Career
Wehler was born in Freudenberg, Westphalia. He studied history and sociology in Cologne, Bonn and, on a Fulbright scholarship, at Ohio University in the United States; working for six months as a welder and a truck driver in Los Angeles. He took his PhD in 1960 under Theodor Schieder at the University of Cologne. His dissertation examined social democracy and the nation state and the question of nationality in Germany between 1840 and 1914. His postdoctoral thesis on Bismarck and imperialism, opened the way for an academic career. His habilitation project on "American imperialism between 1865 and 1900", supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, permitted him to do research in American libraries in 1962-3 and resulted in two books. In all he spent six years in the U.S. and was strongly influenced by its academic structures and by research in comparative modernization.
Wehler taught at the University of Cologne (1968–70), at the Free University of Berlin (1970–71) and at Bielefeld University (1971–96).
Wehler and his colleagues Jürgen Kocka and Reinhart Koselleck founded the Bielefeld School of historical analysis. Instead of emphasizing the political aspects of history, as in the conventional approach, its proponents concentrate on socio-cultural developments. History as "historical social science" (as Wehler described it) has been explored mainly in the context of studies of German society in the 19th and 20th centuries. He served as editor of the new journal Geschichte und Gesellschaft: Zeitschrift fur Historische Sozialwissenschaft from 1975.
He married Renate Pfitsch in 1958, by whom he has two children.
Wehler won the 2003 NRW State Prize; the premier of North Rhineland Westphalia Peer Steinbrück praised Wehler:
- "Hans-Ulrich Wehler clearly and persuasively demonstrated over 30 years ago that modern historiography has a socio-political mission. He regards it as a "critical social science" which aims "above all … to make a conscious contribution to honing a freer and more critical awareness of society". He has always lived up to this aim, with trenchant insights and courageous political judgment.
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