Eberhard Schmitt

Eberhard Schmitt (born February 4, 1939 in Augsburg ) is a German modern historian and was a professor at the University of Bamberg until his retirement . He dealt with the history of the French Revolution and the history of European expansion overseas in the early modern period.

Schmidt's father was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. Schmidt studied history and political science in Tübingen, Berlin, Munich and Paris and received his doctorate in 1968 in Munich under Hans Maier (and Ernst Fraenkel ) and taught from 1968 to 1972 as a research assistant at the University of Mainz. The subject of his dissertation was the French Revolution, which he regarded as the birth of the European parliamentary democracies, and the development of the Parliament from the Ancien Régime to the Revolution, in which he went through detailed source studies on the development in the Ancien Régime before the revolution. He saw in his occupation with it a contribution to the democratic stabilization in the years of the student unrest. In 1972 he became a full professor of modern history at the Ruhr University in Bochum and in 1976 at the University of Bamberg.

Schmitt dealt with two major issues. As early as the 1970s, he was considered one of the “best German experts” on the French Revolution. In 1973 he published a research anthology for the Scientific Book Society and organized international congresses in Germany. He contributed "significantly to leading West German revolutionary research back to the international arena". In particular, he organized two conferences, one in Göttingen in 1975, the other in Bamberg in 1979 (organized with Reichardt), at which important representatives of the two for the first time in the post-war period The opposing Annales School (which Schmitt was methodologically close) and the school of Albert Soboul in Paris met in public debates, which they otherwise avoided. The deep contrasts initially persisted, but Schmitt saw this as a contribution to the culture of conversation. Schmitt and Reichardt represented at the Bamberg Conference in their contribution with the programmatic title The French Revolution - Upheaval or Continuity? the side of François Furet (not present at the conference, the so-called revisionists ) against the thesis of Soboul's Marxist school of a radical transition from feudalism to capitalism. According to Schmitt and Reichardt (and according to the results of the research progress they refer to), however, the revolution was more of a political than social break, which had a provocative effect on the Soboul supporters.

From the 1980s, his research focus was European colonial history of the early modern period, also from an economic-historical point of view, for example Philipp von Hutten's expedition on behalf of the Nuremberg merchant family of the Welser in Venezuela.

Together with R. von Albertini, he was editor of the journal Contributions to Colonial and Overseas History and, with Markus A. Denzel and others, of the Yearbook for European Overseas History . With Rolf Reichardt, he edited the series Ancien Régime, Aufklerung and Revolution bei Oldenbourg.

In 1998 he became chairman of the Research Foundation for Comparative European Overseas History.

Fonts (selection)

• Representation and Revolution. A study of the genesis of the continental theory and practice of parliamentary representation from the practice of the ancien régime in France (1760–1789). Beck., Munich 1969. (= dissertation at the University of Munich)
• Introduction to the history of the French Revolution. Beck, Munich 1976. (Beck's elementary books). (2nd edition 1980) (also translated into Spanish)
• The idea of ​​the turning point of the French Revolution of 1789. In: Karl Bosl (Ed.): Modern parliamentarism and its foundations in the representation of estates. Berlin 1977, pp. 195-240.
• with Rolf Reichardt : The French Revolution - Change or Continuity? In: Journal for Historical Research. Volume 7, 1980, pp. 257-320. (Contribution to the International Bamberg Colloquium on the French Revolution, June 1979)
• The beginnings of European expansion. (= The Historical Seminar. NF Volume 2). Schulz-Kirchner, 1991.
• Atlantic expansion and maritime India travel in the 16th century. (= Übersee. Volume 13). Abera-Verlag Meyer, Hamburg 1992. (2nd edition. 1997)
• Conquista as corporate policy: The Welser governorship in Venezuela 1528–1556. (= Small contributions to European overseas policy. 18). Friends of the Research Foundation for Cf. Europ. Overseas History, 1992.
• with Matthias Meyn: Origin and Character of the French Revolution in Marx and Engels. Studienverlag Brockmeyer, Bochum 1976. (also in: Ernst Hinrichs, Eberhard Schmitt, Rudolf Vierhaus (eds.): From the Ancien Régime to the French Revolution. Research and Perspectives. Publications of the Max Planck Institute for History, Göttingen 1978, p. 588 -649)
• with Herbert Volkmann: Absolutism and the French Revolution. (= Workbooks for history lessons ). Oldenbourg, 1981, 1984.
• with Thomas Schleich and Thomas Beck: merchants as colonial masters. The trading world of the Dutch from the Cape of Good Hope to Nagasaki 1600–1800. CC Buchner, 1988. (Exhibition catalog University Library Bamberg)

Editing:

• The French revolution. Occasions and long-term causes. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1973.
• The French revolution. (= New Scientific Library History ). Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1976.
• with Ernst Hinrichs and Rudolf Vierhaus: From the Ancien Régime to the French Revolution. Research and Perspectives. Publications of the Max Planck Institute for History, Göttingen 1978. (Colloquium, Göttingen, May 1975)
• with Rolf Reichardt: The French Revolution - Accidental or Necessary Event? Files from the international symposium at the University of Bamberg from 4. – 7. June 1979. 3 volumes. Oldenbourg, 1983.
• with Hans Maier: How a revolution comes about . The French Revolution as a communication event. Schöningh, Paderborn 1988. (2nd edition. 1990)
• with others: documents on the history of European expansion. 5 volumes. Beck, Munich 1984–1988.
• The gold of the New World. The papers of Philipp von Hutten 1534–1541. Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 1996. (2nd edition. 1999)
• with Götz Simmer: Death on Tocuyo. The search for the background to the murder of Philip von Hutten in 1541–1550. Verlag Spitz, Berlin 1999.

He edited with Rolf Reichardt the Political Writings of Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès from 1788 to 1791 and translated them with him from French into German (published by Oldenbourg 1975, 2nd edition. 1981) and he translated the theory of the French Revolution by Antoine Barnave ( Munich, Fink, 1972).

literature

• H. Founder: Eberhard Schmitt on his 65th birthday. In: Yearbook for European Overseas History. 4, 2004.
• Thomas Beck et al. (Ed.): Barriers and accesses. The history of European expansion. Festschrift for Eberhard Schmitt on his 65th birthday. Harrassowitz 2004.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dates of birth according to Kürschner: Deutscher Schehrtenkalender 2009.
2. ↑ Doctoral supervisors according to Simon Palaoro: Walter Markov , Eberhard Schmitt and Ernst Schulin . In: Erich Pelzer (Ed.): Revolution and Klio: the main works on the French Revolution. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, pp. 254–299, here p. 267.
3. ↑ In the opinion of Rolf Reichardt , the dissertation did not get the attention it deserved in Germany at the time. Rolf Reichardt, review by Schmitt: Introduction to the history of the French Revolution / Schmitt The French Revolution. In: Historical magazine. Volume 255, 1977, p. 457.
4. ↑ Simon Palaoro, 2004, loc. cit, p. 267. Palaoro interviewed Schmitt in 1999. He wanted to clear away ideological rubble and ideological exaggerations and stabilize democracy through studies of the French Revolution by means of decent scientific practice of science .
5. ↑ Palaoro, 2004, loc. cit , p. 266. He quotes Rolf Reichardt, The Debate about the French Revolution in German New Releases, Journal for Historical Research, Volume 5, 1978, pp. 70–79 (here p. 76)
6. ↑ Palaoro, 2004, loc. cit, p. 267.
7. ↑ Palaoro 2004, p. 269.