Technical University of Berlin

Technical University of Berlin

Technische Universität Berlin
Motto	Wir haben die Ideen für die Zukunft (German)
Motto in English	We have the ideas for the future[1]
Type	Public
Established	1946 1770/1799/1879
Endowment	State:€295.7M (2014)[2] External: €174M (2013)[2]
President	Christian Thomsen (since 2014)
Administrative staff	8,070 (2012)[2]
Students	32,752 (WS 2014/15)[2]
Location	Berlin, Germany 52°30′43″N 13°19′35″E / 52.51194°N 13.32639°E / 52.51194; 13.32639Coordinates: 52°30′43″N 13°19′35″E / 52.51194°N 13.32639°E / 52.51194; 13.32639
Campus	Urban
Nobel Laureates	10[3][4][5]
Nickname	TU Berlin, TUB
Affiliations	TIME TU9 EUA CESAER DFG SEFI PEGASUS
Website	www.tu-berlin.de

The Technische Universität Berlin, known as TU Berlin for short and unofficially as the Technical University of Berlin or Berlin Institute of Technology, is a research university located in Berlin, Germany and one of the largest and most prestigious research and education institutions in Germany. The university was founded in 1879. It has the highest proportion of foreign students out of universities in Germany, with 20.9% in the summer semester of 2007, roughly 5,598 students. The university alumni and professor list include National Academies elections,^[6] two National Medal of Science laureates^[7][8] and ten Nobel Prize winners.^[3][5][9]

The TU Berlin is a member of TU9, an incorporated society of the largest and most notable German institutes of technology and of the Top Industrial Managers for Europe^[10] network, which allows for student exchanges between leading European engineering schools. It also belongs to the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research.^[11] As of 2013, TU Berlin is ranked 41st (2012: 45th) in the world in the field of Engineering & Technology and 1st in Germany (46th worldwide) in Mathematics according to QS World University Rankings. ^{[12] [13]} The university is known for its high ranked engineering programmes, especially in mechanical engineering and engineering management.^[14]

History

Northern front of the main building in 1895, considerably damaged in World War II and replaced by a modern front in the 1960s

The Technische Hochschule Berlin was formed on 1 April 1879 through the amalgamation of the Berlin College of Civil Engineering (Bauakademie) and the Royal College for Vocational Studies (Königliche Gewerbeakademie), two independent Prussian founding colleges established in 1799 and 1821 respectively. Both colleges were merged by the Prussian government to form the "Royal Polytechnic University in Charlottenburg", named after the borough of Charlottenburg just outside Berlin where the Polytechnic was situated. Due to the efforts by professor Alois Riedler and Adolf Slaby, chairman of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) and the Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE), in 1899 the "Royal Technical College" was the first Technische Hochschule in Germany that awarded a doctorate, as well as the Diplom as standard degree for graduates.

In 1916 the long-standing Bergakademie Berlin, the Prussian mining academy created by the geologist Carl Abraham Gerhard in 1770 at the behest of King Frederick the Great, was assimilated into the "Polytechnic University in Berlin". Before becoming a part of the TU Berlin, the mining college had been, however, for several decades under the auspices of the Frederick William University (the present-day Humboldt University of Berlin), before it was spun out again in 1860. After Charlottenburg's absorption into Greater Berlin in 1920 and Germany being turned into a Republic, the college became eventually known as the "Polytechnic University in Berlin". In 1927 the department of Geodesy of the "Agricultural College of Berlin" was incorporated into the "Berlin Polytechnic". During the 1930s, the redevelopment and expansion of the campus along the "East-West axis" were part of the Nazi plans of a Welthauptstadt Germania, including a new faculty of defense technology under General Karl Becker, built as part of greater Hochschulstadt university grounds in the western Grunewald forest. The shell construction remained unfinished after the outbreak of World War II and Becker's suicide in 1940, it is today covered by the large-scale Teufelsberg dumping. The north section of the main building of the university was destroyed during a bombing raid in November 1943.^[15]

TU Berlin Architecture Building in May 1968, with banners in protest against the adoption of the German Emergency Acts

Due to the street fighting at the end of the Second World War, the operations at the "Polytechnic University in Berlin" were suspended as of April, 20th 1945. Planning for the re-opening of the school began on June, 2nd 1945, once the acting rectorship led by Gustav Ludwig Hertz and Max Volmer was appointed. As both Hertz and Volmer remained in exile in the Soviet Union for some time to come, the college was not re-inaugurated until April, 9th 1946, now bearing the name of "Technische Universität Berlin". In general, the name is not translated into other languages. The English term Berlin Institute of Technology is a semi-official translation which was established as a compromise in 2007. Nevertheless, the intuitive translation Technical University of Berlin remains the most common (although not official) name for the university in English, with the possible exception of the native German description (and of course the short form of TU Berlin).

