User:Elizab2/Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdi

Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdi was a 19th century German historian. He was born on February 7, 1838 in Leipzig and died on February 23, 1897 in Königsfelden, Switzerland. He was the son of Felix and Cecil Charlotte Sophie Mendelssohn Bartholdi and brother of industrialist Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdi.

His first years
Carl Mendelssohn Bartoldi was born in Leipzig, Germany and was the eldest son of the family. Later, at the age of 15, when he became an orphan, he went to Berlin to live with his uncle, Paul Mendelssohn Bartoldi, who was a banker.

Career
His uncle encouraged him to study law, with the result of Karl going to Heidelberg in the summer of 1857. Since then he wrote his first name with K instead of C and was renamed "Karl". In Heidelberg he became a member of the "Allemannia" fraternity. He completed his studies in 1859 with a diploma thesis in Law. He then began studying History, which he was forced to interrupt for two years (in 1860/61) due to his military service. In 1864 he received his doctorate with his dissertation on Ioannis Kapodistrias. Then, in 1867, he was appointed professor at the University of Heidelberg and in 1868 at the University of Freiburg.

Throughout his life, his relationship with his uncle, Paul, was strained. The beliefs of Karl, a Democrat and opponent of Prussian totalitarianism, led him to rupture his relations with the Mendelssohn family.

The history of revolutions belonged to his scientific interests. He studied in depth the Greek Revolution of 1821 and wrote the work "History of Greece from the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 until today" (Geschichte Griechenlands von der Eroberung Konstantinopels durch die Türken im Jahre 1453 bis auf unsere Tage). In fact, he visited Greece many times, to research the history of the Greek struggle and to meet people who participated in it. Carl Mendelssohn Bartoldi is one of the first historians who tried to present the Greek revolution in a more objective way, eliminating the idealizations of his time which wanted the Greeks to be united and to fight for the ideal of freedom and the preservation of their glorious past. According to the historian, Greek independence was mainly the result of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the action of the Great Powers in the region.

Personal life
At the age of 30, he got engaged to Bertha Eisenhardt (1848-1870). He had a daughter with her, Cecil (1870-1943). Bertha died in childbirth at the age of 21. Two years later he married his second wife, Mathilde von Mercky (1848-1937). He had a son with her, named Albert (1874-1936). At that time, a disease of the nerves, which had existed since his childhood, became more severe and led to physical collapse. He then applied for dismissal from Baden's public service and went to Switzerland, where he remained at the Kούνnigsfelden psychiatric clinic until his death 23 years later.