Victor Ehrenberg (historian)

Victor Ehrenberg ( born November 22, 1891 in Altona, † January 25, 1976 in London ) was a German historian who emigrated to the UK due to Nazi persecution.

Ehrenberg, nephew of the same lawyers Victor Ehrenberg, studied post-school in Kassel first architecture in Stuttgart, then in 1912 altertumswissenschaftliche subjects in Göttingen and Berlin. After four years of military service in the First World War, he continued his studies in Tübingen, where he received his doctorate in 1920 and his habilitation in 1922 in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1929 he was appointed to the Chair of Ancient History at the German University of Prague. Shortly before the German invasion Ehrenberg fled with his family in February 1939 to Britain, where he received a number of teaching (including Newcastle ) during World War II. In 1946 he accepted a professorship at the University of London, after he had refused a professorship in Munich because he did not want to return to Germany.

The focus of Ehrenberg's long span of scientific work was in the range of Greek history. His most well known book dealt with the title Aristophanes and the people of Athens with the " sociology of altattischen comedy".

Ehrenberg's sons were the historian Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton and the physicist and educator Lewis RB Elton; one of his grandsons is the writer and comedian Ben Elton.

Writings (selection )

• East and West. Studies on the historical problems of antiquity. Brno 1935.
• Alexander and the Greeks. Blackwell, Oxford, 1938.
• The people of Aristophanes.. Blackwell, Oxford, 1943 German edition: Aristophanes and the people of Athens. A sociology of altattischen comedy. Artemis, Zurich and Stuttgart in 1968.
• The state of the Greeks. 2nd expanded edition. Artemis, Zurich and Stuttgart in 1965.
• Polis and Empire. Contributions to Ancient History. Edited by K. F. Stroheker and A. J. Graham. Artemis, Zurich and Stuttgart in 1965.