Abstract
The Economic History Committee of the Verein für Socialpolitik was founded 70 years ago as the first interest group for economic and social history in Germany. As did its five counterparts of other subfields in economics, the committee aimed at intensifying academic exchange in this field. Furthermore, it served as a lobby organisation for the discipline in the fast changing politics of higher education in Germany. It therefore can be considered as an important step in the discipline’s professionalization. The article gives a brief overview of the development of economic history in Germany starting with the Historical School at the end of the 19th century. The second part is dedicated to the institutional and academic history of the committee using archival documentation.
About the author
Jan-Otmar Hesse ist seit 2015 Professor für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte an der Universität Bayreuth. Zuvor war er an den Universitäten in Bielefeld, Göttingen und Frankfurt tätig. Seine Forschungsinteressen liegen in der deutschen Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts und in der Geschichte des ökonomischen Denkens.
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