Georg II, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hannover, founded the University of Göttingen in 1737; his name became its name – Georgia Augusta. He founded one of the first institutions of higher education in Germany in which Faculties were on an equal footing rather than subordinate to an all-powerful Faculty of Theology. The University was created in the spirit of the Enlightenment. In his adept management of personnel matters, Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen – privy counsellor and prime minister to the King – laid the foundations for Göttingen´s success and fame. He attracted, among other well-known scholars, classical philologist Johann Matthias Gesner and Christian Gottlob Heyne to the Unviersity, who took over the management of its famous University library. Universal scientist Albrecht von Haller founded the Botanical Garden in 1751 and served concurrently as first president of the famous Göttingen Academy of Science, which had also been founded by Georg II.
Göttingen has always focused on experimentation, basic research and document-based criticism; this was and is its methodological touchstone in research and teaching. Pragmatism in science and a sense for the realities are Göttingen´s style. They served as an excellent foundation for education of modern natural scientists in the 19th century, some of the most influential of which were Carl-Friedrich Gauss, Wilhelm Weber, and Friedrich Wöhler. Thus, it was inevitable that Göttingen achieved a reputation as the mathematical natural-scientific center of the world between 1880 and 1933.
In 1837, the Georgia Augusta had suffered a serious loss in scientific quality when it dismissed the so-called 'Göttinger Sieben' (The Göttingen Seven). Seven Göttingen professors, among them Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann and both Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, protested the repeal of the Hannoverian basic rights by King Ernst August, Duke of Cumberland. Yet this chapter of constitutional disagreement between a king and liberal professors was not the University´s darkest chapter. That commenced when more than 50 lecturers and professors had to leave the University in 1933, because of the National Socialist Party´s ascendancy to power. Among those sacked were Nobel Prize winners Max Born and James Franck. With them went Göttingen´s world fame for mathematics and natural sciences and the Göttingen Nobel Prize wonder.
Georg-August University remains attractive to scientists of repute. Over 40 Nobel Prize winners have been connected with it; the last was Herbert Kroemer (Physics 2000) who was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Göttingen in the 1950ies. Scientists who received their prizes because of research and teaching done in Göttingen were Otto Wallach (Chemistry 1910), Walther Nernst (Chemistry 1920), Richard Zsigmondy (Chemistry 1925), Adolf Windaus (Chemistry 1928), James Franck (Physics 1925), Gustav Hertz (Physics 1925) und Max Born (Physics 1954). Currently, Nobel Prize winner Manfred Eigen (Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1967) und Erwin Neher (Nobel Prize for Medicine 1991) work in the Göttingen Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.
In 1945, after WW II, Georg-August University started operations again as the first University in Germany and with a record number of 5000 students. The following decades saw dramatic increases in student numbers, the expansion of departmental capacities and the construction of modern buildings both within the city and in its northern periphery. A University hospital was built. The four founding Faculties Theology, Law, Medicine, and Philosophy have been joined by nine others who now offer more than 130 different courses of study. Georg-August University´s modern profile remains rooted in the rich tradition of internationally acknowledged quality and a strong accent in research-based teaching. The challenges of present and future are being balanced by reform projects in teaching, research, and administration. The University continues to value the scientific tenets of its founding years: the freedom of science and an obligation to do excellent work in research and teaching.