In Göttingen, new doctors must kiss a bronze goose girl
Newly minted doctors in Göttingen are pulled through town in handcarts to the Gänseliesel fountain, where they climb up and kiss the statue of a goose girl. It is officially banned, but nobody enforces the rule. The German university town that taught Gauss, Riemann and Hilbert takes its traditions seriously.
The city grew out of a village called Gutingi, probably named for a small stream, the Gote; the ending -ing meant living by, so the name amounts to along the Gote. Archaeology hints at settlement from the 7th century, and the village's first written mention comes in 953, when Emperor Otto I gave some of his holdings there to a monastery in Magdeburg. For a long time it was overshadowed by Grona, a hilltop fortress across the River Leine where kings and emperors stayed 18 times between 941 and 1025. Henry II died there in 1025, and centuries later the townspeople and then Duke Otto I destroyed it.
The town proper arose from a trading settlement at the Leine crossing, probably between 1150 and 1180, and Henry the Lion is presumed to be its founder. Its oldest streets form a pentagon, suggesting a planned layout. It never became a free imperial city, remaining under the Welf dukes, but its burghers played rival factions against each other to win self-government, confirmed in 1232. Hanseatic trade made it wealthy.
The university, Georgia Augusta, was founded in 1734 and began teaching in 1737. In 1837 seven professors, the Göttingen Seven, lost their jobs for protesting the absolute rule of Hanover's kings. The Brothers Grimm studied there, as did Otto von Bismarck and Gerhard Schröder, who took law, and Karl Barth held his first professorship in the city. Its mathematical fame rests on professors including Gauss, Riemann and Hilbert.
Allied bombing largely spared the inner city, which is packed with shops, cafes and students; in 2003, 45% of its residents were aged 18 to 30. Industry leans toward precision: Carl Zeiss runs its light microscopy division here and Sartorius makes biotechnology and measuring equipment, so the region brands itself Measurement Valley. The 2022 census counted 124,548 people.
Source: Göttingen
