The Department of History mourns the death of Rudolf Lill
On July 18, the long-time and formative holder of the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the Institute of History of the University Fridericiana zu Karlsruhe (TH) passed away in his hometown of Cologne. Lill continued the tradition of Franz Schnabel and developed Karlsruhe history into a special combination of political modern history and history of technology, in whose tradition the Department of History stands.
Among others, Lill was a student of the influential Cologne historian of modern history Theodor Schieder. He spent a period that shaped him throughout his life as a research assistant at the German Historical Institute in Rome. He was a research assistant at the German Historical Institute in Rome. There Lill developed into one of Germany's leading historians of Italy, Catholicism, and the Pope. His 'Geschichte Italiens in der Neuzeit' (History of Italy in the Modern Era), first published in 1980, is one of the foundational works of modern German historiography of Italy, combining the history of politics, culture, Christianity and mentality. After professorships in Cologne and Passau, Lill took over the Schnabel Chair at the Fridericiana in 1983. In the early 1990s, he successfully lobbied for the establishment of a professorship in the history of technology at the Institute of History. Lill also founded and directed the regional contemporary history research center Resistance to National Socialism in the German Southwest, which, in addition to researching Nazi opponents in context, was dedicated to historical-political education and memory work. From 1993 to 1996, Lill served as secretary general of the German-Italian Center Villa Vigoni on Lake Como. Visiting professorships took Lill to Rome, Florence, and Pavia, among other places. From 1993 until his retirement in 2000, Lill again researched and taught in Karlsruhe. He published, among others, basic studies on the contemporary history of Tyrol ('Südtirol in der Zeit des Nationalismus', 2002) and on the ultramontanization of the Catholic Church since the last third of the 19th century ('Die Macht der Päpste', 2011). After his retirement, Lill was the contact person of Deutschlandfunk for Italiana and Catholica.
The Department of History mourns Rudolf Lill as a great European historian of modernity and Christianity as well as a critical contemporary historian.
Rolf-Ulrich Kunze
Rolf-Ulrich Kunze
August 2020