University of Freiburg Awards Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize to Jörn Leonhard

Prof. Dr Jörn Leonhard, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History of Western Europe at the University of Freiburg, received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation (DFG) on 13 March 2024. The DFG is honouring Leonhard’s work in the field of European and transatlantic cultural and political history of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The award is regarded as the most important research funding prize in Germany and is endowed with 2.5 million euros. Leonhard would like to use the prize money to support academics in the early stages of their careers, such as doctoral candidates, postdoctoral researchers and visiting academics. He also plans to further increase the international nature of his research even more than before. “What interests me at the moment is the global history of the 1920s and 30s, the global crisis of democracy and capitalism.” In a broader sense, it is about the question of what holds societies together or what causes them to erode, says Leonhard in the video interview.