Definitions

Ludwig

Ludwig

[luhd-wig, lood-vig, -wig; Ger. loot-vikh, lood-]
Lewisohn, Ludwig, 1882-1955, American author, b. Berlin. After teaching German at Ohio State (1911-19), he was associate editor for the Nation (1920-24). His novels include Don Juan (1923), The Island Within (1928), The Case of Mr. Crump (1926), and In a Summer Season (1955). A prominent Zionist, Lewisohn often wrote on Jewish affairs. Besides making several notable translations from the German, he was a distinguished literary and drama critic; among his critical works are The Creative Life (1924) and Cities and Men (1927). He was one of the founding professors of Brandeis Univ.

See his autobiographical works, Upstream (1922) and Mid-Channel (1929).

Windthorst, Ludwig, 1812-91, German political leader. As a founder and head of the Catholic Center party, he became the Reichstag's foremost opponent of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the dispute between the chancellor and the German Roman Catholics known as the Kulturkampf. Remarkable for parliamentary skill, he later helped Bismarck seek a reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church.
Quidde, Ludwig, 1858-1941, German pacifist and historian. He was elected (1907) to the Bavarian diet, was a member (1919-22) of the national assembly at Weimar, and later served in the Reichstag. Indefatigable in his attacks on German imperialism, he was briefly imprisoned for his brochure, Caligula: eine Studie über römischen Cäsarenwahnsinn [Caligula: a study in Roman Caesarean madness] (1894), an obvious polemic in which Caligula represented Emperor William II. A leading supporter of the League of Nations, Quidde shared the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize with Ferdinand Buisson. He lived in exile in Switzerland during World War I and again after Hitler's rise to power.
Devrient, Ludwig, 1784-1832, German actor. He abandoned a commercial career in 1804 to join a traveling theatrical company. In Berlin he was a favorite in comedy and tragedy, especially in the works of Shakespeare and Schiller. His three nephews were actors. Karl August Devrient, 1797-1872, was popular in heroic and character roles such as Lear, Shylock, and Faust. Karl's brother, Philipp Eduard Devrient, 1801-77, directed the Court Theater, Dresden (1844-46), and the Karlsruhe Theater (1852-70). He wrote several plays and also a history of the German stage (1848-74) in five volumes. With his son, Otto, he published translations of Shakespeare's plays. Gustave Emil Devrient, 1803-72, was the youngest and most gifted of the three brothers. He excelled in youthful, heroic parts. When he gave Hamlet in London, his portrayal was said to equal that of Edmund Kean.
Gumplowicz, Ludwig, 1838-1909, Austrian sociologist, political scientist, and jurist. From 1897 to 1909 he was a professor at Graz. He held that social development rose out of conflict, first among races, then among states, then among other social groups. His theories are expressed chiefly in Der Rassenkampf [race conflict] (1883) and Grundriss der Soziologie (1885, tr. The Outlines of Sociology, 1899).
Pastor, Ludwig, Freiherr von, 1854-1928, German historian. The author of the monumental and authoritative History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages (40 vol., tr. 1891-1953), he combined a Roman Catholic bias with the most painstaking scholarship and erudition. He was privileged with access to the secret archives of the Vatican, and his history, largely based on hitherto unused documents, supersedes all previous histories of the popes. Pastor's theme is that the shortcomings of the papacy have reflected flaws of the age. Although not an unqualified defender of Catholicism, he has been criticized for lack of objectivity. He was Austrian minister to the Vatican from 1921.
Richter, Ludwig, 1803-84, German painter, illustrator, and etcher; son and pupil of the engraver Karl Richter (1770-1848). His characteristic paintings combine figure and landscape, as in Bridal Procession in Springtime. Richter made approximately 240 etchings, including scenes in Saxony and Rome, and over 1,000 drawings for woodcuts, including illustrations for Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Schiller's poem "Song of the Bell," and many German fairy tales. They are executed in a simple, often humorous manner.
Beck, Ludwig, 1880-1944, German general, leader of resistance to Hitler. A highly cultivated career soldier, he served on the general staff during World War I and by 1933 had become in effect head of the army general staff. He opposed Hitler's plans for aggression and his attempts to destroy the independence of the army. In 1938 he resigned in protest against the planned attack on Czechoslovakia. With Carl F. Goerdeler he thereafter conspired to overthrow the regime. Their efforts were repeatedly frustrated until July 20, 1944, when a bomb was placed in Hitler's conference room. Hitler escaped. Beck was arrested and shot.
Boltzmann, Ludwig, 1844-1906, Austrian physicist, b. Vienna, educated at Univ. of Vienna. He began teaching (1869) at Graz Univ. In 1873 he became mathematics professor at Vienna and then physics professor at Graz (1876), Munich (1890), Vienna (1895), and Leipzig (1900). Boltzmann made important contributions to the kinetic theory of gases and to statistical mechanics—the Boltzmann constant, which relates the mean total energy of a molecule to its absolute temperature, is used widely in statistics and is named for him. Working independently, he demonstrated a law on black body radiation that had been stated by the Austrian physicist Josef Stefan; hence the law is sometimes known as the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Tieck, Ludwig, 1773-1853, German writer. In his youth he led the transition from Sturm und Drang to romanticism, writing with W. H. Wackenroder Phantasien über die Kunst (1799), essays on aesthetics, and Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen (1798), one of the first German romantic novels. His fairy tales and folk tales, notably Der blonde Eckbert (1796) and Volksmärchen (1797), illustrate the romantic refinement of these genres. Kaiser Octavianus (1804), a poetic drama, is an allegory of the rise of Christianity; it exemplifies the romantic glorification of the Middle Ages. Other works include Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen (1826), a fine example of romantic historical fiction, and Phantasus (3 vol., 1812-16; tr. Tales from the Phantasus, 1845), a collection of stories. Tieck also translated Don Quixote and completed, with his daughter Dorothea and her husband, Graf von Baudissin, the translations of Shakespeare begun by A. W. von Schlegel.

See studies by W. J. Lillyman (1979) and R. Paulin (1987).

Ludwig. For German rulers thus named, use Louis.
Ludwig, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm, 1816-95, German physiologist. He became world famous as professor (from 1865) and head of the physiological institute at the Univ. of Leipzig. Ludwig pioneered in the study of physiology as related to the physical sciences and introduced improved laboratory methods and apparatus, notably the kymograph.
Ludwig, Christa, 1928-, German mezzo-soprano, b. Berlin. The daughter of opera singers, she debuted (1946) as Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus at the Frankfurt State Opera and starred at the Vienna State Opera from her debut as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro in 1955 until her retirement from singing in 1994. Her first American performance took place in Chicago in 1959, the same year she debuted at New York's Metropolitan Opera. One of the outstanding mezzos of her generation, she had an unusually expressive voice and broad vocal range. Among her signature roles were Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Kundry in Parsifal, the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and the title role in Carmen. Also adept at lieder, Ludwig was a particularly impressive interpreter of Mahler's songs.

See her memoir, In My Own Voice (1999).

Ludwig, Emil, 1881-1948, German biographer, originally named Emil Cohn. His vivid and dramatic (although sometimes unreliable) portraits of great men include Goethe (1920, tr. 1928), Napoleon (1924, tr. 1926), Bismarck (1926, tr. 1927), The Son of Man (1928, tr. 1928), and Schliemann of Troy (1931, tr. 1931). Among his other works are the "biographies" The Mediterranean (1927, tr. 1942) and The Nile (1935, tr. 1936). Ludwig left Germany for Switzerland in 1907.
Ludwig, Otto, 1813-65, German writer. He was one of Germany's first modern realists; although his plots were melodramatic, he sketched accurate and detailed backgrounds. After Hebbel, he was the most notable national dramatist of the period. Among his plays is the tragedy Die Erbförster (1850, tr., The Forest Warden, 1912). Ludwig's best-remembered works, however, are two tales, Die Heiterthei (1853) and, especially, Zwischen Himmel und Erde (1856, tr. Between Heaven and Earth, 1911).
Yorck von Wartenburg or York von Wartenburg, Ludwig, Graf, 1759-1830, Prussian army officer. He commanded the Prussian auxiliary corps that had been sent to aid in the campaign of the French emperor Napoleon I against Russia (1812). When he realized that the expedition was doomed to failure he withdrew on his own responsibility from the fighting and concluded the Convention of Tauroggen with the Russians (see Taurage). His action was lauded by the nationalistic Prussians, desirous of escaping from their virtual vassalage to France, which had been imposed by the treaty of Tilsit in 1807 following Prussia's defeat by France. King Frederick William III of Prussia subsequently approved his act, and Prussia entered the coalition against Napoleon. Yorck defeated (1813) a French force at Wartenburg in Saxony, thus earning his title.
York von Wartenburg, Ludwig, Graf: see Yorck von Wartenburg, Ludwig, Graf.
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969, German-American architect. A pioneer of modern architecture and one of its most influential figures, he is famous for his minimalist architectural dictum "less is more." In Germany, he was an assistant to Peter Behrens. Mies's 1921 design for an all-glass skyscraper attracted international attention, and he went on to create several such projects, none of them actually constructed. He directed the seminal 1927 Werkbund Housing Exposition at Stuttgart. His German Pavilion for the Barcelona International Exposition (1929; recently reerected) was heralded for its sumptuous materials, asymmetrical plan, and complex interpenetration of exterior and interior spaces. Mies was appointed director of the Bauhaus at Dessau (1930).

He left Germany in 1937 for the United States, where, from 1938 until his retirement in 1958, he headed the department of architecture at Chicago's Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), teaching and putting into practice the Bauhaus aesthetic that fused art with technology. There he planned the new campus and designed (1942-58) several of its buildings, notably the superb Crown Hall (1956), home of the architectecture department. During this period he also created some private homes, including the outstanding 1951 Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill., now a state museum. In the 860 Lake Shore Drive apartments in Chicago (1949-51), the Seagram Building in New York (with Philip Johnson; 1956-58), and other buildings, Mies incorporated the principles of the glass skyscraper with a surface expression of steel-frame construction. In doing so he helped create a style that dominated the American urban modernist idiom, but with a perfectionism rarely matched by any other architect. He also experimented with buildings of a single great space, such as the New National Gallery in Berlin (1962-68).

See his works ed. by M. Pawley (1970); biographies by F. Schulze (1985) and Y. E. Safran (2000); studies by P. Johnson (1953), A. Drexler (1960), P. Blake (1964 and 1996), P. Carter (1974), W. Tegethoff (1980), J. Zukowsky, ed. (1986), E. S. Hochman (1989 and 1990), W. Blaser (rev. ed. 1997), E. Stoller (1999), R. Daza (2000), and P. Lambert, ed. (2001).

Uhland, Ludwig, 1787-1862, German poet, leader of the Swabian group. He studied and practiced law at Tübingen, held various official posts, and taught German literature. His lyrics and ballads, almost all written in his youth, made him one of the most popular German poets of the romantic period. Noted for their lucid, polished style, they include "The Minstrel's Curse," "The Good Comrade," and "Taillefer." His other works include Gedichte [poems] (1815), Vaterländische Gedichte [songs of the fatherland] (1816), and the unsuccessful drama Ludwig der Bayer (1819), which, however, contains some of his best verse.
Bamberger, Ludwig, 1823-99, German economist, politician, and journalist. An ardent liberal, he took part in the Revolution of 1848 and was forced to live in exile until 1866. He worked for the unification of Germany, and as a leader of the National Liberals he supported Otto von Bismarck until he was alienated by the chancellor's turn to protection and state socialism. In 1880, Bamberger led a group out of the party. As a member of the Reichstag (1871-93), he was chiefly responsible for the adoption of the gold standard in Germany and for the founding of the Reichsbank.
Thoma, Ludwig, 1867-1921, German novelist, dramatist, and poet. Thoma satirized Bavarian rural and small-town life. His serious peasant novels Andreas Vöst (1905), Der Wittiber (1911), and Der Ruepp (1922), as well as his humorous collections Assessor Karlchen (1900), Lausbubengeschichten [rascal stories] (1904), and Tante Frieda [Aunt Frieda] (1906), are characterized by authenticity of regional language and life. Thoma's dramas, including Die Medaille [the medal] (1901), Das Säuglingsheim [the orphanage] (1913), and especially Moral (1908), reflect elements of folk theater.
Spohr, Ludwig or Louis, 1784-1859, German composer, conductor, and violinist. After touring Europe extensively, he was (1822-57) court conductor in Kassel. His prolific output includes 11 operas, of which Faust (1816) and Jessonda (1823) are the most important; 9 symphonies, many of them programmatic; 15 violin concertos; numerous oratorios and other choral works; and a large quantity of chamber music. His music, which was influential in his day, shows a curious mixture of conservative and progressive tendencies. A mannered chromaticism, derived from Mozart, anticipated that of Wagner, whose works Spohr was one of the first to champion. As a violinist, Spohr developed a style which, through his teaching and his famous Violinschule (1831), became the basis for the German school of violin playing.

See his autobiography (1845, tr. 1878).

Erhard, Ludwig, 1897-1977, German political leader and economist. In Nuremberg he rose to be director of the institute for economic research. Dismissed (1942) by the Nazi regime, he then headed the institute for industrial research. He introduced (1948) the currency reform that paved the way for West German economic recovery. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he became West German economics minister in 1949. In 1957 he was named vice chancellor, and in 1963 he succeeded Konrad Adenauer as chancellor. In late 1966, Erhard's government fell after the four Free Democratic party ministers in his cabinet resigned and left him without a ruling majority in the federal parliament. He headed the CDU in 1966-67. His writings include Prosperity through Competition (1957, tr. 1958).
Anzengruber, Ludwig, 1839-89, Austrian writer. An actor and a clerk in the imperial police, Anzengruber had little success as a writer until the production (1870) of his anticlerical play Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld [the parish priest of Kirchfeld]. It was the first of a series of folk plays and was followed by Der Meineidbauer (1871, tr. The Farmer Forsworn, 1913-15) and Die Kreuzelschreiber (1872, tr. The Crossmakers, 1958). Das vierte Gebot (1878, tr. The Fourth Commandment, 1912) is an early example of naturalism. Anzengruber also wrote short stories and two novels.
Mond, Ludwig, 1839-1909, chemist; father of Alfred Moritz Mond. He was born in Germany and became a naturalized British subject. Mond experimented with alkalies and also developed a producer gas known by his name. He was cofounder and director of Brunner-Mond (1872), which became the world's largest producer of alkalies. Another outstanding discovery of his was nickel carbonyl, a gas formed from carbon monoxide and metallic nickel. Mond developed a valuable method known as the Mond process for extracting nickel from its ores by use of this carbonyl. In the process, carbon monoxide passing over the crushed and smelted ore containing nickel produces the volatile nickel carbonyl; this is decomposed to yield metallic nickel.

(born April 26, 1889, Vienna—died April 29, 1951, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.) Austrian-born English philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. He was born into an immensely wealthy and cultivated family. In 1908 he went to Manchester, Eng., to study aeronautics. He soon developed an obsessive interest in the philosophy of logic and mathematics, and in 1911 he went to Cambridge to study logic with Bertrand Russell. Within a year he had learned all Russell had to teach; he then went to Norway, where he worked on logic in isolation in a wooden hut he built by the side of a fjord. There he developed in embryo what became known as the “picture theory” of meaning, a central tenet of which is that a proposition can express a fact by virtue of sharing with it a common structure, or “logical form.” When World War I broke out he joined the Austrian army, winning several decorations for bravery while serving on the Russian front. During the war he worked on a manuscript that was later published as Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922). Believing that he had solved all the major problems of philosophy, he abandoned the subject after the war and spent the next 10 years as a schoolteacher and doing other odd jobs in a remote Austrian village. Meanwhile, the Tractatus had attracted the attention of philosophers in Cambridge and Vienna, including those of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists (see logical positivism), some of whose meetings Wittgenstein was persuaded to join. He returned to Cambridge in 1929. During the early 1930s his ideas changed rapidly, and he gradually abandoned the doctrines of the Tractatus; indeed, he began to conceive of philosophy in radically different terms, as not the construction of theories designed to answer philosophical questions but as the activity of clearing up conceptual confusions arising from inattention to or misunderstandings of ordinary uses of language. What became known as the works of the “later Wittgenstein”—including Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956), Philosophical Grammar (1974), Philosophical Remarks (1975), and especially Philosophical Investigations (1953)—can be considered attempts to refine and definitively express this new approach. Though he worked with fierce energy and wrote prodigiously, he would allow none of his work from this period to be published in his lifetime. In 1939 he was appointed to the chair in philosophy at Cambridge previously held by G.E. Moore. Disliking professional philosophy, he resigned the post in 1947 to live in seclusion in Ireland and then with various friends. Diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1949, he continued working intensively until two days before his death. Seealso analytic philosophy.

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(born May 31, 1773, Berlin, Prussia—died April 28, 1853, Berlin) German writer and critic. He was educated at the universities of Halle, Göttingen, and Erlangen. His first works are associated with early Romanticism, the best appealing to the emotions rather than the intellect. Volksmärchen (1797) includes one of his best short novels, Blond Eckbert. This period culminated in the grotesque, lyrical plays Life and Death of St. Genevieve (1800) and Emperor Octavian (1804). Later his writing moved toward realism. While he was an adviser and critic at the Dresden theatre (1825–42), he became a great literary authority.

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orig. Ludwig Spohr

(born April 5, 1784, Brunswick, Brunswick—died Oct. 22, 1859, Kassel, Hesse) German composer and violinist. He was kapellmeister in Kassel from 1822 and remained there the rest of his life, eventually directing all the city's music. Highly prolific, he wrote 15 violin concertos, 4 clarinet concertos, many operas (including Jessonda, 1823), 9 symphonies (including The Consecration of Sound, 1832), and chamber music. Highly respected as a performer and composer in the 19th century, he has since been largely neglected.

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(born April 23, 1858, Kiel, Schleswig—died Oct. 4, 1947, Göttingen, W.Ger.) German physicist. He studied at the Universities of Munich and Kiel, then became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin (1889–1928). His work on the second law of thermodynamics and blackbody radiation led him to formulate the revolutionary quantum theory of radiation, for which he received a Nobel Prize in 1918. He also discovered the quantum of action, now known as Planck's constant, math.h. He championed Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, but he opposed the indeterministic, statistical worldview introduced by Niels Bohr, Max Born, and Werner Heisenberg after the advent of quantum mechanics. As the influential president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (later the Max Planck Society) until his resignation in 1937, he appealed to Adolf Hitler to reverse his devastating racial policies. His son was later implicated in the July Plot against Hitler and was executed.

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(born March 7, 1839, Kassel, Hesse-Kassel—died Dec. 11, 1909, London, Eng.) German-British chemist and industrialist. After immigrating to England in 1862, he improved the Solvay process for making sodium carbonate (soda ash) and developed a process for extracting nickel from its ores. He was a founder of the important chemical firm Brunner, Mond and Co. and of the Mond Nickel Co.

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orig. Maria Ludwig Michael Mies

The Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago, designed by Mies van der Rohe; photographed in 1955

(born March 27, 1886, Aachen, Ger.—died Aug. 17, 1969, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) German-born U.S. architect and designer. Mies learned masonry from his father and later worked in the office of Peter Behrens. His first great work was the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain, a travertine platform with chromed steel columns and spaces defined by planes of extravagant onyx, marble, and frosted glass. The steel-and-leather Barcelona chair he designed for the space went on to become a 20th-century classic. He was director of the Bauhaus in 1930–33, first in Dessau and then, during its final months, in Berlin. After moving to the U.S. in 1937, he became director of the School of Architecture at Chicago's Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), where he designed the school's new campus (1939–41). The International Style, with Mies its undisputed leader, reached its zenith during the next 20 years. His other projects included Chicago's Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1949–51), and the Seagram Building (1956–58, with Philip Johnson) in New York City. These buildings, steel skeletons sheathed in glass curtain-wall facades, exemplify Mies's dictum that “less is more.” His later works include Berlin's New National Gallery (1963–68). Modernist steel-and-glass office buildings influenced by his work were built all over the world over the course of the 20th century.

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Felix Mendelssohn, watercolour by James Warren Childe, 1829; in a private collection

(born Feb. 3, 1809, Hamburg—died Nov. 4, 1847, Leipzig) German composer. Grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, he grew up in a wealthy Jewish family that had converted to Protestantism. He began to compose at age 11; at 16 he wrote his first masterpiece, the String Octet in E Flat Major (1825), followed by the Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826). In 1829 he conducted the first performance in 100 years of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion, greatly contributing to the Bach revival. He wrote the first of a series of elegant piano works, Songs Without Words, in 1830. His Reformation (1832) and Italian (1833) symphonies date from this period. He observed Classical models and practices while initiating key aspects of Romanticism, which exalted emotions and the imagination above rigid forms and traditions. After serving as music director of the Catholic city of Düsseldorf (1833–35), he took the parallel position in Protestant Leipzig. There he built up the Gewandhaus Orchestra, making Leipzig the musical capital of Germany. In his last decade he produced great works such as the Scottish Symphony (1842), the violin concerto (1844), and the oratorio Elijah (1846). His beloved sister, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805–47), had been considered his equal in musical talent as a girl, but she was discouraged from composing until her marriage to the painter Wilhelm Hensel (1794–1861); she eventually wrote more than 500 works. Her death was a severe shock to Mendelssohn; years of overwork simultaneously caught up with him, and he died six months after her.

