Otto Hintze (August 27, 1861 – April 25, 1940) was a German

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

public administration Public Administration (a form of governance) or Public Policy and Administration (an academic discipline) is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment (public governance), management of non-profit establ ...

. He was Professor of Political, Constitutional, Administrative and Economic History at the

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 ...

. Influenced by

Ernst Troeltsch Ernst Peter Wilhelm Troeltsch (; ; 17 February 1865 – 1 February 1923) was a German liberal Christianity, liberal Protestant theologian, a writer on the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of history, and a classical liberal politician ...

and

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...

, he emphasized the continuity and rationality of Western institutions.

Biography

Hintze was born in the small town of Pyritz (

Pyrzyce Pyrzyce ( csb, Përzëca; formerly german: Pyritz) is a town in Pomerania, north-western Poland. As of 2007, it had 13,331 inhabitants. Pyrzycw is the capital of the Pyrzyce County in West Pomeranian Voivodeship (since 1999), which was previousl ...

) in the Province of Pomerania, the son of a civil servant. From 1878 to 1879, Hintze studied history, philosophy and philology in

Greifswald Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (german: Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostoc ...

. Here he joined the fraternity ''Germania''. Hintze came to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in 1880, and soon obtained a doctorate under

Julius Weizsäcker Julius Ludwig Friedrich Weizsäcker (13 February 1828 in Öhringen – 3 September 1889 in Bad Kissingen) was a German historian. He specialized in medieval history and early modern history. A member of the distinguished Weizsäcker family, his br ...

with a dissertation on Medieval History in 1884. He joined the project on the ‘Acta Borussica’, an editing project of the

Prussian Academy of Sciences The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (german: Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften) was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin ...

under the directorship of

Gustav Schmoller Gustav Friedrich (after 1908: von) Schmoller (; 24 June 1838 – 27 June 1917) was the leader of the "younger" German historical school of economics. He was a leading '' Sozialpolitiker'' (more derisively, '' Kathedersozialist'', "Socialist of t ...

dealing with the Prussian administrative files of the 18th century. Seven volumes of sources on the economics and administrative organisation in Prussia, with detailed historical commentaries, were published by 1910. In 1895, his post-doctoral thesis to become a lecturer was accepted by Treitschke and Schmoller; in 1902 as Professor of the newly created Department of Political, Constitutional, Administrative and Economic History. In 1912, Hintze married his student Hedwig Guggenheimer. One of his key works, ''Die Hohenzollern und ihr Werk'' (''The

Hohenzollern The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenb ...

and Their Legacy''), is considered to be an important and solidly researched piece of scholarship, despite having been commissioned by the

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 ...

Hohenzollern dynasty The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenbu ...

for their ruling anniversary in 1915. Hintze was retired from the university in 1920 due to health reasons. Hintze ceased publishing after the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

came to power and, in 1933, he was the only member to speak against

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

's expulsion from the

. In 1938, Hintze himself resigned from the

Academy An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

, which he had been a member of since 1914. His wife, Hedwig Hintze (born: Hedwig Guggenheimer), who was Germany's first woman to receive a doctorate in History and the University of Berlin's ( Friedrich Wilhelm University) first woman History professor, because of her

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish roots and leftist sympathies soon lost her position as lecturer at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, and eventually had to flee to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in 1939. Otto Hintze only survived this separation for a few months. In 1942, his wife committed suicide rather than undergo deportation to a death camp by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

Legacy

Since the 1960s, there has been deeper research into Hintze's oeuvre, as signified by

Gerhard Oestreich Gerhard is a name of Germanic origin and may refer to: Given name * Gerhard (bishop of Passau) (fl. 932–946), German prelate * Gerhard III, Count of Holstein-Rendsburg (1292–1340), German prince, regent of Denmark * Gerhard Barkhorn (1919–19 ...

’s detailed new work on him. The historians

Jürgen Kocka Professor Emeritus Jürgen Kocka (born 19 April 1941 in Haindorf, Sudetenland) is a German historian. A university professor and former president of the Social Science Research Center Berlin (2001–2007), Kocka is a major figure in the new ...

and

Felix Gilbert Felix Gilbert (May 21, 1905 – February 14, 1991) was a German-born American historian of early modern and modern Europe. Gilbert was born in Baden-Baden, Germany, to a middle-class Jewish family, and part of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy clan. In t ...

agree that, in their opinion, he could possibly be the most significant German historian of the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

and of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...

. Hintze is considered an influential figure in the state formation literature, particularly among advocates for "bellicist" state formation theories. Bellicist theories hold that war and preparation for war played a key causal role in the development of the modern European state.

Works

* ''Das Königtums Wilhelms von Holland'', Leipzig 1885 * ''Die Preußische Seidenindustrie im 18. Jahrhundert und ihre Begründung durch Friedrich den Großen'', 3 Volumes, Berlin 1892 * ''Einleitende Darstellung der Behördenorganisation und allgemeinen Verwaltung in Preußen beim Regierungsamt Friedrichs II.'', Berlin 1901 * ''Staatsverfassung und Heeresverfassung.'' Vortrag gehalten in der Gehe-Stiftung zu Dresden am 17. Februar 1906, Dresden 1906 * ''Historische und politische Aufsätze'', 10 Volumes, Berlin 1908 * ''Monarchisches Prinzip und konstitutionelle Verfassung'', in: ''Preußische Jahrbücher'', Volume 144 (1911) * ''Die englischen Weltherrschaftspläne und der gegenwärtige Krieg'', Berlin 1914 * ''Die Hohenzollern und ihr Werk'', Verlag: A. Steiger,

Solingen Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,366, ...

1915 * ''Deutschland und der Weltkrieg'', 2 Volumes,

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

1916 * ''Wesen und Verbreitung des Feudalismus'', in: ''Sitzungsberichte der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften'' (1929)

In English

* ''The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze'', ed. ''Felix Gilbert''. Oxford University Press, 1975, . Die_Hohenzollern_und_ihr_Werk

References

External links