Manfred Messerschmidt
Manfred Messerschmidt was a German historian who specialised in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He was the longtime research director at the Military History Research Office who conceived and launched the seminal series of books Germany and the [Second World War], edited by the MGFA.
Messerschmidt was one of the most important military historians of Germany after 1945 and is considered to be the founder of modern military history in Germany. He was an expert on international military law and an author of multiple books on German military history of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Education and career
Born on 1 October 1926 in Dortmund, Messerschmidt grew up in the northeast of his hometown, a mostly social-democratic neighbourhood, under the Nazi regime. From May 1944 till the end of World War II he served as Luftwaffenhelfer, then as pioneer with the Wehrmacht. He was briefly a U.S. prisoner-of-war.After the war, Messerschmidt achieved the Abitur in 1947, and then studied history at the University of Münster and the University of Freiburg. He completed his doctorate under the supervision of historian Gerhard Ritter, and earned his PhD in 1954 with a dissertation about Germany from the view of English historians. After working in the insurance sector, Messerschmidt studied law and passed the second state exam in 1962. The unusual combination of historian and jurist qualified him for the Military History Research Office in Freiburg, an institution of the Federal Ministry of Defence. He joined in 1962; it had been founded only five years earlier. In 1971, Helmut Schmidt, who was then defence minister, recommended him to be the organisation's chief historian, and president Gustav Heinemann appointed him to the post, also as director and professor. He held the position until 1978, making the institution one of the most respected institutes for German history.
From 1987 to 1988 Messerschmidt was a member of the Waldheim Commission that investigated the Waldheim Affair, involving the alleged Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim, then newly elected as President of Austria. Messerschmidt was the deputy chairman of the. He was also president of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Wehrrecht und Kriegsvölkerrecht, general-secretary of the German committee for the history of the Second World War.