Herbert Schwarzwälder

Schwarzwälder was born in Bremen. His younger brother was the Heimatforscher Harry Schwarzwälder [de] (1929–2019). He attended the grammar school and graduated in 1938 with his Abitur. He was then called up for Reichsarbeitsdienst, then for military service with an air force and the anti-aircraft artillery. During the Second World War, he was first deployed in the Homeland Security, later in a technical department in the Soviet Union and in the West. Schwarzwälder had to spend several years as prisoner of war in camps in France, the US and England. In 1947, he was able to return to Bremen. In Ein Streifzug durch Bremens Geschichte, Online-Geschichtsprojekt auf www.-user.uni-bremen.de; retrieved 25 November 2020.

Since 1953, Schwarzwälder's research focused on the history of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. He gave many lectures and published numerous publications on the contemporary and cultural history of Bremen and Northwest Germany as well as the Hanseatic League. In 1975 and 1985 his four-volume work on the History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen appeared, which has since become the standard work about the history of Bremen. After his retirement in 1988, he continued his research and publication work. In 2001, he published under the title Das Große Bremen-Lexikon the first coherent reference work on interesting and enigatic things about and in the city-state of Bremen, which was described as "a treasure trove on the past and present of Bremen and Bremerhavens" and now also is considered a standard work.

From 1948, he studied history, German, English and political science at the Philipps University of Marburg. In 1953, he passed his first Staatsexamen and obtained his doctorate in Marburg with the historical work Entstehung und Anfänge der Stadt Bremen. After his preparatory service [de] and the Second Staatsexamen, he worked from 1955 as Assessor and Studienrat at the Oberschule am Leibnizplatz [de] in the Bremen Neustadt [de]. In 1960, he was appointed Professor of History at the then Pädagogische Hochschule Bremen [de], which was incorporated into the newly founded University of Bremen in 1971. Until 1988, Schwarzwälder taught there as a full university professor with the following main subjects: Landesgeschichte [de], Nazism era and the Hanseatic League.

Herbert Schwarzwälder (14 October 1919 – 11 September 2011) was a German historian. With his decades of work and his extensive publications, he has had a major influence on the research and communication of the History of the city of Bremen [de].