Gerhard Georg Bernhard Ritter (6 April 1888 – 1 July 1967) was a German historian who served as a professor of history at the University of Freiburg from 1925 to 1956. He studied under Professor Hermann Oncken. A Lutheran, he first became well known for his 1925 biography of Martin Luther and hagiographic portrayal of Prussia. A member of the German People's Party during the Weimar Republic, he was a lifelong monarchist and remained sympathetic to the political system of the defunct German Empire.
A critic of both democracy and totalitarianism, he supported authoritarian rule and German supremacy in Europe. His vision of history was narrowed to German interests, had little sympathy for foreign nations, and was full of disdain for Catholicism. Eventually, his conflict with the Nazi regime got him arrested by it in 1944.
After World War II, Ritter worked to restore German nationalism by attempting to separate it from Nazi ideology and favored pursuit of German national interests, rather than reconciliation with the victims of German aggression. At the end of his career, he argued against theories of the German historian Fritz Fischer. Ritter became an honorary member of the American Historical Association in 1959.
Ritter was born in Bad Sooden-Allendorf (now in the federal state of Hesse, in Central Germany). His father was a Lutheran clergyman. The young Ritter was educated at a gymnasium in Gütersloh.
His studies were continued at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Heidelberg University, and Leipzig University. Ritter began serving as a teacher in 1912. While studying at Heidelberg University, he was a research assistant to the national-liberal historian Hermann Oncken, who was a major influence on Ritter. Professor Oncken opposed the Nazis and was forced to resign in 1935.
Ritter's first book was published in 1913: Die preußischen Konservativen und Bismarcks deutsche Politik (The Prussian Conservatives and Bismarck's German Policy). It was his PhD dissertation completed in 1911 under the supervision of Oncken. Ritter examined the dispute between Otto von Bismarck and conservative Prussian Junkers from 1858 to 1876. The Junkers felt that Bismarck's policy was a menace to their traditional privileges. A source of special conflict between Bismarck and the Junkers was their opposition to Bismarck's compromises with the southern German states, which were seen as a threat to the traditional powers that they enjoyed. The theme of the extent of one's allegiance to those who hold power would be a recurring subject in Ritter's works.
Ritter fought as an infantryman in the First World War. Ritter was strongly committed to a German victory. He criticised the ideology of Pan-German League as chauvinistic nationalism, but he found it difficult to come to terms with the German defeat.
He regarded the German defeat of 1918 as a great disaster. Ritter believed that the monarchy had been the best form of government for Germany and that the Weimar Republic was a grave mistake since Germany did not have a tradition of republicanism. Ritter subscribed to the 19th-century view of history as a form of political education for the elite, and contemporary politics were always a pressing concern for him.
In 1919, he married Gertrud Reichardt with whom he had three children.
Ritter worked as a professor at Heidelberg University (1918–1923), the University of Hamburg (1923–1925), and the University of Freiburg (1925–1956). During his time at Heidelberg University, he began an official history of the university from the Middle Ages to the present, but only one volume was ever published.
In 1925, Ritter published a sympathetic biography of Martin Luther that made his reputation as a historian. Ritter treated his subject as an excellent example of the "eternal German". Ritter argued against the view of Luther as an opportunist, which was promoted by Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber, and instead contended that Luther was a man of faith, who possessed the ability to expose what Ritter regarded as grave flaws in the Catholic Church. Ritter argued that Luther had inspired his followers to have the self-confidence to improve the world.
Ritter's Luther biography was written in large part under the impact of the defeat of 1918 and so Ritter went to great lengths to defend what he regarded as the unique German spirit against what Ritter saw as the corrupt materialist spiritual outlook of the West. Throughout his life, Lutheranism was a major influence on Ritter's writings.
In particular, Ritter agreed with Luther's argument that the moral values of Christianity were relevant to only the individual, not the state. Citing Luther, Ritter argued that the state had to hold power and that as part of the messy business of politics, it could be guided only by the Christian values of its leaders. Taking up of the ideas of Rudolf Kjellén and Friedrich Patzel, Ritter argued that the state should be regarded as a living entity, which, to live successfully, required economic and territorial growth. Using that argument, Ritter contended that Frederick the Great's invasion of Silesia in 1740 was a necessary act to allow the Prussian state to live regardless of international laws against aggression.
During the last years of the Weimar Republic, Ritter changed his focus from the medieval period to the early modern period to the modern period and from cultural history to biographies of political figures. In 1931, Ritter wrote the biography of the Prussian statesmen Karl vom Stein. Ritter's two-volume work portrayed Stein as the total opposite of Bismarck. Ritter argued that Bismarck was the ultimate power politician and that Stein was the ultimate anti-power politician. Ritter argued that Stein's success as a politician was limited by his moralism but contended that despite his lack of political sense, he was nonetheless successful because of his strong moral character.
On 11 February 1933, in a letter to a friend, Ritter described his intentions:
I am planning to write two books. One will be entitled 'What is Liberalism?', and will be the attempt to pave the way for the founding of a large national party of the center, a party which we need today more than ever before. The book will contribute to the drafting of a new liberal national program, which will offer political orientation based on historical reflection.... The second book is to...shed light on the great crises in the political and intellectual history of Germany, and will thus explain the present state of mind of the German people. This second book will serve two purposes. It will develop a new concept of the history of our nation... and it will help deepen the notion of the idea of German nationality and national consciousness after a time which this idea has in public use become unbearably trivial. New tasks are crowding in upon us. In our era the historian acquires a distinctive national function, an educational function. Certainly, for the time being no one wants to listen to him, because everyone is still running after noisy political agitators. But I am confident that a time will come when everyone will be thoroughly fed up with the din of national phrase-making and will long for a pure drink instead of the inebriating potion administered by the Nazis. The historian has to prepare positions for the reserves...".
Already, at mid-day on January 30, 1933, in a fateful step, German President Paul von Hindenburg had confirmed the leader of the Nazi Party as the new German chancellor, who would lead, for a time, a minority government.
Initially, Ritter supported the Nazi regime despite severe doubts about the Nazis, particularly over the regime's persecution of the churches. He reconciled himself to refraining from censure of the regime and its foreign policy. In 1940, he stated that "the sword is always more ready to the hand of continental statesman who stands in the midst of the fray of European power interests, and must always be armed to counter an attack before it is too late". He agreed with Benito Mussolini that "might is the precondition of all freedom".