Jürgen Osterhammel awarded the Pour le Mérite order of merit
The Konstanz historian, Professor Jürgen Osterhammel, was elected a national member of the Pour le Mérite order of merit, the federal government announced. The decision was made during a chapter meeting held in Berlin on 11 June 2017. Also elected was the historian Professor Karl Schlögel, professor emeritus (2013) at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). Karl Schlögel was professor of Eastern European history at the University of Konstanz from 1990 until 1994. The order currently consists of 40 German and 35 international members.
The “Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste” (order of merit for the arts and sciences) is the highest distinction bestowed upon artists and scientists in Germany. It was endowed by Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1842 and revived by Federal President Theodor Heuss in 1952. To this day, the order operates under the aegis of the Federal President. Its first chancellor, whose duty it is to preside over this highest national order of merit, was the natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt. The current chancellor is the biologist and Nobel laureate Professor Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Tübingen).
The Pour le Mérite order of merit is administered and financed by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Monika Grütters.
Jürgen Osterhammel has been professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Konstanz since 1999. He is a member of numerous national and international academies such as the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the British Academy. Jürgen Osterhammel has received various awards for his contributions to science, including a number of prizes recognising his outstanding services as an author writing for and seeking to engage a broad readership. In 2014, for instance, he was awarded the Sigmund Freud Preis für wissenschaftliche Prosa (Sigmund Freud prize for academic prose) by the German Academy for Language and Literature. In 2010, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG). More recently, in 2017, he was awarded the Toynbee Prize.