Helmholtz-Gymnasium Heidelberg
Helmholtz-Gymnasium Heidelberg (HGH) is a state-funded grammar school in the Südstadt district of Heidelberg, Germany, located at Rohrbacher Straße 102. It was founded on 23 November 1835 as a civic school to serve the merchant class and gradually expanded its courses until it became a Gymnasium in 1927. From 1927 to 1945 it was named Philipp Lenard Schule, but after World War II it was renamed Helmholtz-Gymnasium in honor of Hermann von Helmholtz and became co-educational again. Girls were first admitted in 1905; the school was briefly an all-boys school during the Nazi era and closed for much of World War II. It reopened in 1945 and later moved into a new building on Rohrbacher Straße in 1969.
As of 2018, about 891 students attended HGH. The school offers the standard Gymnasium curriculum with strong language and sports programs. Languages taught include English, French, Spanish, and Latin, with Turkish available for students whose first language is Turkish. HGH is designated as an Elite Sports School (Eliteschule des Sports) by the German Olympic Sports Confederation, combining high-level athletic training with academics. It also runs bilingual English-German courses in biology, geography, history and social studies for particularly gifted language students. Since 2003 the school has been a Partner School for Europe.
The Elite Sports program includes sports such as basketball, volleyball, rugby, hockey, gymnastics, swimming and athletics, and there is a boarding facility for about 25 to 30 talented student athletes each year. HGH also operates a countryside "Landheim" in the Odenwald near Waldbrunn for residential field trips and nature study.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:30 (CET).