Hartmut Lehmann (born April 29, 1936, in Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg) is a German historian of modern history who specializes in religious and social history. He is widely recognized for his research on Pietism, secularization, religion and nationalism, transatlantic studies, and Martin Luther.
Life and Career
Lehmann completed his Abitur at the Nargolder Gymnasium in Nagold in 1955, having been an exchange student in Cortland, New York (1952/1953). He studied history, English, German, political science, and philosophy at the University of Tübingen, and later at the University of Bristol, the University of Vienna, and again at Tübingen. He completed his habilitation at the University of Cologne under Adam Wandruszka.
He served as a university lecturer at the University of Cologne, a guest professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a research fellow at the University of Chicago before becoming a professor at Kiel University. He was also a guest professor at the Australian National University, Princeton University, and Harvard University.
From 1987 to 1993, Lehmann was the founding director of the German Historical Institute Washington DC, where he helped the institution gain academic independence and facilitated its integration into American academia. He later became managing director and a member of the Max Planck Institute for History in Göttingen. He taught as an honorary professor at both Kiel University and the University of Göttingen until his retirement in 2004. Since retiring, he has held guest professorships at Emory University, Dartmouth College, the University of California, Berkeley, Pennsylvania State University, and Princeton Theological Seminary.
Awards and Honors
- Honorary Member of the American Historical Association (2020)
- Honorary Doctorate in Theology, University of Helsinki (2017)
- Honorary Doctorate in Theology, Lund University (2017)
- Honorary Doctorate in Theology (Dr. theol. h. c.), University of Basel (1999)
- Member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities
- International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1995–present)
Selected Works
Monographs
- Pietismus und weltliche Ordnung in Württemberg vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (1969)
- Martin Luther in the American Imagination (1988)
- Max Webers „Protestantische Ethik“. Beiträge aus der Sicht eines Historikers (1996)
- Säkularisierung. Der europäische Sonderweg in Sachen Religion (2004)
- Die Entzauberung der Welt. Studien zu Themen von Max Weber (2009)
- Das Christentum im 20. Jahrhundert (2012)
- Luthergedächtnis 1817 bis 2017 (2012)
- Das Reformationsjubiläum 2017. Umstrittenes Erinnern (2021)
Edited Volumes
- An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933 (with James J. Sheehan, 1991)
- Weber's Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts (with Guenther Roth, 1995)
- Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia (with Peter van der Veer, 1999)
- The Second Generation. Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians (with Andreas W. Daum and James J. Sheehan, 2016)
Lehmann is an emeritus honorary professor at Kiel University and the University of Göttingen, and remains an influential figure in the study of modern religious history, secularization, and transatlantic intellectual exchange.
