200th birthday of Leopold von Ranke - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1995 - 80 Pfennig

Leopold von Ranke (21.12.1795- 23.5.1886) is considered the founder of modern historical science. After his graduation at the University of Leipzig, he worked since 1818, first as a high school teacher in Frankfurt / Oder. Here was his first book on the "History of the Roman and Germanic peoples", which earned him in 1825 an extraordinary professor of history at the University of Berlin. On a multi-year research trip (1827-1831) he gained insight into the Italian archives. The work with this source material led to Ranke's realization that a critical study of sources is indispensable for historiography. He refused, however, to regard an epoch as a mere stage to an advanced existence, as Hegel's philosophy of history taught. In his view each epoch carried its value and meaning in itself and was to be seen as something valid for itself. After Ranke's appointment as full professor in Berlin in 1834, he was appointed "Historiographer of the Prussian State" in 1841. He was politically close to the Conservatives, but rejected life throughout the exaggerated nationalism of the Borussian historiography Treitschkes or Droysens. Even at the age of 80, Ranke crowned his extensive life's work with a - unfortunately unfinished - "world history". (Text: Dr. Jürgen Elvert, Ranke Society, Association for History in Public Life e.V., Kiel)