Rudolf Stadelmann (historian)

Rudolf Stadelmann (23 April 1902 – 17 August 1949) was a German historian and professor of modern history.

Biography

Rudolf Stadelmann was born at the rectory in Adelmannsfelden as the first child of the pastor Paul Stadelmann (1872–1923) and his wife Clara. His wife was the daughter of the pastor Leonhard Rau (1841–1919), at that time first city pastor in Langenau from 1892 to 1903, then pastor in Uhlbach until his retirement in 1908. Rudolf's father held the rectory in Adelmannsfelden from 1901 to 1912. His last position was garrison pastor in Ludwigsburg.

After studying history in Tübingen, Heidelberg, Munich and Berlin, Stadelmann received his doctorate from the University of Tübingen in 1924 as a student of Gerhard Ritter with the dissertation Der historische Sinn bei Herder ("The Historical Sense in Herder"). He then trained as a teacher and worked as a teacher in Kirchheim unter Teck from 1926 to 1928. After stays abroad, including as a lecturer in Bologna, he habilitated in 1929 at the University of Freiburg on Geist des ausgehenden Mittelalters ("The Spirit of the Late Middle Ages") and subsequently worked there as a private lecturer. Under the influence of Martin Heidegger, he developed, against Ritter's opposition, an increasing closeness to National Socialism and joined the Reiterstandarte of the SA in 1936.

In 1936, Stadelmann received a full professorship at the University of Giessen, and in 1938 he moved to Tübingen. Stadelmann initially advocated a National Socialist Germany with enthusiasm in 1933, but his relationship with the NSDAP soon cooled, so that the appointments to Giessen and Tübingen cost "many a battle with the party authorities." The differences, however, were less political than personal.

In the German Reich, Stadelmann was a public presence, acting in front of military officers, the SA, student youth, and French prisoners. He did not have to join the Wehrmacht, but did "research work important to the war effort," for example in evaluating the "loot files" of the Quai d'Orsay. There, he did service in the "Files Commission" which compiled documents on German history in the archives and transferred some of them to Germany.

Stadelmann's research was politically concerned with strengthening national self-confidence. His portrayals of Luther, Bismarck and Frederick the Great were intended to achieve this; he blanked out periods of weakness. He was committed to maintaining the "fighting morale" of the Wehrmacht almost until the end of World War II. Nevertheless, he remained a full professor in Tübingen after the war. After 1945, he turned into a moderate conservative.

Some historians classify Stadelmann not as a "National Socialist" but as a "fellow traveler". Jörg-Peter Jatho concludes that Stadelmann cannot be categorized as a "National Socialist" or a "fellow traveler" because of his ambivalent behavior.

Works

• Der historische Sinn bei Herder (1928)
• Vom Geist des ausgehenden Mittelalters (1929)
• Otto von Bismarck, Erinnerung und Gedanke. Kritische Neuausgabe auf Grund des gesamten schriftlichen Nachlasses (1932; edited by Gerhard Ritter)
• Das Jahr 1865 und das Problem von Bismarcks deutscher Politik (1933)
• Deutsche Geschichte vom Zeitalter der Reformation bis zum Tode Friedrichs des Großen (1936)
• Vom Erbe der Neuzeit (1942)
• Deutschland und Westeuropa. Drei Aufsätze (1948)
• Soziale und politische Geschichte der Revolution von 1848 (1948)
• Jacob Burckhardt, Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe (1949)
• Moltke und der Staat (1950)
• Scharnhorst. Schicksal und geistige Welt. Ein Fragment (1952)
• Geschichte der englischen Revolution (1954)

References

• Eduard Spranger, Rudolf Stadelmann zum Gedächtnis. Akademische Trauerfeier am 21. Januar 1950 im Festsaal der Universität Tübingen. Tübingen: Mohr (1950)
• Hermann Heimpel, "Rudolf Stadelmann und die deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft". In: Historische Zeitschrift 172 (1951), pp. 285–307.
• Jörg-Peter Jatho & Gerd Simon, Gießener Historiker im Dritten Reich. Gießen: Focus Verlag (2008)

External links

• Works by Rudolf Stadelmann at JSTOR
• Works by Rudolf Stadelmann at German National Library
• Works by Rudolf Stadelmann at Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek