Jürgen Luh

Jürgen Luh (born July 29, 1963 in Lützellinden ) is a German historian .

Life

He has been a senior research fellow in the science and research department of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg since 2008 and one of two directors at the Research Center Sanssouci for Knowledge and Society (RECS) since 2016 . Before that, he was among other things a member of the professorship for regional history at the University of Potsdam with a focus on Brandenburg-Prussia.

Luh has published on the history of the Holy Roman Empire , on Prussian and military-historical topics. His work Unheimliches Römisches Reich ( Unheimliches Römisches Reich) (1995) is acknowledged in a review of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for having diligently recorded all religious conflicts in the empire after the Peace of Westphalia ; but it is not in a position to make their meaning clear and to show lines of development. When settlers 2012, the biography was published The Great. Friedrich II of Prussia . In four chapters, Luh works out the king's character traits - lust for fame, stubbornness, obstinacy, ability to discern - and each time walks through the individual stages of Friedrich's life anew, from the musically gifted youth under the yoke of a strict father to the lonely wolf of Sanssouci; from the “philosopher on the throne” to the egomaniacal ruler who relied on a “headless successor” just to leave posterity an even more radiant picture of his reign. As one review points out, Luh works out Friedrich II's desire for fame as the determining force. In another review of this book, the author is admitted to have set new accents and, given the infinite abundance of material, to have focused on the real purpose of this supposedly "enlightened" monarch. On the other hand, Luh failed to compare other European ruling houses of the 18th century and thus relativize Frederick II's striving for greatness.

A review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of the 2015 published work The Short Dream of Freedom attests to the author Luh a great warmth with which the story of the Stein-Hardenberg reforms in Prussia and the subsequent, deep fall of Prussia in 1806 and its resurgence is told. With his sympathetic quotation technique, Luh overlooks the important question of how strongly the thinking had an effect on the state and society during the time of the “short dream of freedom”.

In 2012 Luh was curator of the anniversary exhibition Friederisiko in the New Palace , and he also organized the large-scale project Friedrich 300 in Potsdam . He was involved in the publication and evaluation of the box accounts of Frederick the Great . Under him, the RECS will add further content (from the estate of the museologist Walter Stengel ) to the database on the box invoices published on perspectivia.net .

Luh was the contact person for the media several times on topics related to Frederick the Great .

Fonts

• Unholy Roman Empire. The denominational contrast 1648 to 1806. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg , Potsdam 1995, ISBN 978-3-930850-08-2 .
• The art of war in Europe 1650–1800. Böhlau , Cologne 2004, ISBN 978-3-412-13703-8 .
• The great. Friedrich II of Prussia. Siedler , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-88680-984-4 .
• The short dream of freedom. Prussia after Napoleon. Siedler, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-8275-0039-7 .
• The great elector. A new look at his life. Siedler, Munich 2020, ISBN 978-3-641-21231-5 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Jürgen Luh in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography on the website of the Random House GmbH publishing group
• Jürgen Luh , biography on the website of the Research Center Sanssouci for Knowledge and Society

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vademecum of History , 10th edition, 2012/2013, Steiner, Stuttgart 2012, p. 473.
2. ^ Research together , January 24th, 21, press release, of the Research Center Sanssouci for Knowledge and Society .
3. ↑ Jana Scholz, model Versailles - with the Research Center Sanssouci, the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation and the University of Potsdam are starting an internationally oriented collaboration ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , September 12, 2016, University of Potsdam. 
4. ↑ Karl Otmar von Aretin : Review: Non-fiction book When the Prince becomes Catholic , June 7, 1999, In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Feuilleton.
5. ↑ The ambitious old Fritz . In: Deutschlandradio Kultur . ( deutschlandradiokultur.de [accessed on March 30, 2017]).
6. ↑ Peter-Michael Hahn in: H-Soz-Kult , November 14, 2012 ( online ).
7. ↑ Review by Brigitte Meier in: sehepunkte 12 (2012), No. 9 [15. September 2012], ( online ).
8. ^ Note on a review by Stephan Speicher in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 13, 2015, Perlentaucher .
9. ↑ Jürgen Luh: Supplement and relaunch of the box invoices of Frederick the Great , February 20, 2017, Research Center Sanssouci.
10. ^ Edelgard Abenstein: The ambitious old Fritz , September 29, 2011, Deutschlandradio Kultur ; Christian Schröder: Interview with Friedrich biographer Prussian King Friedrich II. The story, that's me , January 2nd, 2012. In: Der Tagesspiegel ; Christian Schröder, Friedrich II .: The story, that's me , January 2, 2012, Zeit Online ; Completely different and yet big. Friedrich II. - the homestory , April 28, 2012, n-tv ; Dirk Becker: “That was the most important thing to him: fame!” , July 14, 2012. In: Potsdamer Latest News ; Historian Jürgen Luh: Napoleon contributed to “own Prussian consciousness” , October 11, 2015, Deutschlandfunk .