Campus

Main building of TU Berlin from above (south side)

Entrance of the main library of Berlin Technical University and of the Berlin University of the Arts

Telefunken-Hochhaus, the tallest building on campus, with a bird's-eye-view cafeteria on floor 20.

The TU Berlin covers ca. 600,000 m², distributed over various locations in Berlin. The main campus is located in the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. The seven schools of the university have some 28,200 students enrolled in more than 50 subjects (January, 2009).^[16]

El Gouna campus: Technische Universität Berlin has established a satellite campus in Egypt to act as a scientific and academic field office. The nonprofit public-private partnership (PPP) aims to offer services provided by Technische Universität Berlin at the campus in El Gouna on the Red Sea.^[17]

Organization

Since 4 April 2005, the TU Berlin has consisted of the following schools:

1. Humanities
2. Mathematics and Natural Sciences
3. Process Sciences and Engineering
4. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
5. Mechanical Engineering and Transport Systems (including Aerospace engineering, Automotive engineering, naval and ocean engineering, and the planning and operation of transport systems)
6. Planning – Building – Environment (merge of former schools of "Civil Engineering and Applied Geosciences" and "Architecture – Environment – Society")
7. Economics and Management

Faculty and staff

8,455 people work at the university: 331 professors, 2,666 postgraduate researchers, and 2,145 personnel work in administration, the workshops, the library and the central facilities. In addition there are 2,719 student assistants and 130 trainees (March 2010).^[18]

International student mobility is applicable through ERASMUS programme or through Top Industrial Managers for Europe (TIME) network.

Library

The new common main library of Technische Universität Berlin and of the Berlin University of the Arts was opened in 2004^[19] and holds about 2.9 million volumes (2007).^[20] The library building was sponsored partially (estimated 10% of the building costs) by Volkswagen and is named officially "University Library of the TU Berlin and UdK (in the Volkswagen building)".^[21] Confusingly, the letters above the main entrance only state "Volkswagen Bibliothek" (German for "Volkswagen Library") – without any mentioning of the universities. Some of the former 17 libraries of Technische Universität Berlin and of the nearby University of the Arts were merged into the new library, but several departments still retain libraries of their own. In particular, the school of 'Economics and Management' maintains a library with 340,000 volumes in the university's main building (Die Bibliothek – Wirtschaft & Management/″The Library″ – Economics and Management) and the 'Department of Mathematics' maintains a library with 60,000 volumes in the Mathematics building (Mathematische Fachbibliothek/"Mathematics Library").

Notable alumni and professors

• 

  Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) Rocket Design Engineer.

• 

  Gustav Hertz (1887–1975),
  Nobel Prize in Physics 1925

• 

  Konrad Zuse (1910–1995), student at Technische Universität Berlin, developed the first modern Computer and the first higher level language

• 

  Eugene Paul Wigner (1902–1995), Nobel Prize in Physics 1963

• 

  Carl Bosch (1874–1940), Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1931

• 

  Bruno Taut (1880–1938), Architect and Urban Planner

(Including those of the Academies mentioned under History)

