Karl Lamprecht (1856-1915) was one of the best-known and most distinguished German historians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He studied history in Leipzig and Göttingen, habilitated in Bonn in 1880 and worked at the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität first as a private lecturer and from 1888 as an extaordinarius. In 1890 he was called to Marburg and in 1891 to the University of Leipzig, where he worked until his death in 1915. In his research and publications, especially in his "Deutsche Geschichte" (German History) published between 1891 and 1909, Lamprecht stressed the importance of cultural history and the material prerequisites for the legal development of peoples and societies. In the course of this dispute, numerous historians took a stand against Lamprechts views and, in the tradition of Leopold von Rankes, emphasized the primacy of political and personal history. Today Karl Lamprecht is considered one of the founders of economic and social history. Other important fields of activity were the history of the country, university pedagogy and foreign cultural policy. 1915 Karl Lamprecht died leaving behind an extensive scientific legacy. In 1920 he was taken to Walbeck Castle (Geldern district), where his older daughter Marianne lived as the wife of the owner Walther Friedrich Klein-Walbeck since 1920. In 1931 and 1933, small parts of the estate were sent to the Leipzig Institute for Universal History, where they were either burned or badly damaged during the war. The remaining stock in Walbeck, or partially outsourced stock, also suffered damage from fire bombs and water during the Second World War. After the death of Marianne Klein-Walbeck (née Lamprecht) in 1946, the estate came into the possession of her younger sister Else Rose-Schütz (née Lamprecht). However, part of the estate was blasted off at that time and remained at Walbeck Castle, united with the Klein-Walbeck family archive. The Bonn University and State Library received the estate of Karl Lamprecht between 1957 and 2012 in a total of three tranches. The main estate remaining with Else Rose-Schütz (Tranche 1) was sold to the Bonn University Library in 1957. A very small part remained in family ownership. The part of the estate remaining on Klein-Walbeck (tranche 2) was deposited in the Kleve District Archive in 1996. In 2010, this part of the estate was transferred to the Bonn University and State Library. The positions that belonged to the Klein-Walbeck family archive in terms of cause and provenance remained in the district archive. In 2012, ULB Bonn received the letters still in family ownership (Tranche 3). In a project sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the entire estate in HANS was newly catalogued and verified in Kalliope. In addition, about two thirds of the documents have been digitised and are accessible online in the ULB's Digital Collections.
