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Robert Gerwarth

German historian

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ2157257
Source-derived summary

Robert Benjamin Gerwarth (born 12 February 1976) is a German historian and author who specialises in European history, with an emphasis on German history. Since finishing a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford, he has held fellowships at Princeton, Harvard, the NIOD (Amsterdam) and the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia. He teaches at University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland.

Career

Born in Berlin, Gerwarth earned a master's degree in history and politics from Humboldt University of Berlin in 2000. While working on his doctorate at the University of Oxford, Gerwarth was appointed to a two-year lectureship in modern European history. Shortly thereafter, he was awarded a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship. In 2003, Gerwarth received his Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford. Gerwarth is currently Director of the Centre for War Studies at University College Dublin. He is also Head of the School of History, a position that has a three-year duration, his term began in 2017. In 2008, Gerwarth debated Holocaust-denier David Irving on Irish television.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Robert Gerwarth” is german historian. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Robert, Gerwarth and German, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1976, 2000, 2003, 2017—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1976-02-12. For this dossier, Robert, Gerwarth and German is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “german historian” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2157257. VIAF identifies the subject as 71679142. The Library of Congress control number is nr2003028221. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 2000, 2003 and 2017.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Robert Gerwarth”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert Gerwarth primary sources, Robert Gerwarth archive and Robert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Robert Gerwarth”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Robert Gerwarth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.