Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

About Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

IN PUBLICA COMMODA - FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL, it reads on the Georgia Augusta foundation medal. Founded in the Age of Enlightenment (1737) and committed to its critical spirit, it was one of the first universities in Europe to eliminate the supervisory rights of theology and enforce the equal status of all faculties. Its concentration on basic research, its orientation towards source criticism and experimentation proved to be crucial prerequisites for the development of modern humanities and natural sciences, which have been significantly influenced by the Georgia Augusta. Scientific pragmatism and a sense of reality, coupled with a keen awareness of the social responsibility of science, have shaped the history of the Georg-August-Universität to this day. In this tradition, to which the "Göttinger Sieben" (1837) contributed as much as Max Born, Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker with the Göttingen Declaration they initiated for a renunciation of nuclear weapons of all kinds (1957), the Georgia Augusta today defines its self-understanding and its mission. In remembrance of the darkest chapter of its history during the Nazi era, it is committed to using its strengths to shape a humane, tolerant, and peaceful world.