Erich Marcks (historian)

Erich Marcks (17 November 1861 – 22 November 1938) was a German historian. Born in Magdeburg, the son of the Protestant architect and government builder Albrecht Marcks († 1888), after attending the Magdeburg Pädagogium zum Kloster Unser lieben Frauen from 1879, studied in Magdeburg, Alte Geschichte first in Straßburg, later at Bonn and Berlin, among others with liberal teachers like Heinrich Nissen and Theodor Mommsen. In 1884, Marcks completed his doctorate under Nissen in Strasbourg about Roman history (The Tradition of the Social War (91-87 BC). Under the influence of Hermann Baumgarten and Heinrich von Treitschke, he oriented himself towards modern and contemporary history and habilitated in 1887 in Berlin with the latter on Gaspard II de Coligny and the Assassination of Francis, Duke of Guise, supplemented by the essays he had submitted up to that time. In 1892, the University of Freiburg appointed Marcks as full professor. Further stations in his academic career were professorships at Leipzig in 1894, Heidelberg University in 1901, Hamburg Scientific Foundation in 1907, the US, where he was a visiting professor in 1912, and, from 1913, Munich. In 1922 he was appointed to Berlin, where he taught until his retirement in 1928. From his time in Leipzig, Marcks was a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences from 1898. From 1898, he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and, in addition, from 1923, president of the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. From 1922, he was a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, In 1936, he became a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. From 1902 to 1903, he was chairman of the Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands. In 1900, he received the Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Civil Order of Saxony, in 1903 the Knight's Cross 1st Class with Oak Leaves of the Order of the Zähringer Lion of Baden. From 1910, Marcks was co-editor of the Historische Zeitschrift alongside his friend Friedrich Meinecke, together with whom he was also appointed Historiographer of the Prussian State in 1922.