Göttingen

The university was founded in 1734 and became one of the leading centres of mathematics and physics: Gauss, Riemann, Hilbert, Born and Heisenberg all worked here, and the town claims a long list of Nobel laureates connected to it, many marked on plaques on the houses where they lived. In the 1920s the physics institute was central to the development of quantum mechanics. Tradition has doctoral graduates kiss the Gänseliesel, a bronze goose girl on the market square fountain of 1901, after their defence; the practice is officially prohibited and universally ignored. The old town keeps timber-framed houses and the medieval town hall.

History

Göttingen grew from a village called Gutingi, probably named after a stream, the Gote, where archaeology points to settlement as early as the 7th century; it is first recorded in 953, when Emperor Otto I gave property there to the Moritz monastery in Magdeburg. Across the Leine stood Grona, a fortress recorded from 915 and used as an Ottonian imperial palace, with 18 royal and imperial visits between 941 and 1025; Henry II, who built the church of St Alban in Gutingi, died there, and the citizens destroyed the fortress between 1323 and 1329. The present town, laid out as a pentagon around a trading settlement at the river crossing, was probably founded between 1150 and 1180, perhaps by Henry the Lion, and stayed subject to the Welf dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg rather than becoming a free imperial city; the old village was taken inside the walls around 1360, and the present St Albani church dates from 1423 (Wikipedia, Göttingen).

Highlights

• The Gänseliesel - a 1901 fountain figure kissed by new doctors.
• The plaques - houses marked with the scientists who lived in them.
• The physics history - the institute where quantum mechanics developed.
• The old town - timber-framed streets around the medieval town hall.

When to go

April to October; the town is livelier in term time. Museums close Mondays. The old town is compact and walkable.

Good to know

Much of the scientific heritage is plaques rather than sites. The old town is small. The city outside it is ordinary.

Nearby

Hann. Münden lies west; Einbeck is north.

Key facts