Hellmut Diwald

Who was Hellmut Diwald?

Hellmut Diwald was a German historian and Professor of Medieval and Modern History at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg from 1965 to 1985.

He was originally from southern Moravia, the son of an Austrian engineer and a Czech mother, and went to school in Prague before the family relocated to Nuremberg in Bavaria in 1938. During World War II, he served in the German Army. After the war, he went on to study Mechanical Engineering in Nuremberg before he studied Philosophy, German and History at the universities of Hamburg and Erlangen. He earned a doctorate in history in 1952 and completed his Habilitation in 1958. In 1965, he was appointed as Professor of Medieval and Modern History at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he taught until his retirement in 1985. He was editor of Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, a scientific journal, from 1948 to 1966.

Diwald earned much recognition for his books on the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey and his publication of the works of Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, as well as for his biography of Albrecht von Wallenstein and his book on European history from 1400 to 1555. He also regularly appeared on the ZDF TV show Fragen zur Zeit and was a regular contributor of articles to the newspaper Die Welt. He is also known for a widely discussed book on German history from 1978. He published his opus magnum, Die Großen Ereignisse. Fünf Jahrtausende Weltgeschichte in Darstellungen und Dokumenten, a history of humankind during the last 5000 years in six volumes, in 1990. In 1981, he co-founded the Zeitgeschichtliche Forschungsstelle Ingolstadt.