John CG Röhl

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John Charles Gerald Röhl (born May 31, 1938 in London ) is a British historian .

Life

The son of a German father and an English mother, who grew up bilingual, received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1965 and taught from 1964 to 1972 as a lecturer , then until 1979 as a reader at the University of Sussex in Brighton , where he became professor in 1979. From 1970 to 1983 he was a member of the historical commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , from 1982 to 1985 Dean at the School of European Studies . In 1986/1987 Röhl was a research fellow at the Historical College in Munich. In addition to his English professorship, he repeatedly took over professorial positions in Germany. In 1999 he retired . John CG Röhl is the father of the director Christoph Röhl .

Act

Röhl is considered one of the leading experts and critics of the Wilhelminian era under Kaiser Wilhelm II. He became known to a broad public primarily through his three-volume biography of the last German emperor. In it, he mainly advocates and develops the thesis of Wilhelm II's personal regiment , ascribes the main responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War to him and, although strictly scientifically proceeding, also makes serious moral accusations against the last emperor. With his thesis, Röhl brought about a paradigm shift in German historiography , which, unlike in the Anglo-American region, believed Wilhelm to be a "weak ruler" with limited political influence until the 1970s and 1980s and accordingly neglected it.

Röhl's biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II is valued by the Australian historian Christopher Clark as a “unique example of outstanding scientific work”. Clark nevertheless contradicts Röhl's remarks about the great complicity of the last emperor in the outbreak of the First World War.

Honors and memberships

Prices

  • Wolfson Historian Award , 1994
  • Gissings Prize , 2003
  • Einhard Prize , 2013

Memberships, fellowships

  • Historisches Kolleg , 1986–1987
  • Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars , Washington D. C., 1989-1990
  • Institute for Advanced Study , Princeton, 1994
  • National Humanities Center , North Carolina, 1997-1998

Fonts (selection)

As an author

  • Germany without Bismarck: The crisis of government in the 2nd Reich, 1890-1900. Batsford, London 1967.
Translation: Germany without Bismarck: The government crisis in the 2nd empire. 1890-1900. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1969.

As editor

English edition: 1914 - delusion or design? The testimony of 2 German diplomats, Karl Max Lichnowsky; Philipp Eulenburg-Hertefeld. Edited and introduced by John Röhl. With a foreword by Hugh Trevor-Roper , Elek, London 1973.
  • Philipp Eulenburg's Political Correspondence , 3 volumes, 1976–1983.
  • The place of Kaiser Wilhelm II in German history. (= Writings of the Historical College. Colloquia, Volume 17). Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, ISBN 978-3-486-55841-8 ( digital copy ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Historical College - John CG Roehl. Retrieved September 4, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Johannes Saltzwedel: From demigod to fossil , Spiegel Online September 30, 2008.
  3. ↑ Christopher Clark: How powerful was the Kaiser? (Review of the English translation of the third volume of Röhl's Wilhelm biography). In: London Review of Books 37: 8, 2015, pp. 23–24.
personal data
SURNAME Röhl, John CG
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Röhl, John Charles Gerald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH London