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29-543: The university was founded in 1945, replacing the previous German University of Breslau . Following the territorial changes of Poland's borders , academics primarily from the Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów restored the university building, which had been heavily damaged in the 1945 Battle of Breslau . The oldest mention of a university in Wrocław comes from the foundation deed signed on 20 July 1505 for

58-402: A chemical veterinary institute, a veterinary institute, and a technological institute, was added to the university in 1881. In 1884, the university had 1,481 students in attendance, with a faculty numbering 131. The library in 1885 consisted of approximately 400,000 works, including about 2,400 incunabula, approximately 250 Aldines, and 2,840 manuscripts. These volumes came from the libraries of

87-573: A numerus clausus law that limited the number of Jews from non-German Eastern Europe (so called Ostjuden ) that could study in Germany to at most 900. The University of Breslau was allowed to take 100. As Germany turned to Nazism , the university became influenced by Nazi ideology . Polish students were beaten by NSDAP members just for speaking Polish. In 1939, all Polish students were expelled and an official university declaration stated, "We are deeply convinced that [another] Polish foot will never cross

116-458: A philological seminar, a seminar for German Philology, another seminar for Romanic and English philology, an historical seminar, a mathematical-physical one, a legal state seminar, and a scientific seminar. From 1842, the university also had a chair of Slavic Studies . The university had twelve different scientific institutes, six clinical centers, and three collections. An agricultural institute with ten teachers and forty-four students, comprising

145-637: A role. The first successful founding deed known as the Aurea bulla fundationis Universitatis Wratislaviensis was signed two centuries later, on 1 October 1702, by the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of the House of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia. The predecessor facilities, which existed since 1638, were converted into Jesuit school, and finally, upon instigation of the Jesuits and with

174-649: The Generale litterarum Gymnasium in Wrocław by King Vladislaus II of Hungary ( Polish : Władysław II Jagiellończyk ) of the Polish Jagiellonian dynasty . However, the new academic institution requested by the town council was not built, because the King's deed was rejected by Pope Julius II for political reasons. Also, the numerous wars and opposition from the University of Kraków might have played

203-580: The Königliche Universität zu Breslau – Universitas litterarum Vratislaviensis (in 1911 named the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau , to honour the founder Frederick William III of Prussia ). At first, the conjoint academy had five faculties: philosophy, medicine, law, Protestant theology, and Catholic theology. Connected with the university were three theological seminars,

232-683: The Potsdam Conference of August 1945 exactly as proposed by Stalin who already controlled the whole of East-Central Europe . Harry Truman remembered: I remember at Potsdam, we got to discussing a matter in eastern Poland, and it was remarked by the Prime Minister of Great Britain that the Pope would not be happy over the arrangement of that Catholic end of Poland. And the Generalissimo, the Prime Minister of Russia leaned on

261-590: The Soviet occupation zone of Germany or the subsequent state of East Germany . The German population who had stayed at or had returned to their homes were forcibly expelled before these Recovered Territories (official term) were repopulated by Poles expelled from the eastern regions and those from central Poland. The borders of Poland resembled the borders of the German-Russian gains in World War 2, with

290-647: The former territory of Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line , consisting of the southern portion of East Prussia and most of Pomerania , Neumark (East Brandenburg), and German Silesia . Poland also received the town of Swinemünde (now Świnoujście ) on the island of Usedom and the city of Stettin (now Szczecin ) on the western bank of the Oder river in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement . Therefore, these transferred territories did not then form part of

319-511: The German areas east of the rivers Oder and Neisse (see Recovered Territories ), pending a final peace conference with Germany. Since a peace conference never took place, the lands were effectively ceded by Germany. The population transfer of both Polish and Germans 1945–46 included many millions of people. The Polish territory in 1919–39 covered an area of 386,418 square kilometres (149,197 square miles). But from 1947, Poland's territory

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348-679: The Lwów Library, the Jan Kazimierz University and Ossoliński National Institute moved to the city. In mid-1948, over 60% of professors at the Wrocław University and Polytechnic were from Kresy , with academics from prewar Lwów playing a particularly important role in the newly established Polish institutions of higher learning. Stanisław Kulczyński from the University of Lwów was nominated the first president of

377-1060: The Republic of Poland (1947–52). In 2015, nearly 80 years after the fact, the university restored academic degrees stripped from German Jews by the Nazis owing to German anti-Semitism. "Wroclaw University estimates that in total some 262 people suffered a similar fate." There are 10 faculties that provide 44 areas of study, in which the language medium is mostly in Polish, with only some in English. The University of Wrocław provides Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral level programmes. The degree certificates awarded by UWr are recognised globally. Honorary Doctorates [REDACTED] Media related to Wrocław University at Wikimedia Commons 51°6′49″N 17°2′0″E  /  51.11361°N 17.03333°E  / 51.11361; 17.03333 Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II At

406-532: The chemical laboratory; the physiological plant; a mineralogical institute; an anatomical institute; clinical laboratories; a gallery (mostly from churches, monasteries, etc.) full of old German works; the museum of Silesian antiquities; and the state archives of Silesia. In the late 19th century, numerous internationally renowned and historically notable scholars lectured at the University of Breslau, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet , Ferdinand Cohn , and Gustav Kirchhoff among them. In 1817, Poles made up around 16% of

