Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Weidenreich, Franz

(Encyclopedia)Weidenreich, Franz vīˈdĕnrīkh [key], 1873–1948, German anatomist and physical anthropologist. He was educated at the universities of Munich, Kiel, Berlin, and Strasbourg. In 1921 he became profe...

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim

(Encyclopedia)Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim gôtˈhôlt āˈfräĭm [key], 1729–81, German philosopher, dramatist, and critic, one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment. He was connected with the theat...

Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig

(Encyclopedia)Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig frēˈdrĭkh lo͞otˈvĭkh yän [key], 1778–1852, German patriot. A high school teacher in Berlin, he was active in efforts to free Germany from Napoleonic rule. He organized ...

Spree

(Encyclopedia)Spree shprā [key], river, c.250 mi (400 km) long, rising in the Lausitz Mts., E Central Germany, near the Czech Republic border. It flows N past Cottbus, then NW through the Spree Forest, and from th...

Sybel, Heinrich von

(Encyclopedia)Sybel, Heinrich von hīnˈrĭkh fən zēˈbəl [key], 1817–95, German historian. He studied under Ranke at the Univ. of Berlin, but later abandoned the Rankean striving for objective history; he beg...

Potsdam

(Encyclopedia)Potsdam pŏtsˈdăm [key], city (1994 pop. 139,262), capital of Brandenburg, E Germany, on the Havel River, near Berlin. It is an industrial center and rail junction. Manufactures include processed fo...

Gauck, Joachim

(Encyclopedia)Gauck, Joachim, 1940–, German political and human-rights activist, president of Germany (2012–17), b. Rostock. An anticommunist from his youth, Gauck was ordained a Lutheran minister and was pasto...

Furtwängler, Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Furtwängler, Wilhelm fo͝ortˈvĕng-lər [key], 1886–1954, German conductor, b. Berlin; son of Adolf Furtwängler. One of the greatest orchestral conductors of the 20th cent., he studied music in ...

Laban, Rudolf von

(Encyclopedia)Laban, Rudolf von fôn läbˈän [key], 1879–1958, Slovakian dancer, choreographer, and dance theorist. After studying in Paris and performing in N Africa, Germany, and Austria, he founded (1910) a ...

Piscator, Erwin

(Encyclopedia)Piscator, Erwin pĭskäˈtôr [key], 1893–1966, German theatrical director and producer who, with Bertolt Brecht, was the foremost exponent of epic theater, a genre that emphasizes the sociopolitica...