Gunnar Heinsohn is a German sociologist and economist. He was born in Gdynia, Poland, under German occupation used as Kriegsmarine-Arsenal and named Gotenhafen, on November 21, 1943 to Roswitha Heinsohn, née Maurer and the late Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Heinsohn, last serving on U-438. Since 1984, he has been a tenured professor at the University of Bremen, where he heads the Raphael-Lemkin Institut for Comparative Genocide Research named for Raphael Lemkin. His list of publications includes almost 700 scholarly articles, conference presentations, and books. His research has been focused on developing new theories regarding the history and theory of civilization.