Gerald Stourzh

Gerald Stourzh (born 15 May 1929 in Vienna, Austria) is an Austrian historian who studies modern history, especially the history of North America, of Austria, of political ideas, of constitutions and especially of human rights. He taught, as a professor, at the Free University of Berlin from 1964 to 1969, and at the University of Vienna from 1969 until 1997, when he became professor emeritus. Life and scientific career Gerald Stourzh, born in Vienna in 1929, was the only child of Herbert and Helene Stourzh (née Anderle). His parents were both University graduates (the father Lutheran, the mother Catholic). Gerald himself is Lutheran. As R.G. Plaschka wrote about him in an encomium in 1991, "there is something of his Lutheran ancestors, of his Lutheran heritage in him, when, confronted by a question of principle, he indicates, shrugging: Here I stand." His mother, a practising gynecologist, had obtained her doctorate in 1915 when this was still quite unusual for a woman. His father had studied philosophy and made his living employed by the government of Lower Austria, but his real calling was that of a philosophical and political writer. As early as 1934, he wrote warningly about "National Bestialism", as he called National Socialism. After the Anschluss in 1940, the Gestapo started to investigate Herbert Stourzh, but his early death due to cancer in 1941 probably saved him from greater problems.