![Lüdtke](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/L%C3%BCdtke.jpg)
Alf Lüdtke (18 October 1943,
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
– 29 January 2019) (also Alf Luedtke) was a historian and a leading German representative of the history of everyday life (''
Alltagsgeschichte
''Alltagsgeschichte'' (German; and sometimes translated as 'history of everyday life') is a form of social history that was emerged among West German historians in the 1980s. It was founded by Alf Lüdtke (1943–2019) and Hans Medick (born 1939 ...
'' in German). He said his main fields of interest and research include work as a social practice, the connection of production and destruction through "work", forms of taking part and acquiescing in European dictatorships in the 20th century, and remembering and memorialising forms of dealing with war and genocide in the modern era.
Life
Together with
Hans Medick
Hans Medick (born 7 October 1939) is a German historian.
Life
Born in Wuppertal, Medick studied history, philosophy, English and political science at the universities of Cologne University, Cologne, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heide ...
, Alf Lüdtke can be considered a founder of ''
Alltagsgeschichte
''Alltagsgeschichte'' (German; and sometimes translated as 'history of everyday life') is a form of social history that was emerged among West German historians in the 1980s. It was founded by Alf Lüdtke (1943–2019) and Hans Medick (born 1939 ...
'', a form of
microhistory Microhistory is a genre of history that focuses on small units of research, such as an event, community, individual or a settlement. In its ambition, however, microhistory can be distinguished from a simple case study insofar as microhistory aspires ...
that was particularly prevalent amongst German historians during the 1980s.
Lüdtke studied history along with sociology and philosophy in
Tübingen
Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...
(1965-1972, MA 1974). In 1980 he obtained his doctorate at the
University of Konstanz
The University of Konstanz (german: Universität Konstanz) is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its main campus was opened on the Gießberg in 1972 after being founded in 1966. The university is Germany's ...
. Lüdtke's dissertation ''Gemeinwohl, Polizei und Festungspraxis'' analysed governmental violence practices of
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
in the early 19th century. One of his articles, "The Role of State Violence in the Period of Transition to Industrial Capitalism: The Example of Prussia from 1815 to 1848", was published in ''Social History'' in 1979. His article describes the idea that state violence under the
feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...
system was necessary to create a control amongst the Prussian working class in order to prepare them for the different structure of
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
society. Lüdtke was interested in how the growth of state and the growth of capitalism related to each other.
[Lüdtke, Alf. "The Role of State Violence in the Period of Transition to Industrial Capitalism: The Example of Prussia from 1815 to 1848", ''Social History'' 4 (1979): 175-221 (JSTOR).]
In 1988 he attained his habilitation in the fields Modern History (''Neuere Geschichte'') and Contemporary History (''Zeitgeschichte'') at the faculty of the humanities and social science of the
University of Hannover
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover (german: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität), also known as the University of Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831 as Higher Vocational Sc ...
, where he subsequently taught history from 1989 to 1999. In 1995 he was appointed extraordinary professor in Hannover and in 1999 professor at the
University of Erfurt
The University of Erfurt (german: Universität Erfurt) is a public university located in Erfurt, the capital city of the German state of Thuringia. It was founded in 1379, and closed in 1816. It was re-established in 1994, three years after Germ ...
. In Erfurt, Lüdtke was honorary professor for historical anthropology since 2008.
Since 1975 Lüdtke worked at the
Max Planck Institute for History
The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung multireligiöser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften'') is located in Göttingen, Germany. It is one of 83 institutes in the Ma ...
in Göttingen. In 1999 Alf Lüdtke and Hans Medick founded the ''Arbeitsstelle für Historische Anthropologie'' ('(off-site)-Departement of Historical Anthropology') of the Max Planck Institute for History at the University of Erfurt.
Since the 1980s, Lüdtke has kept regular contacts in France and the USA, among other things through the International Round Table of History and Anthropology. Since the beginning of the 1990s he regularly was guest professor at the historical seminar at the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
. At the end of the 1990s first contacts with South Korea developed, which evolved into regular scholarly exchanges. Beginning in 2005, Lüdtke took part in the conferences on Mass Dictatorship at the
Research Institute on Comparative Culture and History (RICH) in Seoul. From November 2008 to August 2013 he did seminars and workshops in South Korea as part of the "World Class University" program of the Korean National Research Foundation.
Since 2011 Lüdtke had been a member of the work group ''Erfurter RaumZeit-Forschung'', since 2014 he had been a fellow at the ''Internationales Geisteswissenschaftliches Kolleg'' "Work and Life Cycle in Global Perspective" at
Humboldt University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
.
