Hans Roos (historian)

Hans Roos (born December 15, 1919 in Künzelsau , † November 16, 1984 in Rottach-Egern ) was a German historian .

The son of a teacher attended the Protestant seminaries in Maulbronn and Blaubeuren . In 1938 he passed the entrance exam for the Tübingen Abbey . However, due to the war, studies of theology were no longer possible. He did Reich Labor Service and fought in the Wehrmacht on various fronts. Roos was captured by the Soviets in July 1944.

In December 1949, Roos returned to his homeland. In the 1950s summer semester he began studying history with a focus on Eastern Europe, geography and modern languages at the University of Tübingen . His most important academic teacher was Hans Rothfels . Roos received his doctorate in 1954 at the University of Tübingen for a thesis on Poland and Europe supervised by Hans Rothfels and Werner Markert . From 1955 to 1961 he was Werner Markert's assistant. From January 1955 to January 1958 he was a research assistant at the Working Group for Eastern European Studies in Tübingen. From February 1958 to January 1961 he had a grant from the German Research Foundation and worked on his habilitation thesis. In Tübingen he completed his habilitation in 1961 with the unpublished work The Fall of the Polish Republic and the Idea of Democracy . In August 1961 he was awarded the Venia Legendi for “Middle and Modern History with Special Consideration of Eastern European History”. He also married in 1961. In Tübingen he was a private lecturer until 1962. From 1962 to 1967 he taught as a full professor for Eastern European history at the University of Göttingen and from 1968 to 1977 at the Ruhr University in Bochum . He has advised and mediated the Ostpolitik of the social-liberal coalition . On his 58th birthday he retired early due to illness. Roos withdrew with his wife to the Tegernsee . Christoph Kleßmann was one of his academic students .

Roos mainly worked on the history of Poland and East Central Europe. His dissertation dealt with Polish foreign policy in the 1930s and is considered a pioneering study. In 1961 he published History of the Polish Nation 1916–1960, a comprehensive account of the history of Poland in the 20th century. The work was translated into English in 1966 and continued in the third edition until the Edward Gierek era . Roos was one of the few professors in the Federal Republic who dealt with Poland in Eastern European research. In 1959, Roos published a chapter on National Socialist occupation policy in Poland in Werner Markert's Eastern Europe Handbook . For the first time, the National Socialist crimes were clearly addressed and condemned by him. The contribution is considered a milestone in investigations into National Socialist Poland policy. Roos wrote the contribution to the fourth volume of Theodor Schieder 's Handbook of European History (1968). Roos also dealt with the image of Poland in German Romanticism . He was a member of the Working Group for Eastern European Research in Tübingen and a member of the Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council .

Fonts

History of the Polish Nation 1918–1985. From the founding of the state in the First World War to the present. 4th, revised and expanded edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-17-007587-X .
Poland and Europe. Studies on Polish foreign policy 1931–1939 (= Tübingen studies on history and politics. Vol. 7). Mohr, Tübingen 1957.

literature

Dietrich Geyer : Hans Roos 1919–1984. In: Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 34 (1985), pp. 109–111.
Michael G. Müller : Hans Roos in memory. In: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 32 (1984), SS 627–629.

Web links

Literature by and about Hans Roos in the catalog of the German National Library

Remarks

^ Dietrich Geyer: Hans Roos 1919–1984. In: Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 34 (1985), pp. 109–111, here: p. 111.
^ Stefan Guth: History as Politics. The German-Polish Historians' Dialogue in the 20th Century. Berlin et al. 2015, p. 362.
^ Stefan Guth: History as Politics. The German-Polish Historians' Dialogue in the 20th Century. Berlin et al. 2015, p. 365.
^ Hans Roos: Poland from 1668 to 1795. In: Handbook of European history. Vol. 4. Edited by Theodor Schieder. Stuttgart 1968 pp. 692-752.
^ Hans Roos: The Tübingen Romanticism and the Poles: A Contribution to the History of the European Conspiracy from 1819-1833. In: Tübinger Blätter 45 (1958) pp. 33–54.

personal data
SURNAME	Roos, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German historian
DATE OF BIRTH	December 15, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH	Künzelsau
DATE OF DEATH	November 16, 1984
Place of death	Rottach-Egern

[1] Dietrich Geyer: Hans Roos 1919–1984. In: Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 34 (1985), pp. 109–111, here: p. 111.

[2] Stefan Guth: History as Politics. The German-Polish Historians' Dialogue in the 20th Century. Berlin et al. 2015, p. 362.

[3] Stefan Guth: History as Politics. The German-Polish Historians' Dialogue in the 20th Century. Berlin et al. 2015, p. 365.

[4] Hans Roos: Poland from 1668 to 1795. In: Handbook of European history. Vol. 4. Edited by Theodor Schieder. Stuttgart 1968 pp. 692-752.

[5] Hans Roos: The Tübingen Romanticism and the Poles: A Contribution to the History of the European Conspiracy from 1819-1833. In: Tübinger Blätter 45 (1958) pp. 33–54.