News
In Memoriam: Professor Peter Hertner (1942-2023)
Recently, we were informed that Professor Peter Hertner, member of the ESTER network, passed away on 26 April 2023.
Born in 1942 in Ulm, Southern Germany, he studied in Heidelberg, Besançon, Basel, Strasbourg, Paris, and Marburg where he was awarded his diploma in Economics in 1968, and he also obtained his PhD in 1971, with a dissertation on the economic and social history of Strasbourg, 1650-1715.
He was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social and Economic History in Marburg, from 1970 until 1977. From 1977 until 1981 he was a Junior Professor (Akademischer Rat) at the Institut für Geschichte der Technischen Hochschule in Darmstadt. He joined the European University Institute in 1981, first as a Research Assistant in the HEC Department until 1986, and subsequently as a full Professor until 1988, after he received his habilitation in Darmstadt in 1986, with a thesis on the German capital export to Italy and the development of the Italian economy, 1861-1894. Between 1981 and 1989 Hertner held various teaching positions in Italy, at the Università L’Orientale, Naples, the universities of Ancona and Genoa, and at the Bocconi Business School in Milan. He was named Director of the EUI library in 1988 until 1995 and remained as an external Professor in the EUI History Department.
In April 1995, he was appointed Professor of Economic and Social History at the Martin-Luther-Universität in Halle-Wittenberg. He was a member of the editorial board and co-editor of Italian economic history journals, a member of the Scientific Board of the German Historical Institute in Rome, of the Comité pour l’histoire de l’electricité in Paris, of the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte and of the European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH) both in Frankfurt and Main.
On behalf of the ESTER network, the staff of the N.W. Posthumus Institute expresses its condolences to Professor Peter Hertner’s family, his colleagues and all that were close to him.
This in memoriam is based on the extended obituary by Serge Noiret, Visiting Fellow at the EUI History Department.
