Famous German Historians

Max Weber was a German historian, political economist, jurist, and sociologist. Widely regarded as one of the most influential and important theorists, Weber's ideas had a profound influence on social research and social theory. Although he did not see himself as a sociologist, Weber is often counted among the fathers of sociology alongside Émile Durkheim, Auguste Comte, and Karl Marx.

Leopold von Ranke was a German historian who had a major influence on Western historiography. A respected historian, Ranke is credited with founding modern source-based history. When he was ennobled in 1865, honors poured in from several historians and scholars across the world.

German historian Oswald Spengler is best remembered for his iconic The Decline of the West, which had a huge influence on social theory. He believed that culture cannot be transferred and that it can only decline and decay like an organism. He lived his final years in isolation in Munich.

German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann is often referred to as the father of modern archaeology. Born to a cobbler, he studied Greek, theology, and even medicine. He later specialized in Greek and Neoclassical art and had a prominent influence on Western painting, sculpture, and literature.

Born to Jewish scholars in Germany, Geoffrey Elton later moved with his family, first to Czechoslovakia and then to Britain. He grew up to become a renowned historian who specialized in the Tudor period. He also taught history at Cambridge and penned books such as England Under the Tudors.

Wilhelm Dilthey was a German psychologist, sociologist, historian, and hermeneutic philosopher. An ardent admirer of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Dilthey helped revive the former's works on hermeneutics. Wilhelm Dilthey is also credited with teaching future philosophers like Hans Lipps, Eduard Spranger, and Theodor Litt.

One of the most influential 19th-century classicists, Theodor Mommsen donned many hats and was at the same time a historian, a philologist, a legal scholar, and an archaeologist. His legendary A History of Rome won him a Nobel Prize in Literature. He had also fathered 16 children.

Nikolaus Pevsner was a German-British architectural historian and art historian. He is best remembered for his 46-volume series of guide books called The Buildings of England. Pevsner is credited with co-founding the Victorian Society in 1957. The society aims at preserving Edwardian and Victorian architecture. In 1969, Nikolaus Pevsner was knighted for services to architecture and art.

Best known for his work on modern European cultural history, Peter Gay was a renowned American historian who had penned the iconic works such as the award-winning The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. His studies on Freud and the Weimar Republic, too, became bestsellers. He was married to award-winning author Ruth Gay.

German art historian Erwin Panofsky is best remembered for his work on iconography. He moved to the U.S. in the wake of the rise of the Nazis. His studies also included Dutch painting and Gothic architecture. His supposedly lost manuscript Habilitationsschrift was recovered years later in a Nazi safe.

Ernst Nolte was a German philosopher and historian. Nolte taught modern history from 1973 to 1991 at the Free University of Berlin. He is best remembered for his work Fascism in Its Epoch, which became a popular book upon its publication in 1963. Over the course of his illustrious career, Nolte received many awards, such as the Konrad Adenauer Prize.

Samuel von Pufendorf was a German jurist, economist, political philosopher, and historian. Among Pufendorf's major achievements are his revisions and commentaries of the natural law theories of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes. In Germany, Samuel von Pufendorf is best remembered as a precursor of an intellectual and philosophical movement called the Age of Enlightenment. 

Golo Mann was a German historian and essayist. An influential personality, Mann is best remembered for his most popular work German History in the 19th and 20th Century, a survey of the political history in Germany. 

Abraham Geiger was a German rabbi and scholar credited to be the founding father of Reform Judaism. He emphasized Judaism’s constant evolution over the years and sought to reformulate the tenets of the religion to make it compliant with contemporary times. He was responsible for much of the reform doctrine of the mid-19th century. 

Adolf von Harnack was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian. Also an important Church historian, Harnack is credited with producing numerous religious publications between 1873 and 1912. Adolf von Harnack also played a prominent role in the establishment of The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science, where he served as the first president.

Barthold Georg Niebuhr was a Danish-German banker, statesman, and historian. A symbol of national spirit in Germany, Barthold Georg Niebuhr helped invigorate a sense of patriotism and nationalism in students at the University of Berlin. 

Friedrich von Bernhardi was a Prussian general and author. A best-selling author prior to the First World War, Bernhardi is best remembered for his book. Germany and the Next War. A militarist, Bernhardi proposed that Germany should ignore treaties. As a general, he played an important role during World War I where he had success in the Eastern Front.

Johann Gustav Droysen was a German historian. His work pertaining to Alexander the Great was the first work that represented a new school of German thought that introduced the great man theory. Johann Gustav Droysen's book, History of Alexander the Great, remained the best work on the king of Macedonia for a long time.

Otto Of Freising, also known as Otto I, was the bishop of Freising. He is best remembered for penning an extensive history of the world, Chronica. The four-volume Gesta Friderici, the first two of which were written by him, spoke about Frederick Barbarossa and the house of Hohenstaufen.