Heinrich Sproemberg

Heinrich Sproemberg (25 November 1889 – 19 June 1966) was a German historian. The focus of his research was on the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early modern period. He made a notable contribution to the historiography of the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands and the territories that became known after 1830 as Belgium.

Life Heinrich Friedrich Adolf Emanuel Sproemberg was born into a reformed-evangelical family in Berlin. Alfred Sproemberg (1857-1903) was an architect who later became a building inspector. His mother, Elisabeth Dernburg (1864-1946), came from a family of academics. Her father (Heinrich's maternal grandfather) was the law professor Heinrich Dernburg (1829-1907). He moved on to the Frederick William University (as the Humboldt was then known) where he studied History, Applied Economics ("Nationalökonomie") and Jurisprudence. The work was supervised by Dietrich Schäfer. However, after war broke out at the end of July 1914 there was a major falling out with Schäfer. The German High Command implemented war plans that included a rapid invasion of Belgium which was accompanied by persistent reports of widescale atrocities by German troops against Belgian civilians. Sproemberg was at pains to distance himself from Schäfer's "annexationist" support for German policy in respect of Belgium. He established a number of important new initiatives. Along with the professorship, he also inherited from Kötzschke charge of the Regional History Institute ("Landesgeschichtliche Institut") for Saxony. After the individual states ("Lander") were dissolved as separate administrative units in 1952, this became the only surviving regional historical institute of its kinds in the German Democratic Republic. However, following further reorganisation at the university, in 1957 Sproemberg lost his position in charge of it. Other notable contributions included the creation, in 1955, of East Germany's Hanseatic Working Group. Nevertheless, as one of those academics, who also included Ernst Bloch, who resolutely refused to involve themselves in politics or become members of government sponsored quasi-political organisations, he became increasingly vulnerable to attacks. His "Contributions to Belgian-Dutch history" ("Beiträge zur belgisch-niederländischen Geschichte") was rejected for publication as "not Marxist" in 1957 (though it was eventually published two years later).

In 1958 Heinrich Sproemberg retired from his university posts.

Celebration In 1965, the year before he died, the University of Rostock conferred on Sproemberg an honorary doctorate. The accompanying citation described him as "an important researcher of the history of the middle ages, and especially of Hanseatic history, and a supporter of the next generation of academics" ("bedeutender Erforscher der Geschichte des Mittelalters, insbesondere der hansischen Geschichte, Förderer des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses").

Output (selection)

Beiträge zur französisch-flandrischen Geschichte. Ebering, Berlin 1931 Die Entstehung der Grafschaft Flandern. Ebering, Berlin 1935 Beiträge zur belgisch-niederländischen Geschichte. Berlin 1959 (Forschungen zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte, vol. 3) Mittelalter und demokratische Geschichtsschreibung. Ausgewählte Abhandlungen. Berlin 1971 (Forschungen zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte, vol. 18)