• Stancho Belkovski (1891–1962), Bulgarian architect, head of Higher Technical School in Sofia and the department of public buildings.
• August Borsig (1804–1854), businessman
• Carl Bosch (1874–1940), chemist, Nobel prize winner 1931
• Franz Breisig (1868–1934), mathematician, inventor of the calibration wire and father of the term quadripole network in electrical engineering.
• Wilhelm Cauer (1900–1945), mathematician, essential contributions to the design of filters.
• Henri Marie Coandă (1886–1972), aircraft designer; discovered the Coandă Effect.
• Joachim Milberg (*1943), Former CEO of BMW AG.
• Martin C. Wittig (*1964), Former CEO of the management consultant firm Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.
• Carl Dahlhaus (1928–1989), musicologist.
• George de Hevesy (1885–1966), chemist, Nobel prize winner 1943
• Walter Dornberger (1895–1980), developer of the Air Force-NASA X-20 Dyna-Soar project.
• Ottmar Edenhofer (born 1961), economist
• Krafft Arnold Ehricke (1917–1984), rocket-propulsion engineer, worked for the NASA, chief designer of the Centaur
• Gerhard Ertl (* 10. Oktober 1936 in Stuttgart) Physicist and Surface Chemist, Hon. Prof. and Nobel prize winner 2007
• Gottfried Feder (1883-1941), economist and key member of the National Socialist Party
• Wigbert Fehse (born 1937) German engineer and researcher in the area of automatic space navigation, guidance, control and docking/berthing.
• Dennis Gabor (1900–1971), physicist (holography), Nobel prize winner 1971
• Fritz Gosslau (1898–1965), German engineer, known for his work at the V-1 flying bomb.
• Fritz Haber (1868–1934), chemist, Nobel prize winner 1918.
• Sabine Hark (born 7 August 1962), sociologist and professor of gender studies
• Gustav Ludwig Hertz (1887–1975), physicist, Nobel prize winner 1925
• Olga Holtz (born 1973), mathematician
• Fritz Houtermans (1903–1966) atomic and nuclear physicist
• Hugo Junkers (1859–1935), former of Junkers & Co, a major German aircraft manufacturer.
• Anatol Kagan (1913-2009), Russian-born Australian architect.
• Helmut Kallmeyer (1910–2006), German chemist and Action T4 perpetrator
• Walter Kaufmann (1871–1947), physicist, well known for his first experimental proof of the velocity dependence of mass.
• Nicolas Kitsikis (1887-1978), Greek civil engineer, rector of the Athens Polytechnic School, senator and member of the Greek Parliament, doctor honoris causa of the Technical University of Berlin.
• Heinz-Hermann Koelle(*1925) former director of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, member of the launch crew on Explorer I and later directed the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center's involvement in Project Apollo.
• Abdul Qadeer Khan(*1 April 1936) Pakistani nuclear scientist
• Franz Kruckenberg (1882–1965), designer of the first aerodynamic high-speed train 1931
• Karl Küpfmüller (1897–1977), electrical engineer, essential contributions to system theory
• Wassili Luckhardt (1889–1972), architect
• Georg Hans Madelung (1889–1972), a German academic and aeronautical engineer.
• Herbert Franz Mataré (1912-2011), German physicist and Transistor-pionier
• Alexander Meissner (1883–1958), electrical engineer
• Erwin Wilhelm Müller (1911–1977), physicist (field emission microscope, field ion microscope, atom probe)
• Gustav Niemann (1899 – 1982), mechanical engineer
• Ida Noddack (1896–1978), nominated three times for Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• Jakob Karol Parnas (1884–1949), biochemist, Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway
• Wolfgang Paul (1913–1993), physicist, Nobel prize winner 1989
• Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905), mechanical engineer, often called the father of kinematics
• Klaus Riedel (1907–1944), German rocket pioneer, worked on the V-2 missile programme at Peenemünde.
• Alois Riedler (1850–1936), inventor of the Leavitt-Riedler Pumping Engine; proponent of practically-oriented engineering education.
• Hermann Immanuel Rietschel (1847-1914), inventor of modern HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning).
• Arthur Rudolph (1906–1996) worked for the U.S. Army and NASA, developer of Pershing missile and the Saturn V Moon rocket.
• Ernst Ruska (1906–1988), physicist (electron microscope), Nobel prize winner 1986
• Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841), architect (at the predecessor Berlin Building Academy)
• Georg Schlesinger (1874–1949)
• Adolf Slaby (1849–1913), German wireless pioneer
• Albert Speer (1905–1981), architect, politician, Minister for Armaments during the Third Reich, was sentenced to 20 years prison in the Nuremberg trials
• Ivan Stranski (1897–1979), chemist, considered the father of crystal growth research
• Ernst Stuhlinger (1913–2008), member of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, director of the space science lab at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
• Kurt Tank (1893–1983), head of design department of Focke-Wulf, designed the FW-190
• Hermann W. Vogel, (1834–1898) photo-chemist
• Wernher von Braun (1912–1977), head of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket program, saved from prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials by Operation Paperclip, first director of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center, called the father of the U.S. space program.
• Wilhelm Heinrich Westphal (1882–1978), physicist
• Eugene Wigner (1902–1995), physicist, discovered the Wigner-Ville-distribution, Nobel prize winner 1963
• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), philosopher
• Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu (1887-1973) chemist, graduated 1912, female engineering pioneer.
• Günter M. Ziegler (*1963), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2001)
• Konrad Zuse (1910–1995), computer pioneer

Rankings

As of 2013, TU Berlin is ranked 41st (2011:46th, 2010: 48th) in the world in the field of Engineering & Technology according to QS World University Rankings. ^[12] In the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2011, TU Berlin ranks 201-300 overall, as one of the top 100 universities worldwide in Chemistry and as one of the top 75 in Mathematics.

The TU Berlin is Germany's highest ranked university in statistics and operations research according to QS World University Rankings.

See also

Other Universities in Berlin:

• Berlin School of Economics and Law
• Freie Universität Berlin (Free University of Berlin)
• Hertie School of Governance
• Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (Humboldt University of Berlin)
• Universität der Künste (Berlin University of the Arts)
• Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW Berlin University of Applied Sciences)
• Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin (Beuth University of Applied Sciences)

Notes and references

External links

• (German) Official Homepage
• (English) Official Homepage
• (German) Homepage of the Student's Council and Government
• Map of campus

TU9 German Institutes of Technology e.V. RWTH Aachen TU Berlin TU Braunschweig TU Darmstadt TU Dresden Leibnitz Universität Hannover Karlsruhe Institute of Technology TU München Universität Stuttgart