Hermann Walther von der Dunk (October 9, 1928 in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

– August 22, 2018 in

Bilthoven Bilthoven is a village in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is a part of the municipality of De Bilt. It has a railway station with connections to Utrecht, Amersfoort and Baarn. It is home to the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health a ...

) was a Dutch historian of German origin.

Life

Von der Dunk's family fled from

Nazi-Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

to the Netherlands in 1937. As his mother was Jewish, his father could not find any work under National Socialist regime. His father found a position at the school of Kees Boeke in

. Later, Hermann von der Dunk visited the nearby

University of Utrecht Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

. There, he studied history under professor

Pieter Geyl Pieter Catharinus Arie Geyl (15 December 1887, Dordrecht – 31 December 1966, Utrecht) was a Dutch historian, well known for his studies in early modern Dutch history and in historiography. Background Geyl was born in Dordrecht and graduated ...

and later studied at the

Leibniz Institute of European History The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, Germany, is an independent, public research institute that carries out and promotes historical research on the foundations of Europe in the early and late Modern period. Though autonomous i ...

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

. In 1966 he finished his dissertation (in German) on "Der Deutsche Vormärz und Belgien, 1930-1948" ("''The German

Vormärz ' (; English: ''pre-March'') was a period in the history of Germany preceding the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation. The beginning of the period is less well-defined. Some place the starting point directly after the ...

and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, 1830-1848''"). One year later, in 1967, von der Dunk became professor for modern and contemporary history as well as cultural history at the University of Utrecht and stayed in this position until 1990. His early retirement was (at least in part) a reaction to the commercialization and bureaucratization of the universities. He specialized in European and Dutch history, as well as Dutch-German relationships. Much of his work focused on "modernity and anti-modern responses", he wrote several monographs and regularly published articles in Dutch newspapers and journals. In 1995 he received the

Goethe Medal The Goethe Medal, also known as the Goethe-Medaille, is a yearly prize given by the Goethe-Institut honoring non-Germans "who have performed outstanding service for the German language and for international cultural relations". It is an offici ...

. He was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986.

Works

*'' Der Deutsche Vormärz und Belgien, 1830/48''. Wiesbaden, F. Steiner, 1966. *'' De verdwijnende hemel. Over de cultuur van Europa in de twintigste eeuw''. 2 volumes. Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunk, Hermann von der 1928 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Dutch historians Dutch people of German descent Dutch people of German-Jewish descent Historians of the Netherlands Historians of Germany Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences