Lothar Mertens

Lothar Mertens (2 January 1959 – 4 December 2006) was a prolific German historian and social sciences scholar. A principal focus of his output was on the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, 1949–1990).

Life and work Lothat Mertens was born in Leverkusen in West Germany at the height of the country's remarkable postwar economic revival. He studied History, Catholic Theology and Sociology at the universities of Bochum and Cologne. He received his doctorate in 1990 for a piece of work on the development of Women's Studies in Germany as a branch of social sciences before 1945. A higher level doctorate from the University of Potsdam followed in 1996, received for a study of the life and works of the peace and human rights activist.

He also received his habilitation (higher academic qualification) in 1996. This came from Bochum University. This time his dissertation was entitled "The Star of David under Hammer and Compass - The Jewish Community in the Soviet occupation zone / German Democratic Republic and their Treatment by the Party and the State 1945–1990". After this he worked as a private tutor at Bochum. He also embarked on a project, jointly with Wilhelm Bleek, concerning the way in which dissertations had been produced and used in the German Democratic Republic during the four decades before its re-integration into what had become the German Federal Republic. Their work involved studying the output of East German historians and of the (East) German Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Their published conclusions were very critical of academic work produced in East Germany. Mertens was seen to endorse the view put forward by Arnulf Baring that much of East German scholarship was literally useless ("auf weite Strecken unbrauchbar").

Controversy Mertens' work on the academic history of the German Democratic Republic drew strong criticism, notably from former East German academics. His work was attacked as "corrupted" and his conclusions as all too often one sided. Mario Keßler identified in his output the same absence of the necessary self-critical reflection which Mertens had found lacking in East German historical scholarship.

Personal Lothat Mertens was married to fellow academic Esther Jonas-Märtin.