had a postdoctoral appointment financed by the Swedish Research
Council. Here, as a historian, I came into contact with a multifaceted
study of the institutions of knowledge and research. I attached
special value to my exchanges with Mats Benner, Olof Hallonsten,
Gustav Holmberg, and Anna Tunlid.
Most of the work on this book has been conducted within the
framework of my position as a Pro Futura Scientia Fellow, gener-
ously financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. For a total of two
terms, in 2013 and 2014, I was a fellow in residence at the Swedish
Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in Uppsala. The social and
intellectual atmosphere that permeates SCAS enriched me in an
exceptional manner. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Björn
Wittrock, whose knowledge of university history and enthusiasm
for my topic has been of inestimable value. My two mentors in the
Pro Futura programme, Hans Joas and Jürgen Kocka, have conveyed