Friedrich Meinecke

Friedrich Meinecke was a German historian renowned for his studies on 18th- and 19th-century German intellectual and cultural history, particularly his 1908 work *Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat* ('Cosmopolitanism and the National State'). He held national liberal and antisemitic views, supporting German expansionism and advocating for measures like the removal of Polish landowners during World War I. While he initially showed some sympathy for the Nazi regime, especially its early antisemitic laws, he later became critical of its violence and crudeness, though he continued to express antisemitic prejudices. After World War II, he attempted to reconcile his beliefs in authoritarian state power with historical events in his book *Die Deutsche Katastrophe* ('The German Catastrophe'). He played a role in founding the Free University of Berlin in 1948. His influence extended to the United States through his students, who introduced his academic standards to the study of German history there.