Verdunpreis

The Verdun Prize was one of the most important historians' prizes in the German Empire and was awarded until the First World War, with a brief revival during the National Socialist era. It was donated on June 18, 1844 by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. On the occasion of the millennium of the Treaty of Verdun (843), which the king saw as the birth of an independent German Empire history. It was awarded every five years for the best German-language work of the previous five years on German history and was endowed with 1000 thalers in gold (equivalent to 3000 gold marks) and provided with a gold medal.

In the Empire, the award was tied to the approval of the emperor, which is why some historians received nothing ( Moriz Ritter was proposed twice, but the emperor declined). A commission of historians proposed the award.

It was no longer awarded after 1914, but was re-awarded under National Socialist rule from 1936 (with an endowment of 3000 Reichsmarks). While the old prize was awarded by the Prussian Academy of Sciences, the prize was now awarded directly by the ministry (even the academy was surprised by this).

The German Historians Prize (Prize of the Historisches Kolleg), awarded from 1983 onwards, is linked to the Verdun Prize, but the naming was out of the question after the experiences of the First World War and the memories linked to Verdun in it.

Award winners

1844?
1849?
1854 General Eduard von Höpfner
1859 Wilhelm von Giesebrecht
1864 Ludwig Häusser
1869 Ernst Ludwig Dümmler
1874 Johann Gustav Droysen
1879 the war history department of the Great General Staff
1884 Heinrich von Treitschke
1889 Max Lehmann for his biography of Scharnhorst
1894 Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer for German history from the Peace of Westphalia to the reign of Frederick the Great
1899 Albert Hauck
1904 Reinhold Koser for depicting the Seven Years' War in the second volume of his biography of Frederick the Great.
1909 Sigmund von Riezler for his history of Bavaria .
1913 Paul Bailleu , for his biography of Queen Luise .

Awards after 1914:

1936 Karl Alexander von Müller for German history and German character
1941 Otto Brunner

literature

Katharina Weigand: Historiography between science and national appropriation: the Verdun Prize. In: Katharina Weigand, Jörg Zedler, Florian Schuller (Ed.): The Prince Regent Time. Dusk of the Bavarian Monarchy? Pustet, Regensburg 2013, ISBN 3-7917-2477-0 , pp. 105–127.

Web links

Meyers Konversationslexikon 1909, zeno.org

Individual evidence

↑ Ewald Kessler (ed.): Memoirs of the historian Moriz Ritter. In: Internat. Kirchliche Zeitschrift, Volume 88, 1998, p. 472.
^ Matthias Berg: Karl Alexander von Müller. Historian for National Socialism. Göttingen 2014, p. 232f.
↑ Horst Fuhrmann : Welcome by the chairman of the Historisches Kolleg foundation and president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. In: Yearbook of the Historical College 1996, pp. 3–6, here: p. 4. ( online )
↑ Bernhard vom Brocke: Koser, Reinhold. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , pp. 613-615 ( digitized version ).
↑ Birte Förster: The Queen Luise myth. Media history of the “ideal image of German femininity”, 1860–1960. Göttingen 2011, p. 159.

[1] Ewald Kessler (ed.): Memoirs of the historian Moriz Ritter. In: Internat. Kirchliche Zeitschrift, Volume 88, 1998, p. 472.

[2] Matthias Berg: Karl Alexander von Müller. Historian for National Socialism. Göttingen 2014, p. 232f.

[3] Horst Fuhrmann : Welcome by the chairman of the Historisches Kolleg foundation and president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. In: Yearbook of the Historical College 1996, pp. 3–6, here: p. 4. ( online )

[4] Bernhard vom Brocke: Koser, Reinhold. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , pp. 613-615 ( digitized version ).

[5] Birte Förster: The Queen Luise myth. Media history of the “ideal image of German femininity”, 1860–1960. Göttingen 2011, p. 159.