| Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster | |
|---|---|
| Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster | |
| Established | July 13th, 1574 |
| Type | Private School |
| Headmaster | Brigitte Thies-Böttcher |
| Founder | Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia |
| Students | 800 (approx.) |
| Grades | 5 - 13 |
| Location | Salzbrunner Straße 41–47 D-14193, Berlin, Germany |
| Website | www.graues-kloster.de |
The Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster is the oldest Gymnasium in Berlin and continues to this day as the Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. It is a private school with a humanistic profile and known as one of the most prestigious schools in Germany. Originally situated in the premises of a former monastery in the central Mitte district, it is today located in suburban Schmargendorf due to the destruction of the earlier buildings in World War II.
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The school was established on 13 July 1574 by Elector John George of Hohenzollern as the first Protestant Latin school in Brandenburg at the site of a medieval Greyfriars monastery (Graues Kloster), that had been secularised in 1539 in the course of the Reformation. The premises were centered around the Gothic abbey church dating from the 13th century, its ruins still being visible near Alexanderplatz.
After the school buildings had been destroyed by air raids in 1945, the school moved several times. After the political division of Berlin in 1949, the Evangelical Church established the Evangelisches Gymnasium in West Berlin which found a new home in Schmargendorf in 1954. While in 1958 the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster in East Berlin was officially abolished by the Communist SED authorities, the Evangelisches Gymnasium adopted its tradition in 1963.
The remnants of the famous school library including donations by Sigismund Streit and Christoph Friedrich Nicolai are now kept at the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin.
The Evangelische Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster is one of the last schools in Berlin offering the entire range of classical education with Latin and Ancient Greek as compulsory subjects. The students learn foreign languages in this order: English (year 5), Latin (year 5), Ancient Greek (year 8), French (year 9 optional). Additionally, it is possible to learn Hebrew and Dutch.
The debating society deserves particular mention as members of the society have won several Jugend debattiert student competitions over the last years.