1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Raumer, Friedrich Ludwig Georg von

RAUMER, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG GEORG VON (1781-1873), German historian, was born at Wörlitz in Anhalt on the 14th of May 1781. His father (d. 1822), as Kammerdirektor in Anhalt, did excellent service to agriculture. After studying at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium, Berlin, and at the universities of Halle and Göttingen, Raumer began to practise law, and rose in the civil service under Hardenberg, the chancellor. He was made a professor at the university of Breslau in 1811, and in 1819 he became professor of political science and history at Berlin, holding the chair until 1847, and giving occasional lectures until 1853. In 1815 he had carried on historical investigations in Venice, and in the two following years he had travelled in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. In 1848 he was elected a member of the German parliament at Frankfort, where he associated himself with the right centre, supporting the proposal for a German empire under the supremacy of Prussia; and he was one of the deputation which offered the imperial crown to Frederick William IV. After the breakdown of the German parliament, Raumer returned to Berlin, where he was made a member of the first chamber of the Prussian parliament. He died at Berlin on the 14th of June 1873. Raumer's style is direct, lucid and vigorous, and in his day he was a popular historian, but judged by strictly scientific standards he does not rank among the first men of his time.