WOLFGANG J. MOMMSEN

Wolfgang J. Mommsen, one of the leading German historians throughout the last decades, has actively supported the work of ICHS. He unexpectedly died in August 2004, 73 years old – drowned while bathing in the Baltic Sea.
 
He was the offspring of an old German dynasty of historians, professionals and businessmen: great-grandson of Theodor Mommsen who, in 1902, received the Nobel Prize for his famous “Roman History”; son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen who collaborated with the Nazis and lost his job in 1945; twin-brother of Hans Mommsen, the outstanding historian of Nazism and anti-Nazi resistance. Why Germany had become fascist and the major aggressor in the first half of the twentieth century, remained a core question for Wolfgang Mommsen like for many other German historians of his generation.
 
His path-breaking dissertation (with Theodor Schieder) dealt with Max Weber and his role in German politics until 1920. Some of Max Weber’s topics became topics on which Wolfgang Mommsen wrote important books: on imperialism, the German nation state, liberalism, the shortcomings of the German elites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, World War I. As a Weberian, Mommsen advocated a post-narrative type of historical analysis. He was one of the founders of “Geschichte und Gesellschaft” (1975), a journal devoted to social science history. Mommsen co-edited the works of Max Weber. Like him he was a committed liberal with a critical mind and a strong inclination towards poignant judgements. As a debater he always enjoyed a good fight.
 
Wolfgang Mommsen combined high professional scholarship with the role of a public intellectual. As such he took part in many controversies which helped to shape the political culture of the federal republic of Germany. In contrast to many of his colleagues, he understood the importance of the institutional dimension of our discipline. Appointed professor of Modern History in 1968 at the University of Duesseldorf, he held his post until his retirement except for the period he was at the German Historical Institute in London. Under his directorship (1977-1985), the Institute reached a level of productivity and relevance which it had and has not reached before and after. From 1988 to 1992 Mommsen was chairman of the National Association of German Historians. He played an important and benevolent role in the painful process of bringing the West German and the East German profession of historians together after unification.
 
Wolfgang Mommsen’s outlook had a cosmopolitan dimension. He took the internationalization of the historical discipline serious. He represented the German profession on many international congresses and meetings. He participated in the work of ICHS. In the spring of 2005, will appear in English Karl Dietrich Erdmann’s basic history of the International Congresses of Historians since 1898 and of the International Committee of Historical Sciences since 1926, with an epilogue by Wolfgang Mommsen, covering the story between 1985 (Erdmann’s cutting-off point) and 2000. It will be a document of Mommsen’s commitment to the cooperation of historians across national boundaries.
 
Wolfgang J. Mommsen died too early. In the international community of historians, he will be remembered with respect and admiration.

 

Jürgen Kocka
President ICHS