The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (German: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. MLU offers German and English programs leading to academic degrees such as B. A., B. Sc., M. A., M. Sc., Ph. D., D. Sc., and “Habilitation”.
The university was created in 1817 through the merger of the University of Wittenberg (founded 1502) and the University of Halle (founded 1694). The university is named after the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, who was a professor in Wittenberg. Today, the university itself is located in Halle, while the Leucorea Foundation in Wittenberg serves as MLU’s convention centre (and hotel) for seminars as well as for academic and political conferences. Leucorea also hosts the Wittenberg Centre for Global Ethics, founded in 1998 at the initiative of Andrew Young, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former German Foreign Minister. Both Halle and Wittenberg are about one hour from Berlin by ICE high speed train.
The University of Wittenberg was founded in 1502 by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. Under the influence of Philipp Melanchthon, building on the works of Martin Luther, the university became a centre of the Protestant Reformation. Notable attendees include George Müller, Georg Joachim Rheticus, George Frideric Handel, who studied law there, and, in fiction, William Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet, and Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.
The University of Halle was founded in 1694 by Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, who became Frederick I, King in Prussia, in 1701. Halle subsequently became a center for Pietism within Prussia.
Leucorea Foundation, Wittenberg.
University of Halle in 1836.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the universities were centers of the German Enlightenment. Christian Wolff was an important proponent of rationalism. He influenced many German scholars, such as Immanuel Kant. Christian Thomasius was at the same time the first philosopher in Germany to hold his lectures not in Latin, but German. He contributed to a rational program in philosophy but also tried to establish a more common-sense point of view, which was aimed against the unquestioned superiority of aristocracy and theology.
The University of Wittenberg was closed in 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars. The town of Wittenberg was granted to Prussia in the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and the university was then merged with the Prussian University of Halle in 1817.