Between socialist past and European future: The Europeanisation of the Humboldt University of Berlin

The article discusses the gradual Europeanisation of the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU) from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, divided into three chronological sections. The first part analyses Berlin’s oldest university within the system of higher education of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) with a particular emphasis on socialist internationalism and cooperation within the Eastern (European) Bloc in the late 1980s. The second part scrutinises how the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the German reunification in October 1990 ushered in a new era for the HU, marked by internal reformation, external intervention and an opening to Western Europe. The third part examines the years 1990–1992 when ideas and practices of Europeanisation linked to the initiatives and programmes of the European Communities (EC) became a central facet of the HU’s transformation. This Europeanisation was not a complete rupture from the past but intertwined with an older tradition of (socialist) internationalism within the former Eastern Bloc. During these turbulent years of transformation, the HU managed to reinvent itself as a mediator between Western and Eastern Europe, setting the stage for the university’s firm integration into the European community of higher education in the years to come.