Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954), Germany's greatest historian in the period from 1890 to 1950, founded a school of the history of ideas and trained many scholars.

Friedrich Meinecke was born in Salzwedel and educated in Berlin. His family belonged to the solid middle class which formed the backbone of imperial Germany. Early in life he decided to become a historian and was trained at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. Hampered by a speech defect, he did not feel he should enter the teaching profession and chose instead the career of archivist. In "this dusty trade" he felt himself quite at home. However, his intellectual qualities were soon recognized, and he was appointed editor of the country's most distinguished review, Die historische Zeitschrift, an office he held until he was ousted by the Nazis in 1935.

Meinecke's first work, a two-volume biography of the Prussian general Hermann von Boyen, was immediately recognized...