Wilhelm Adolf Schmidt (
September 26,
1812,
Berlin -
April 10,
1887) was a
German historian.
He became in 1851 professor of history at Zürich[?], and nine years later professor at Jena[?], where he remained for the rest of his life. He was a member of the Frankfurt parliament in 1848, and of the German Reichstag from 1874 to 1876. His historical works deal mainly with modern German history, and the most important of them are:
- Preussens deutsche Politik (Berlin, 1850, and other editions)
- Geschichte der preussisch-deutschen Unionsbestrebungen (Berlin, 1851)
- Zeitgenössische Geschichten (Berlin, 1859)
- Elsass und Lothringen (Leipzig, 1859 and 1870)
- Geschichte der deutschen Verfassungsfrage während der Befreiungskriege und des Wiener Kongresses (Stuttgart, 1890), which was published after his death by A Stern.
Schmidt also wrote:
- Tableaux de la Révolution Française publiés sur les papiers inédits du département de la police secrete de Paris (Leipzig, 1867-1870)
- Pariser Zustände während der Revolutionszeit (Jena, 1874—1876), translated into French by P Viollet (Paris, 1880—1885)
- Das Perikleische Zeitalter (Jena, 1877—1879)
- Handbuch der griechischen Chronologie (Jena, 1888)
- Abhandlungen zur alten Geschichte (Leipzig, 1888).
See H. Landwehr, Zur Erinnerung an Adolf Schmidt (Berlin, 1887).