Gerhard Hirschfeld

Hirschfeld was director of the Library of Contemporary History in Stuttgart from 1989-2011, and professor at the Institute of History, University of Stuttgart (since 1997). In 2016, he was appointed visiting professor at the Institute for International Studies, University of Wuhan in China. From 1990 to 2000, he was chairman of the German Committee for History of the Second World War, and president of the International Committee for the Study of the Second World War from 2000 to 2010.

Hirschfeld was a Guest Lecturer at the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham and Research Fellow at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University between 1982-1989. In 1996-1997 and 2006-2007 Hirschfeld was a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Netherlands. From 2000-2015, he was a Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences /Science Committee of the Netherlands Institute of War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam. Hirschfeld is or was member of numerous academic committees and advisory councils, inter alia the Centre de Recherche des Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne, the Comité Scientique du Mémorial de Verdun, memorial for the victims of the NS-euthanasia in Baden-Württemberg, Grafeneck, the Fritz Bauer Institute, Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, the Landschaftsverband Rheinland: Forum Vogelsang and 1914: Mitten in Europa, the Centre for Second World War Studies, University of Birmingham; further he is or was member of several editorial advisory boards, including the International Encyclopedia of the First World War 1914-1918-Online and the journals Zeithistorische Forschungen and Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis.

Hirschfeld studied History, German literature (Germanistik) and political science (Staatsexamen 1974) at the Ruhr University Bochum and the University of Cologne. He was a lecturer at University College Dublin from 1974 to 1975. Hirschfeld received his Ph.D. from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, 1981. He was assistant to Professor Wolfgang Mommsen at Düsseldorf University, 1977–1978. From 1978-1989, Hirschfeld was a Fellow with the German Historical Institute London.

Gerhard Hirschfeld (born 19 September 1946 in Plettenberg, Germany) is a German historian and author. He was director (between 1989-2011) of the Stuttgart-based Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte / Library of Contemporary History, and has been a professor at the Institute of History of the University of Stuttgart since 1997. In 2016 he also became a visiting professor at the Institute for International Studies, University of Wuhan/China.

His historical fields of interest (research, teaching and writing) include the History of the First and the Second World War, 20th Century History of the Netherlands, and the History of Emigration from Nazi-Germany after 1933.