Andreas Hillgruber - Biography

Biography

Hillgruber was born in Angerburg, Germany (modern Wegorzewo, Poland) near the then East Prussian city of Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad, Russia). Hillgruber's father lost his job as a teacher under the Third Reich. Hillgruber served in the German Army from 1943 to 1945 and spent the years 1945-1948 as a POW in France. During World War II, Hillgruber fought on the Eastern Front, an experience that was later to play a role in his evaluation and writing about the period. In 1945, Hillgruber fled west to escape the Red Army, another experience that was to have much influence on him. After his release he studied at the University of Göttingen, where he received a PhD in 1952. As a student, Hillgruber was a leading protégée of the medievalist Percy Ernst Schramm, an academic who, as Eberhard Jäckel commented, regarded World War II as a normal war that regrettably the Nazis were not as skilled at waging as they should have been. Much of Hillgruber's early work reflected Schramm's influence. He spent the decade 1954-1964 working as school teacher. In 1960 he married Karin Zieran, with whom he had three children. Hillgruber worked as a professor at the University of Marburg (1965–1968), the University of Freiburg (1968–1972) and the University of Cologne (1972–1989). In the late 1960s he was a target of radical student protesters. He died in Cologne of throat cancer.