Heinz Gollwitzer (30 January 1917 – 26 December 1999) was a German historian. He held the chair of Modern Political and Social History at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of stud ...

Life

Gollwitzer was born in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

and grew up in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. After being severely wounded in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

he took up his studies (history and German literature) at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

, earning his Ph.D. in 1944. He earned his qualification to teach as a professor in 1950 with a thesis called “The Image of Europe and the European Thought – Contributions to the German History of Ideas”. He subsequently taught at universities in Munich and Münster until retiring in 1982. He died in Munich.

Scientific focus

Gollwitzer's books mostly deal with the history of mentalities and political ideas, as well as with German regional history and biography. Due to the preponderance of structural history in the German

scientific community The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...

during the post war age, his impact on colleagues and students was rather small. This outsider position was to change from the beginning of the early Nineties, when historians became more and more sensible to

universal history A universal history is a work aiming at the presentation of a history of all of mankind as a whole, coherent unit. A universal chronicle or world chronicle typically traces history from the beginning of written information about the past up to t ...

as well as to the relevance of personality in history, such in the case of the

German nobility The German nobility (german: deutscher Adel) and royalty were status groups of the medieval society in Central Europe, which enjoyed certain privileges relative to other people under the laws and customs in the German-speaking area, until the b ...

from the end of the

ancien régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for "ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ** Ancien Régime in France ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for ...

to the end of middle European monarchies in 1918, which was one of Gollwitzer's basic scientific aims.

Works (selection)

German

* ''Europabild und Europagedanke. Beiträge zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts'', Munich 1951 (zugl. Habil.). * ''Die Standesherren. Die politische und gesellschaftliche Stellung der Mediatisierten 1815–1918'', Stuttgart 1957 (Göttingen ²1964). * ''Die gelbe Gefahr. Geschichte eines Schlagworts'', Göttingen 1962. * ''Geschichte des weltpolitischen Denkens'', 2 Bde., Göttingen 1972-82. * ''Ludwig I. von Bayern. Königtum im Vormärz'', München 1986 (²1997). * ''Ein Staatsmann des Vormärz: Karl von Abel, 1788–1859'', Göttingen 1993. * ''Weltpolitik und deutsche Geschichte'' (ed.

Hans-Christof Kraus Hans-Christof Kraus (born 3 November 1958) is a German historian. Life Born in Göttingen, Kraus studied history, German literature and philosophy at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen from 1978 to 1984. In the 1980s he was editor of th ...

), Göttingen 2008. .

English

* ''Europe in the Age of Imperialism 1880–1914'', London 1969. :

Sources

* Heinz Dollinger et al. (ed.), ''Weltpolitik, Europagedanke, Regionalismus.'' Festschrift in the honour of Heinz Gollwitzer's 65th birthday, Münster 1982 (German).
''News release'' of the University of Münster to the death of Heinz Gollwitzer, December 28 1999
(German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Gollwitzer, Heinz 1917 births 1999 deaths Science teachers Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Academic staff of the University of Münster Writers from Nuremberg 20th-century German historians German male non-fiction writers