Ernst Walter Zeeden

In his life, Zeeden wrote about the Reformation and Confessionalization era. His research lead to a re-assessment of that period by German and European historians. His writings, his overall approach of all confessions, as well as his thesis about the Catholic traditions in 17th and 18th-century Lutheranism were well-received abroad.

Zeeden was habilitated at the University of Freiburg in 1947 and became an associate professor there in 1954. In 1957, he was called to the University of Tübingen. He became an Emeritus in 1984. Even though he originated from a Protestant family, Zeeden converted to Roman Catholicism and joined the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Freiburg on May 9th, 1954. His wife and his sister remained Protestant.

Ernst Walter Zeeden was born in Berlin as the son of regional court director Konrad Zeeden (1879–1925) and his wife Marianne. After he earned the Abitur at the Goethe-Gymnasium in Berlin, he studied history, German and Latin at the universities of Leipzig, Heidelberg, Munich and Freiburg. In Leipzig he was a member of student organisation Corps Saxonia Leipzig. In 1939, he earned a doctor's degree (Dr. phil) with his thesis Hardenberg und der Gedanke einer Volksvertretung in Preußen 1807–1812 under the supervision of Gerhard Ritter. On November 4, 1948, he married Pauline Dubbert in Freiburg. They had five children.

Ernst Walter Zeeden (born 14 May 1916 in Berlin; died 5 September 2011) was a German medievalist and a scholar of modern history.