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The Grandma has been literally captivated by this book, which she believes is recommended reading to understand the European Union and the global challenges that face us.
Merkel reflects on freedom and it is not surprising that she does so because her point of view as a woman who lived in the GDR and who experienced the fall of the Wall is different from what we could have from the other side of it.
One of the most significant aspects of the Eastern countries is the great educational background that their inhabitants have. Merkel is a politician with an impressive cultural and educational background, very far from today's political mediocrity.
One of the centres where she studied was the prestigious University of Leipzig, which opened on a day like today in 1407 and which, in addition to having Angela Merkel as a student, also had other very significant ones such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert Schumann or Richard Wagner.
More information: Brussels Institute for Geopolitics
Leipzig University, in German Universität Leipzig, in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university by consecutive years of existence in Germany.
The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Elector of Saxony and his brother William II, Margrave of Meissen, and originally comprised the four scholastic faculties. Since its inception, the university has engaged in teaching and research for over 600 years without interruption.
Famous alumni include Angela Merkel, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Leopold von Ranke, Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Tycho Brahe, Georgius Agricola. The university is associated with ten Nobel laureates, most recently with Svante Pääbo who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2022.
The university was modelled on the University of Prague, from which the German-speaking faculty members withdrew to Leipzig after the Jan Hus crisis and the Decree of Kutná Hora. The Alma mater Lipsiensis opened in 1409, after it had been officially chartered by Pope Alexander V in his Bull of Acknowledgment on (9 September of that year). Its first rector was Johannes Otto von Münsterberg. From its foundation, the Paulinerkirche served as the university church. After the Reformation, the church and the monastery buildings were donated to the university in 1544. In order to secure independent and sustainable funding, the university was endowed with the lordship over nine villages east of Leipzig (university villages). It kept this status for nearly 400 years until land reforms were carried out in the 19th century.
Like many European universities, the University of Leipzig was structured into colleges (collegia) responsible for organising accommodation and collegiate lecturing. Among the colleges of Leipzig were the Small College, the Large College, the Red College (Rotes Kolleg, also known as the New College), the college of our Lady (Frauenkolleg) and the Pauliner-College (Pauliner Kolleg). There were also private residential halls (bursen). The colleges had jurisdiction over their members. The college structure was abandoned later and today only the names survive.
During the first centuries, the university grew slowly and was a rather regional institution. This changed, however, during the 19th century when the university became a world-class institution of higher education and research.
At the end of the 19th century, important scholars such as Bernhard Windscheid (one of the fathers of the German Civil Code) and Wilhelm Ostwald (viewed as a founder of modern physical chemistry) taught at Leipzig.
Leipzig University was one of the first German universities to allow women to register as guest students. At its general assembly in 1873, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein thanked the University of Leipzig and Prague for allowing women to attend as guest students. This was the year that the first woman in Germany obtained her JD, Johanna von Evreinov.
During the decline and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and first decade of 20th century together with some other German universities Leipzig University turned into one of the centers of higher education for state administrations and elites of newly independent Balkan states (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia) educating over 5,500 students from the region in 1859–1909 period.
Until the beginning of the Second World War, Leipzig University attracted a number of renowned scholars and later Nobel Prize laureates, including Paul Ehrlich, Felix Bloch, Werner Heisenberg and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Many of the university's alumni became important scientists.
Under Nazi rule many degrees of Jews were cancelled. Some were later reinstated as Karl-Marx University degrees by the GDR. Noteworthy Nazis, such as Max Clara (chair of anatomy) taught at the university and were appointed to positions with great authority.
The university was kept open throughout World War II, even after the destruction of its buildings.
By the end of the war 60 per cent of the university's buildings and 70 per cent of its books had been destroyed.
The university reopened after the war on 5 February 1946, but it was affected by the uniformity imposed on social institutions in the Soviet occupation zone.
In 1948 the freely elected student council was disbanded and replaced by Free German Youth members. The chairman of the Student Council, Wolfgang Natonek, and other members were arrested and imprisoned, but the university was also a nucleus of resistance.
In 1991, following the reunification of Germany, the university's name was restored to the original Leipzig University (Alma mater lipsiensis). The reconstruction of the University Library, which was heavily damaged during the war and in the GDR barely secured, was completed in 2002.
The University Library of Leipzig was established in 1543. It is one of the oldest German university libraries and it serves as a source of literature and information for the Leipzig University as well as the general public in the region. Its extensive historical and special collections are nationally and internationally recognized. The library consists of the main building Bibliotheca Albertina and forty branches situated near their respective academic institutions. The current stock comprises 5 million volumes and about 7,700 periodicals. Collections range from important medieval and modern manuscripts to incunabula, papyri, autographs, ostraka and coins.
The Apel Codex, a manuscript of 16th century music, is housed in the Leipzig University library, as well as the Papyrus Ebers.
The Leipzig University Library also owns parts of the Codex Sinaiticus, a Bible manuscript from the 4th century, brought from Sinai in 1843 by Constantin von Tischendorf. Papyrus Ebers is the longest and oldest surviving medical manuscript from ancient Egypt, dated to around 1600 BC. The Codex contains large parts of the Old Testament and a complete New Testament in ancient Greek, and is one of the most important known manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament and the New Testament. It is the oldest fully preserved copy of the New Testament.
The Oriental Manuscripts of the Leipzig University Library are around 3,200 oriental manuscripts.
In addition to the university library, one of the two centers of the German National Library is based at Leipzig, the collections of which are open to use for academic research.
The original four facilities were the Faculty of Arts, Theology, Medicine, and Law. As of November 2021, the university comprises 14 faculties with institutes and centers associated with each one.
Today, the university has 14 faculties. With over 29,000 students, it is Saxony's second-largest university. There are now more than 150 institutes and the university offers 190 study programs leading to Bachelor's degrees, Master's degrees, Staatsexamen, Diplom (equivalent to master's degree) and Ph.D.s.
More information: Universität Leipzig
No one -although it was a stark violation of international law-
believed at the time that one ought to intervene militarily
in order to protect citizens of the GDR and whole Eastern bloc,
of the consequences of that -namely,
to live in lack of freedom for many, many years.
Angela Merkel
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