Freedom in Berlin

The Russians got a special plum in their slice of the German capital--the world-famous, 139-year-old University of Berlin. Ever since the city was divided among the conquerors, non-Communist students and teachers have been trying to start a new university in the western sectors. Last week they had it. Its name: the Free University of Berlin.

U.S. Military Government had helped by supplying space, books, building materials and airlift coal--just about everything, in short, but the professors. Professors and instructors, however, were plentiful. They came, 134 so far, from all over Germany. Some of them are refugees from the Russian zone itself; twenty-three left well-paying jobs at the old University of Berlin. Among them is white-bearded, 86-year-old Historian Friedrich Meinecke, who became the new rector.

Last week, with 2,200 students, the Free University was going full swing. It was laying plans to set up a full-fledged law school, had already organized its medical school. Most of the students are veterans, almost all must work on the side to pay for their crowded, underheated rooms and for the tasteless food they get.

Each student had had to appear before an admissions committee. The committee was tough on grinds and narrow specialists ("Germany has had enough of bookish but purposeless Herren Doktoren"). It also rejected one boy who hopefully emphasized that his grandmother had been an Aryan. But it did accept several Communists--"otherwise," explained a professor, "we could not truly call ourselves a free university."

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