Frankfurt (Oder) is a town in Brandenburg, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants. The number dropped below 70,000 in 2002 and is just above 60,000 in 2010. The official name Frankfurt (Oder) and the older Frankfurt an der Oder are used to distinguish it from the larger city of Frankfurt am Main.
Frankfurt (Oder), being located on the border to Poland, plays a special role in connection with German-Polish relations and European integration. The European University Viadrina has one of its buildings in Poland, in the neighbouring town of Słubice. The university also has a number of projects and initiatives dedicated to bringing Poland and Germany together, and offers its students pro bono Polish courses. Another project which contributes to German-Polish integration in Frankfurt (Oder) is the fforst house, a German-Polish student project which has been granted support by the town’s administration and by the Viadrina, having been described by the former president of the university, Gesine Schwan, as the place where “Europe begins”.
The Margraviate of Brandenburg’s first university was Frankfurt’s Alma Mater Viadrina, founded in 1506 by Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg. An early chancellor, Bishop Georg von Blumenthal (1490–1550), was a notable opponent of the Protestant Reformation, as he remained a Catholic. Frankfurt also trained the noted archbishop Albert of Brandenburg around 1510, who also became a vocal opponent of the Reformation. The university was closed in 1811, and its assets divided between two new universities founded under King Frederick William III: Frederick William University of Berlin, presently Humboldt University; and Silesian Frederick William University in Breslau, presently the University of Wrocław.
The university was refounded in 1991 with a European emphasis as the Viadrina European University, in close cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań; they jointly run the Collegium Polonicum in Słubice.