435-496: The collection of the university library perished during the Soviet offensive in 1945, burned by soldiers on 10 May 1945, four days after the German garrison surrendered the city. Very quickly, some buildings were repaired, and a cadre of professors was built up, many coming from prewar Polish Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów and Stefan Batory University of Wilno. Following postwar border shifts , thousands of former employees of

464-761: The decisions made first by the Allies at the Tehran Conference of 1943 where the Soviet Union demanded the recognition of the line proposed by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon in 1920. The same Soviet stance was repeated by Joseph Stalin again at the Yalta Conference with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in February 1945, but much more forcefully in the face of the looming German defeat. The new borders were ratified at

493-627: The end of World War II , Poland underwent major changes to the location of its international border. In 1945, after the defeat of Nazi Germany , the Oder–Neisse line became its western border, resulting in gaining the Recovered Territories from Germany. The Curzon Line became its eastern border, resulting in the loss of the Eastern Borderlands to the Soviet Union . These decisions were in accordance with

522-516: The former universities of Frankfurt and Breslau and from disestablished monasteries, and also included the oriental collections of the Bibliotheca Habichtiana and the academic Leseinstitut . In addition, the university owned an observatory; a five-hectare botanical garden ; a botanical museum and a zoological garden founded in 1862 by a joint-stock company; a natural history museum ; zoological, chemical, and physical collections;

551-481: The student body. At the end of the 19th century around 10% of the students were Polish and 16% were Jewish . This situation reflected the multi ethnic and international character of the university. Both minorities, as well as the German students, established their own student organisations, called Burschenschaften . Polish student organisations included Concordia, Polonia, and a branch of the Sokol association. Many of

580-640: The students came from other areas of partitioned Poland. The Jewish students unions were the Viadrina (founded 1886) and the Student Union (1899). Teutonia , a German Burschenschaft founded in 1817, was actually one of the oldest student fraternities in Germany, founded only two years after the Urburschenschaft . The Polish fraternities were all eventually disbanded by the German professor Felix Dahn , and in 1913 Prussian authorities established

609-552: The support of the Silesian Oberamtsrat (Second Secretary) Johannes Adrian von Plencken, donated as a university in 1702 by Emperor Leopold I as a School of Philosophy and Catholic Theology with the designated name Leopoldina . On 15 November 1702, the university opened. Johannes Adrian von Plencken also became chancellor of the university. As a Catholic institute in Protestant Breslau, the new university

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638-537: The table, and he pulled his mustache like that, and looked over to Mr. Churchill and said: Mr. Churchill, Mr. Prime Minister, how many divisions did you say the Pope had? Large territories of Polish Second Republic were ceded to the Soviet Union by the Moscow-backed Polish government, and today form part of Lithuania , Belarus and Ukraine . Poland was instead given the Free State of Danzig and

667-635: The territories ceded to the Soviet Union. The prewar eastern Polish territories of Kresy , which the Red Army had overrun during the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 (excluding the Białystok region) were permanently ceded to the USSR by the new Polish communist government, and most of their Polish inhabitants expelled . As a result of the Potsdam Agreement to which Poland's government-in-exile

696-533: The threshold of this German university". In that same year, German scholars from the university worked on a scholarly thesis of historical justification for a "plan of mass deportation in Eastern territories"; among the people involved was Walter Kuhn , a specialist of Ostforschung . Other projects during World War II involved creating evidence to justify German annexation of Polish territories, and presenting Kraków and Lublin as German cities. In January 2015,

725-654: The two Polish universities in Wrocław, while Edward Sucharda from the Lwów Polytechnic became the vice-president. The University of Wrocław was refounded as a Polish state university by the decree of the State National Council issued on 24 August 1945. The first lecture was given on 15 November 1945, by Ludwik Hirszfeld . Between 1952 and 1989 the university was named Bolesław Bierut University of Wrocław (Polish: Uniwersytet Wrocławski im. Bolesława Bieruta ) after Bolesław Bierut , President of

754-689: The university restored 262 PhD degrees stripped during the Nazi period from Jews and other scholars seen as hostile to the Nazis. After the Siege of Breslau , the Red Army took the city in May 1945. Breslau, now known as Wrocław, became part of the Republic of Poland . The first Polish team of academics arrived in Wrocław in late May 1945 and took custody of the university buildings, which were 70% destroyed. Parts of

783-927: Was an important instrument of the Counter-Reformation in Silesia. After Silesia passed to Prussia , the university lost its ideological character, but remained a religious institution for the education of Catholic clergy in Prussia. After the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon and the subsequent reorganisation of the Prussian state, the academy was merged on 3 August 1811 with the Protestant Viadrina University , previously located in Frankfurt (Oder) , and re-established in Breslau as

812-412: Was not invited, Poland lost 179,000 square kilometres (69,000 square miles) (45%) of prewar territories in the east, including over 12 million citizens of whom 4.3 million were Polish-speakers. Today, these territories are part of sovereign Belarus , Ukraine , and Lithuania . In turn, postwar Poland was assigned considerably smaller territories to the west including the prewar Free City of Danzig and

841-539: Was reduced to 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 square miles), so the country lost 73,739 square kilometres (28,471 square miles) of land. This difference amounts almost to the size of the Czech Republic , although Poland ended up with a much longer coastline on the Baltic Sea compared to its 1939 borders. In addition, the infrastructure in the former eastern territories of Germany was more developed than in

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