Free University of Berlin

The Free University of Berlin, known in German as Freie Universitat Berlin and often shortened to FU Berlin, is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 during the early Cold War, and its name referred to West Berlin as part of the intellectual continuum of the Western Free World in contrast to Soviet-controlled East Berlin. Its main campus lies in Berlin-Dahlem in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district. It is one of thirteen German universities designated a University of Excellence under the German Universities Excellence Initiative, and it was the first Berlin university to receive that distinction, most recently as a member of the Berlin University Alliance.