University of Marburg

"However sometimes, in the middle of the lectures, a gothic window opens during a thunder storm and the compressed sensation of a hundred gardens fills the smoke-blackened hall. If there were merely professors! But here is God as well.”

Boris Pasternak, poet, writer, Nobel laureate



The Philipps University of Marburg was founded 1527 by Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous. The monastery left vacant by the Reformation was turned over to the "School of Higher Learning”. Eleven professors and 84 students commenced academics on July 1st, 1527.

Over the centuries the scholars led a pretty modest life. There were seldom more than 300 students whose "praiseworthy behaviour” was valued more than their academic achievement. Of course there were the student protests that flared up now and again up until the recent past. Today, as is heard again, the more than 18,000 students in Marburg are pursuing their studies diligently.

Thus the university in Marburg has not always had the good reputation it enjoys today, although there have always been superior intellects that have studied and taught in Marburg. Prominent names can be found on the list of professors, such as the chemist Robert Bunsen. Among them are also nine Nobel laureates, for example,
the physicist Ferdinand Braun. Of particular importance was and is Emil von Behring who in 1901 received the first Nobel Prize for Medicine. He founded a pharmaceutical company in Marburg that is still in operation today.

In the Old University (1872-91), built upon the foundations of the Dominican monastery from the late 13th century, the Alte Aula (the Lecture Hall) reveals a unique perspective into the history of Marburg there in the midst of today’s student bustle.

Appointments to visit can be made at the tourist information office MTM,
tel. 06421 / 99120