HHL gGmbH

HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management is a business school with a long tradition. It was founded on April 25, 1898, as the Leipzig School of Commerce. It was the first business school in the German-speaking world.

The school, which moved several times between different locations in Leipzig (including Löhrstraße and Schulstraße), settled at Ritterstraße 8/10 in Leipzig in 1910.

The end of World War II also marked the end of the Leipzig School of Commerce as an independent educational institution.
In February 1946, the Leipzig School of Commerce was integrated into the reopened University of Leipzig as the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences.

Following the founding of the Leipzig College of Domestic Trade (HfB) in 1953 and the college’s closure ten years later (1963), a new, independent state-run Leipzig College of Commerce with the right to award doctorates was established in 1969. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, this institution was required to close by the end of September 1992 under the Saxon Higher Education Act.

Almost simultaneously, in October 1992, the Leipzig Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) and the Society of Friends of the HHL (GdF) founded a new, independently operated Leipzig University of Commerce, which, since 1999 under the name HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, has developed into one of the leading business schools in Europe. In 2023, HHL celebrated the 125th anniversary of its founding with a ceremony.