"Other cities have a university, Marburg is a university."

The University of Marburg is not only a German university steeped in tradition, it is also the world's oldest university founded (1527) as a Protestant university. The Uni Marburg – as locals often refer to the Philipps-Universität - has been a place of research and teaching for nearly five centuries.

Marburg has approximately 86,000 residents. With 20,000 students and 6,000 people working for the university, the saying goes that, while other cities may have a university, Marburg is a university.  The majority of students in Marburg come from all over Germany. The Philipps-Universität also has more than 30 international partnerships and exchange agreements with other colleges and universities worldwide. There are some 2,000 scientists and scholars teaching and performing research at the university in Marburg, and more than 400 of them are professors and university lecturers.

Five Leibniz Prize recipients, a new clinic, as well as many notable research projects and prominent institutes and facilities across all disciplines vouch for an excellent scholary reputation. Emil von Behring, who founded the Behring Works in 1904, was not only the first Nobel Laureate for Medicine (1901), but also a professor of Medicine at the Philipps-Universität.

Its broad range of arts and humanities, and its experimentally challenging scientific work, constitute an ideal platform for interdisciplinary cooperation. The university relies on innovative teaching methods with short course durations and networked research, offering students from all around the world a broad range of courses. And studying at Marburg is particularly easy for individuals with disabilities, especially for the visually impaired. As a result, Marburg's university has by far the highest number of visually impaired students of any of Germany's institutions of higher learning. The Philipps-Universität is also currently working on measures to help provide an even more family-friendly work environment. These self-imposed commitments have been awarded the Family-Friendly University seal, which is very rare in Germany. And last but not least, the Marburg University also offers a wide range of leisure activities in sports, music and culture.

Famous Lecturers and Students

The names of Marburg scholars are associated with milestones in science and medicine as well as with important schools of thought in the history of ideas. Among these are the inventor of the steam engine, Denis Papin, the philosopher of the Enlightenment era, Christian Wolff, whose lectures on all subjects drew many students to Marburg - including students from abroad, and the polymath Johann Heinrich Jung, also called Stilling, founding member of the Institute of Political Science. The law historian Friedrich Carl of Savigny started his career in Marburg, while others, such as the world-renowned chemist Robert Bunsen (for whom the Bunsen burner was named), came to Marburg when they were already famous.

Other great thinkers associated with Marburg include the neo-Kantian philosopher Hermann Cohen, the physicist Karl-Ferdinand Braun, inventor of the Brownian tube, and the geophysicist Alfred Wegener, who developed the theory of continental shift at Marburg. Emil von Behring, the inventor of serum medicine, was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Medicine (1901) as a Marburg professor and used the prize money to found the Behring works. Just as influential are the existential philosopher Martin Heidegger and the New Testament theologian Rudolf Bultmann, the leading advocate of the demystification of Christianity. 

Marburg Students

From the great circle of Marburg students who have become famous, the most outstanding are the composer Heinrich Schütz, the Russian mathemetician and subsequent founder of Moscow's most renowned university, Michail Lomonossow, who married a woman from Marburg in 1740, the Brothers Grimm, the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset, the poets Boris Pasternak and Gottfried Benn, as well as the architect of standard German spelling Konrad Duden.  The chemist Otto Hahn, the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch, the theologian Karl Barth and the politicians Wilhelm Liebknecht and Rudolf Breitscheid all studied at Marburg, as did Gustav W. Heinemann, who was later a good friend of the world-famous political economist, Wilhelm Röpke. And Gertrud von Le Fort, who was one of the first women admitted to study at a university after 1908.

Cultural Life

But there is more to life than just work. For this reason, the Philipps-Universität also promotes other talents. The language center offers qualified courses as well as a self-study center. The university leisure sports program offers more than 30 different disciplines including numerous water sports at the university boathouses on the Lahn River and Eder Lake, as well as martial arts and disease prevention classes with Yoga and Shiatsu. In addition, the guesthouse Hirschegg, which is owned by the Marburg University Association, can be used for skiing and hiking trips in the Austrian Alps.

As in sports, so in music: students and staff sing together in the uniCHOIR or play music together in the Student Symphony Orchestra (SSO), the Young Marburg Philharmonic or the student Big Band. The music house in the botanical garden can be used for practice. And the more eloquent speakers of the university meet in the Marburg debating club.

Those who prefer to enjoy culture passively can visit the university museums and exhibitions: the art museum, the antiques and casts collections, the mineralogical, religious and ethnological exhibitions as well as the "Anatomicum" museum. The main tourist attraction, however, is the castle. It is Germany's largest secular Gothic building still in existence, and it contains the University Museum of Cultural History. The old and new botanical gardens do not only attract visitors in the summer months. Tropical greenhouses and botanical exhibitions can be visited all year round.