Richard Konetzke (born March 20, 1897 in Hangelsberg in Berlin; † 29 May 1980 in Schleiden / Eifel) was a German historian.Richard Konetzke studied history, German philology and in Marburg and Berlin. He received his academic education particularly at Otto Hintze and Friedrich Meinecke. In 1921 he received his doctorate in Meinecke and Ernst Troeltsch working Isaak Iselin and the idea of the state of enlightenment. After graduation, he joined the higher education service. 1925 followed by studies in Spanish archives of the history of enlightened absolutism in Spain. The research resulted in 1929 published work on the policy of Count Aranda. Since 1930 he was a teacher. Konetzkes 1939 published presentation history of Spanish and Portuguese people became the standard work for the Iberian history from the German perspective. In 1941 he was commissioned by the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin with research on the history of Spanish colonization in America. Of its obligations in the teaching profession, he was largely freed. 1943 he published his seminal work The Spanish Empire. In 1944 he went to Spain for archival research. He devoted special attention to the social history of colonial Spanish America. Research on Latin American history, he sat from 1952 to 1954 as a Research Associate at Duke University in Durham on. In 1954 he was appointed lecturer in Cologne. 1955 took place there his habilitation. In the same year he was Scientific Council, and in 1956 an adjunct professor. Konetzke taught since 1961 as an associate professor of Iberian and Latin American History at the University of Cologne and was also director of the Iberian Latin American Department of the History Department. Since 1964 he was an honorary professor at the University of Córdoba. In 1964 he founded together with Hermann Kellenbenz the Yearbook of History of state, economy and society in Latin America. In 1965 he became Professor Emeritus. He was succeeded in 1967 by his pupil Günter Kahle. 1973 Konetzke was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross 1st class of the Federal Republic of Germany. [1] Konetzke is considered one of the founders of Latin American history
