Friedrich Meinecke
| Friedrich Meinecke | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 30, 1862 Salzwedel, Prussia |
| Died | February 6, 1954 (aged 91) West Berlin |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | Nationalist historian Archivist (1887–1901) of the German State Archives Editor (1896–1935) of the Historische Zeitschrift Chairman (1928–1935) of the Historische Reichskommission |
| Known for | Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat (Cosmopolitanism and the National State), Die Deutsche Katastrophe (The German Catastrophe), Die Entstehung des Historismus (The Emergence of Historism) |
Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian, with Liberal and anti-semitic views, who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. After World War II, as a representative of an older tradition, he criticized the Nazi regime, but continued to express anti-semitic prejudice.
In 1948, he helped to found the Free University of Berlin in West Berlin, and remained an important figure to the end of his life.
Meinecke was born in Salzwedel in the Province of Saxony. He was educated at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin. In 1887-1901 he worked as an archivist at the German State Archives. A professor at the University of Strasbourg, he served as editor of the journal Historische Zeitschrift between 1896 and 1935, and was the chairman of the Historische Reichskommission from 1928 to 1935. As a nationalist historian Meinecke didn't care very much for the desires of peoples in Eastern Europe, and went as far as writing about "raw bestiality of the south Slavs", while favoring German expansionism into the East. During the First World War he advocated removing Polish landowners from the Prussian provinces of West Prussia and Posen (which were acquired from Poland in the course of the Partitions of Poland) to Congress Poland; in addition he proposed German colonization of Courland after the expulsion of its Latvian population. Some authors have likened his views to support of ethnic cleansing. When the German Empire formulated the so-called Polish Border Strip plan – which called for annexation of a large swathe of land from Congress Poland and removal of millions of Poles and Jews to make room for German settlers – Meinecke welcomed this vision of mass expulsion of Poles with contentment.
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