Lüdtke was the founder and editor of the journal ''
Sozialwissenschaftliche Informationen'', as well as co-founder and co-editor of the journals ''
Werkstatt Geschichte'' and ''
Historische Anthropologie. Kultur – Gesellschaft – Alltag''.
Lüdtke combined issues of sociology, ethnology and anthropology with those of history. Especially through his research on the life worlds of industrial workers and so-called "ordinary" people, he gave impetuses to German and international historical science. His final research projects were: ''Blockings and Passages: the Grenzübergangsstellen
order checkpointsof the GDR'', war as work, and the recent state of transnational
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
.
Works (selection)
Monographs
* „Gemeinwohl“, Polizei und „Festungspraxis“. Innere Verwaltung und staatliche Gewaltsamkeit in Preußen, 1815-50. (revised dissertation.), Göttingen 1982. (Police and State in Prussia, 1815–1850. Cambridge, New York 1989)
* (
Deutscher Textilarbeiterverband, Hauptvorstand/Arbeiterinnensekretariat:) Mein Arbeitstag, mein Wochenende; Arbeiterinnen berichten von ihrem Alltag
erlin, o.J. (1930?) A. L. (Ed., Introduction), Ergebnisse Verlag, Hamburg, 1991. facsimile.
* Eigen-Sinn. Fabrikalltag, Arbeitererfahrungen und Politik vom Kaiserreich bis in den Faschismus. Ergebnisse Verlag, Hamburg 1993 (10 essays).
: Contains among other things: Lohn, Pausen, Neckereien: ‚‘Eigensinn’ und Politik bei Fabrikarbeitern in Deutschland um 1900, (S. 120-160), Wo blieb die ‚rote Glut‘? Arbeitererfahrungen und deutscher Faschismus (S. 221-282), ‚Ehre der Arbeit‘; Industriearbeiter und die Macht der Symbole, Zur Reichweite symbolischer Orientierung im Nationalsozialismus (pp. 283-350) and the revised and extended inaugural lecture of 10 May 1989: Arbeit, Arbeitserfahrung und Arbeiterpolitik (pp. 351-440).
* Des ouvriers dans l’Allemagne du XXe siècle. Le quotidien des dictatures. Paris 2000.
* Publication of the „Aufschreibebuch“ of Paul Maik (worker in the cast steel factory of Krupp in Essen, 1919–1956), see also Alf Lüdtke: Writing Time – Using Space. The Notebook of a Worker at Krupp's Steel Mill – an Example from the 1920s, in: Historical Social Research (HSR) vol. 39 (2013), no. 3, pp. 216–228.
Collective volumes
* Alltagsgeschichte. Zur Rekonstruktion historischer Erfahrungen und Lebensweisen. Frankfurt, 1989 (Histoire du quotidien. Paris 1994. History of Everyday Life. Reconstructing historical experiences and ways of life. Princeton 1995. Ilsangsaran muotinga? Seoul 2002).
* Herrschaft als soziale Praxis. Historische und sozialanthropologische Studien. Göttingen 1991.
* Sicherheit und >Wohlfahrt<. Polizei, Gesellschaft und Herrschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main 1992.
* Physische Gewalt. Studien zur Geschichte der Neuzeit. Frankfurt 1995 (with Thomas Lindenberger).
* Was bleibt von marxistischen Perspektiven in der Geschichtsforschung? Göttingen 1997.
* Akten, Eingaben, Schaufenster: Die DDR und ihre Texte. Erkundungen zu Herrschaft und Alltag. Berlin 1997 (with Peter Becker).
* Die DDR im Bild. Zum Gebrauch der Fotografie im anderen deutschen Staat. Göttingen 2004 (with Karin Hartewig).
* The No Man’s Land of Violence. Extreme Wars in the 20th Century. Göttingen 2006. (with Bernd Weisbrod).
* Staats-Gewalt: Ausnahmezustand und Sicherheitsregimes. Historische Perspektiven. Göttingen 2008 (with Michael Wildt).
* Everyday Life in Mass Dictatorship: Collusion and Evasion. Palgrave 2016.
References
External links
*
Alf Lüdtke on the website of the University of Erfurt (with complete list of publications)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ludtke, Alf
1943 births
2019 deaths
German male writers
Social historians
Academic staff of the University of Erfurt
Academic staff of the University of Hanover
University of Konstanz alumni
University of Tübingen alumni