Quidde, Ludwig |
| HISTORIAN, PACIFIST (GERMANY) |
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BORN 23 Mar 1858, Bremen - DIED 4 Mar 1941, Genève GRAVE LOCATION Genève, Genève: Cimetière de Plainpalais, Rue des Rois (C-265) |
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Ludwig Quidde was the son of the rich merchant Ludwig August Quidde. He grew up in Bremen and studied history and philosophy in Strassburg and Göttingen and promoted on "König Sigmund und das Deutsche Reich von 1410 bis 1419" (King Sigmund and the German Empire from 1410 to 1919). In 1882 he married the musician and author Margarete Jacobson. In 1887 he became a special member of the Historical Committee and in 1888 he founded the magazin "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft". In 1890 he moved to Rome to become professor at the Preußischen Historischen Institut. In 1892 he returned to Germany alone (his marriage was in a crisis) and he taught history in Munich. In 1893 he was co-founder of the Deutschen Historikerverband and by that time he was an expert on the later Middle Ages in Europe. His satire "Caligula, Eine Studie über römischen Cäsarenwahnsinn" referred to emperor Wilhelm II. It made him well known, but also damaged his academical career. He was imprisoned for three months for insulting the emperor. As a politician he was active from 1893 in the Deutsche Volkspartei (DtVP) and in that year he published "Der Militarismus im heutigen Deutschen Reich". In 1907 he became a member of the Bavarian parliament until 1918, but as an opponent of war he spent most of the First World War abroad. In 1919 he became a member of the Weimar parliament for the Deutschen Demokratischen Partei (DDP). By this time his marriage had broken down completely and he had met a young woman, Charlotte Kleinschmidt. They had a child in 1916 and they were together for the rest of his life. After he published his "Der deutsche Pazifismus während des Weltkrieges" he was accused of treason and imprisoned for a short while, but in 1927 he received the Nobel Peace Prize together with Ferdinand Busson. In 1930 he left the DDP. When the nazis came to power he emigrated to Switzerland where he lived until his death in 1941. He was buried at the cemetery of Petit-Saconnex in Geneva and later his remains were transferred to the Plainpalais cemetery. Charlotte died in 1974 and was buried beside him. |
| Images |
 The grave of Ludwig Quidde at the Cimetière de Plainpalais, Genève. Picture by Androom (06 Dec 2007) |
Sources • Ludwig Quidde – Wikipedia |
