Kurt Kluxen

Kurt Kluxen (born September 10, 1911 in Bensberg , † April 16, 2003 in Erlangen ) was a German historian . Kluxen taught from 1963 to 1979 as a full professor for middle and modern history at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg . He became known to a wider audience primarily through his history of England .

Live and act

Kurt Kluxen was the son of a teacher. Kluxen initially took up a four-semester teacher training course at the Pedagogical Academy in Bonn . From 1935 to 1938 he worked as a primary school teacher in Western Pomerania . After the war and his return from British captivity , he studied history, philosophy and German studies in Cologne and Glasgow from 1947 . In 1949 he received his doctorate with a thesis on Machiavelli's political thinking, supervised by Theodor Schieder . In 1954 he completed his habilitation at the University of Cologne on The Problem of Political Opposition. Development and essence of the English two-party system in the 18th century. In 1950 he became a professor at the Pedagogical Academy in Bonn and in 1960 at the University of Cologne. From 1961 to 1963 he was the founding rector of the Pedagogical University in Neuss . From 1963 until his retirement in 1979 he taught Middle and Modern History at the University of Erlangen .

Since the 1950s, Kluxen has been working on the history of political ideas in the early modern period. However, his main research focus was English history. Until the late 1980s he dealt with the history of the English parliament, parties and constitution. His English History from the Beginnings to the Present , first published in 1968, became a standard work and was published in its fourth edition in 1991. Kluxen was a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London and was awarded the Order of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany . In 1980 he became the first chairman of the Prince Albert Society . Kluxen were dedicated to festschrifts after they turned sixty in 1972 and on their 85th birthday in 1996. Frank-Lothar Kroll published 21 smaller articles by Kluxen. These writings are intended to represent a "representative selection [...] from his overall oeuvre". With this collection, Kroll would like to provide “building blocks for a cross-border pan-European view of history”.

Fonts

Monographs

• The concept of necessità in Machiavelli's thought. Cologne, Phil. Faculty, dissertation from November 11, 1950.
• The problem of political opposition. Development and essence of English two-party politics in the 18th century. Alber, Freiburg et al. 1956.
• Politics and human existence in Machiavelli. Represented by the concept of Necessità. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1967.
• History of Bensberg. Schöningh, Paderborn 1956, ISBN 3-506-74590-5 .
• Lectures on the theory of history. 2 volumes. Paderborn 1974–1981,
  • Lectures on the theory of history. Part 1. Schöningh, Paderborn 1974, ISBN 3-506-77437-9 .
  • Lectures on the theory of history. Part 2. Schöningh, Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-77458-1 .
• History of england. From the beginning to the present (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 374). 4th edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-520-37404-8 .
• England in Europe. Studies on British history and the history of political ideas in modern times (= historical research. Vol. 77). Edited by Frank-Lothar Kroll. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10599-0 .

Editorships

• Parliamentarism (= New Scientific Library. Vol. 18). 5th expanded edition. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Königstein 1980, ISBN 3-445-01687-9 .
• together with Wolfgang J. Mommsen : Political ideologies and nation-state order. Studies on the history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Festschrift for Theodor Schieder on his 60th birthday. Oldenbourg, Munich 1968.

literature

• Ernst Heinen (ed.): History in the present. Festschrift for Kurt Kluxen on his 60th birthday. Schöningh, Paderborn 1972, ISBN 3-506-73170-X .
• Frank-Lothar Kroll (ed.): New ways of the history of ideas: Festschrift for Kurt Kluxen on his 85th birthday. Schöningh, Paderborn 1996, ISBN 3-506-74826-2 .
• Frank-Lothar Kroll: Nekrolog Kurt Kluxen 1911-2003. In: Historical magazine . Vol. 280 (2005), pp. 259-265.

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Kluxen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary of the University of Erlangen on Kurt Kluxen
• University protocols: Prof. Dr. Kluxen for the 90th birthday

Remarks

1. ↑ Frank Lothar Kroll: Introduction. In: Ders .: (Ed.): England in Europe. Studies on British history and the history of political ideas in modern times Berlin 2003, p. 5 f.