Gerd Heinrich (historian)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gerd Heinrich (born May 30, 1931 in Berlin ; † March 14, 2012 there ) was a German historian . Heinrich presented fundamental research on the history of Berlin and Brandenburg.

Live and act

Gerd Heinrich's father was the director of a Berlin commercial and trade school , which fell in 1944 during World War II . His mother was a teacher. Heinrich had a brother. Between 1949 and 1959 he studied history, German and philosophy at the Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin . His most important academic teachers were Walter Schlesinger , Wilhelm Berges and Fritjoff Sielaff. In 1959 Heinrich received his doctorate with a thesis on regional and constitutional history on the Counts of Arnstein near Schlesinger. From 1962 he worked at the Berlin Historical Commission as a research assistant and from 1964 as department head for Brandenburg. From 1968 to 1980 Heinrich was professor for historical regional studies at the Pedagogical University in Berlin . There he held the office of Vice Rector from 1971 to 1980. From 1980 until his retirement in 1999, he taught as the successor to Heinz Quirin as a full professor of historical regional studies at the Free University of Berlin. As an academic teacher, Heinrich only supervised doctoral students from 1991 to 2010. These included Jürgen Luh (1992) and Peter Bahl (1999).

Heinrich was the author and co-author of numerous publications on the history of Prussia and Brandenburg. He mainly researched the period from the 17th to the 20th century. After the death of Johannes Schultze , Heinrich was the only historian who represented the subject of "Brandenburg State History" across epochs. Heinrich's studies on elite research for the early modern period became fundamental: The nobility in Brandenburg-Prussia (1965) and officials and clergy. On the problem of the secondary ruling classes in Brandenburg-Prussia 1450–1786 (1972). In 1981 Heinrich published the work History of Prussia. State and dynasty . He was editor of Volume 10 of the Handbook of the Historic Sites in Germany Berlin and Brandenburg , the Brandenburg Cultural Atlas and co-editor of the Historical Handatlas of Brandenburg and Berlin . With Peter Baumgart Heinrich worked on two volumes for the source edition Acta Borussica (1970, 1982) on the organization of public authorities and general state administration of Prussia in the 18th century. He published a source edition on the revolution of 1848/1849 in 1985. Heinrich was the main editor of the monumental work Administrative History of East Germany 1815–1945. Organization - Tasks - Services of the Administration (1993) and wrote an extensive article on it himself. In 1999 Heinrich published the 1100-page work on a thousand years of church history in Berlin-Brandenburg . In his biography of Frederick the Great , published in 2009 ( Frederick II of Prussia. Achievement and life of a great king ), he turned against psychologizing interpretations. His Friedrich biography met with broad approval and strong rejection. Among other things, the too benevolent judgment of key people and their government activities was criticized. In return, Heinrich made his dislike for the Austrian functionaries and Maria Theresa clear. Heinrich's biography of the Prussian King Friedrich was classified by his critics as hagiographic and traditional. From 1983 to 2011 he was on the editorial board of the “Yearbook for Berlin-Brandeburg Church History”.

In 2006 he was honored with the Order of Merit of the State of Brandenburg . Heinrich was a member for almost five decades and from 1990 an honorary member of the State Historical Association for the Mark Brandenburg . He was also a member of the Brandenburg Historical Commission .

In 2007 Heinrich suffered a stroke. He died on March 14, 2012 at the age of eighty in Berlin's Jewish Hospital of kidney failure. Heinrich's research in the field of the Brandenburg nobility was continued by his former assistant Peter-Michael Hahn .

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

  • The Counts of Arnstein. (= Central German research. Volume 21). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1961.
  • History of Prussia. State and dynasty. Propylaeen, Frankfurt et al. 1981, ISBN 3-549-07620-7 .
  • Civil service and manor. The story of the von Dewitz family in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg and Pomerania. Bouvier, Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-416-80647-6 .
  • Friedrich II of Prussia. A great king's achievement and life. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-428-12978-2 .

Editorships

  • Contributions to the history of the Berlin University of Education (= treatises from the Berlin University of Education. Volume 6). Colloquium, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-7678-0498-0 .
  • A strange light in Germany. Contributions to the history of the Great Elector of Brandenburg (1640–1688) (= Journal for Historical Research . Supplement 8). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990.
  • Administrative history of East Germany 1815–1945. Organization - tasks - services of the administration. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1993.

literature

  • Peter Bahl : Gerd Heinrich (1931–2012). State historian of Brandenburg and state historian of Prussia. In: Friedrich Beck and Klaus Neitmann (eds.): Life pictures of Brandenburg archivists and historians. State, local and church archivists, state, regional and church historians, archaeologists, historical geographers, regional and folklorists of the 19th and 20th centuries. be.bra Wissenschaft verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 3-937233-90-3 , pp. 211–224.
  • Peter Bahl: Obituary for Gerd Heinrich. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History. Volume 63, 2012, pp. 352-360.
  • Peter Hahn: Double meat with a simple side dish. Aristocratic culture and aristocratic rule in the Mark Brandenburg. - A seminar and a tour. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 12, 1991, No. 288, p. R3.
  • Andreas Kilb : Prussia above all else. Historian Gerd Heinrich has died. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. March 17, 2012, No. 66, p. 34.
  • Andreas Krause: Fontane's last student. Gerd Heinrich was 70. In: Berliner Zeitung . May 31, 2001, p. 14 ( online ).
  • Werner Vogel: Two new honorary members: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang H. Fritze (†) - Prof. Dr. Gerd Heinrich. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History . Volume 42, 1991, pp. 176-179.

Web links

Remarks

  1. Gerd Heinrich (Ed.): Contributions to the history of the Pedagogical University Berlin. Colloquium, Berlin 1980, p. 57 and 186. Peter Bahl: Obituary for Gerd Heinrich. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History 63 (2012), pp. 352–360, here: p. 355.
  2. Peter Bahl: Obituary for Gerd Heinrich. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History 63 (2012), pp. 352–360, here: p. 353.
  3. Peter Bahl: Obituary for Gerd Heinrich. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History 63 (2012), pp. 352–360, here: p. 357.
  4. Cf. for example Gerd Heinrich: Friedrich II. Von Preußen. A great king's achievement and life. Berlin 2009, p. 62.
  5. Peter Bahl: Obituary for Gerd Heinrich. In: Jahrbuch für Brandenburgische Landesgeschichte 63 (2012), pp. 352–360, here: p. 355. Cf. for example the reviews by Jörg Ulbert in: H-Soz-u-Kult , March 21, 2012 ( online ); Heinz Duchhardt , in: Journal for historical research 38 (2011), pp. 551–555.
  6. Peter Bahl: Obituary for Gerd Heinrich. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History 63 (2012), pp. 352–360, here: p. 360.