Named after Frankfurt’s most loved citizen and Germany’s most revered writer, Goethe University Frankfurt has had a global influence on both the social and physical sciences. Spread across four campuses in Frankfurt am Main, it has traditionally been a liberal university focused on philosophy and sociology. In recent years it has established an economic and legal arm which includes the highly-regarded Goethe Business School.
The university has traditionally been independent of the state, with wealthy alumni and local companies providing funding for the university to operate. The majority of the faculties are based at the Westend Campus, where imposing modernist buildings are built from travertine stone. These are set amongst open parkland, close to the botanical gardens in the north of Frankfurt’s city centre. Goethe University Frankfurt also has campuses in Bockenheim and Riedberg, along with a medical school overlooking the Main River in Niederrad.
Frankfurt am Main’s excellent U-Bahn railway system connects all of the university’s campuses. Alight at Holzhausenstrasse to visit the main Westend Campus or Bockenheimer Warte for the Goethe Graduate Academy.
12 Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry graduated from Goethe University Frankfurt. However, the university remains etched into global history through its preeminent 20th century school of philosophy, where the likes of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno studied.