Lothar Gall (3 December 1936 – 20 June 2024) was a German historian known as "one of German liberalism's primary historians". He was a professor of history at

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

from 1975 until his retirement in 2005. His biography of

Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...

has been translated into English, French, Italian, and Japanese.

Life and career

Gall was born in Lötzen on 3 December 1936. His father was Franz Gall, a Wehrmacht lieutenant general killed in Italy in December 1944. Gall studied history and Romance and German languages in Munich and Mainz. His 1960 doctoral thesis examined the political thought of

Benjamin Constant Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830), or simply Benjamin Constant, was a Swiss and French political thinker, activist and writer on political theory and religion. A committed republican from 1795, Constant ...

, a French liberal, and its influence in

Vormärz ' (; English: ''pre-March'') was a period in the history of Germany preceding the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation. The beginning of the period is less well-defined. Some place the starting point directly after ...

Germany. His 1967 habilitation at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

was supervised by Theodor Schieder. His next book was a regional study of

liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...

Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in southern Germany. In earlier times it was considered to be on both sides of the Upper Rhine, but since the Napoleonic Wars, it has been considered only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Ba ...

between 1848 and 1871. This informed an influential 1975 article about the effects of the 1848 revolution upon German liberalism: Gall argued that the revolution transformed liberalism from a constitutional movement committed to a

classless society A classless society is a society in which no one is born into a social class like in a class society. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience an ...

of burghers to an economically bourgeois ideology committed to free-market

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

. His biography of

has been translated into English, French, Italian, and Japanese. Gall was appointed as a professor at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen in 1968. Four years later he became a professor at the

Freie Universität Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

. He was a guest professor at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 1973. He taught at the University of Frankfurt starting in 1975, and became a professor emeritus in 2005. He focused on the history of liberalism in Europe. He was also an expert in Bismarck research. His 1980 book ''Bismarck. Der weiße Revolutionär.'' was regarded as the first modern biography of Bismarck. Gall died on 20 June 2024, at the age of 87.

Works

Gall's works include: * ''Benjamin Constant; seine politische Ideenwelt und der deutsche Vormärz'', 1963, ). * ''Bismarck. Der weiße Revolutionär.'', 1980, . Translated by J. A. Underwood as ''Bismarck, the white revolutionary'', 1986. * ''Europa auf dem Weg in die Moderne, 1850–1890'', 1984, . * ''Bürgertum in Deutschland'', Siedler, Berlin 1989, * ''Bismarck. Ein Lebensbild.'' Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1991, . * ''Krupp. Der Aufstieg eines Industrieimperiums.'' Siedler, Berlin 2000, . * ''Der Bankier Hermann Josef Abs. Eine Biographie.'' Beck, Munich 2004, . * ''Otto von Bismarck – Bild und Image''. Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung, Friedrichsruh 2006, . * ''Walther Rathenau. Portrait einer Epoche.'' Beck, Munich 2009, . * ''Wilhelm von Humboldt. Ein Preuße von Welt.'' Propyläen-Verlag, Berlin 2011, . * ''Franz Adickes. Oberbürgermeister und Universitätsgründer.'' Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt 2013, . * ''Hardenberg. Reformer und Staatsmann''. Piper, München 2016, .

Awards

* (1968)Liste der Preisträgerinnen und Preisträger
of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit. * Leibniz Prize of the DFG (1988) * Balzan Prize of history (1993) * Hessian Order of Merit (2006)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gall, Lothar 1936 births 2024 deaths 20th-century German historians People from Giżycko People from East Prussia German male non-fiction writers Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 21st-century German historians 20th-century German male writers 21st-century German male writers