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(born April 23, 1858, Kiel, Schleswig—died Oct. 4, 1947, Göttingen, W.Ger.) German physicist. He studied at the Universities of Munich and Kiel, then became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin (1889–1928). His work on the second law of thermodynamics and blackbody radiation led him to formulate the revolutionary quantum theory of radiation, for which he received a Nobel Prize in 1918. He also discovered the quantum of action, now known as Planck's constant, math.h. He championed Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, but he opposed the indeterministic, statistical worldview introduced by Niels Bohr, Max Born, and Werner Heisenberg after the advent of quantum mechanics. As the influential president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (later the Max Planck Society) until his resignation in 1937, he appealed to Adolf Hitler to reverse his devastating racial policies. His son was later implicated in the July Plot against Hitler and was executed.

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(baptized Dec. 17, 1770, Bonn, archbishopric of Cologne—died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria) German composer. Born to a musical family, he was a precociously gifted pianist and violist. After nine years as a court musician in Bonn, he moved to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn and remained there for the rest of his life. He was soon well known as both a virtuoso and a composer, and he became the first important composer to earn a successful living while forsaking employment in the church or court. He uniquely straddled the Classical and Romantic eras. Rooted in the traditions of Haydn and Mozart, his art also encompassed the new spirit of humanism expressed in the works of German Romantic writers as well as in the ideals of the French Revolution, with its passionate concern for the freedom and dignity of the individual. His astonishing Third (Eroica) Symphony (1803) was the thunderclap that announced the Romantic century, and it embodies the titanic but rigorously controlled energy that was the hallmark of his style. He began to lose his hearing from circa 1795; by circa 1819 he was totally deaf. For his last 15 years he was unrivaled as the world's most famous composer. In musical form he was a considerable innovator, widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto, and string quartet. His greatest achievement was to raise instrumental music, hitherto considered inferior to vocal, to the highest plane of art. His works include the celebrated 9 symphonies; 16 string quartets; 32 piano sonatas; the opera Fidelio (1805, rev. 1814);2 masses, including the Missa Solemnis (1823); 5 piano concertos; a violin concerto (1806); 6 piano trios; 10 violin sonatas; 5 cello sonatas; and several concert overtures.

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(born March 7, 1839, Kassel, Hesse-Kassel—died Dec. 11, 1909, London, Eng.) German-British chemist and industrialist. After immigrating to England in 1862, he improved the Solvay process for making sodium carbonate (soda ash) and developed a process for extracting nickel from its ores. He was a founder of the important chemical firm Brunner, Mond and Co. and of the Mond Nickel Co.

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orig. Maria Ludwig Michael Mies

The Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago, designed by Mies van der Rohe; photographed in 1955

(born March 27, 1886, Aachen, Ger.—died Aug. 17, 1969, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) German-born U.S. architect and designer. Mies learned masonry from his father and later worked in the office of Peter Behrens. His first great work was the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain, a travertine platform with chromed steel columns and spaces defined by planes of extravagant onyx, marble, and frosted glass. The steel-and-leather Barcelona chair he designed for the space went on to become a 20th-century classic. He was director of the Bauhaus in 1930–33, first in Dessau and then, during its final months, in Berlin. After moving to the U.S. in 1937, he became director of the School of Architecture at Chicago's Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), where he designed the school's new campus (1939–41). The International Style, with Mies its undisputed leader, reached its zenith during the next 20 years. His other projects included Chicago's Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1949–51), and the Seagram Building (1956–58, with Philip Johnson) in New York City. These buildings, steel skeletons sheathed in glass curtain-wall facades, exemplify Mies's dictum that “less is more.” His later works include Berlin's New National Gallery (1963–68). Modernist steel-and-glass office buildings influenced by his work were built all over the world over the course of the 20th century.

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(born April 26, 1889, Vienna—died April 29, 1951, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.) Austrian-born English philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. He was born into an immensely wealthy and cultivated family. In 1908 he went to Manchester, Eng., to study aeronautics. He soon developed an obsessive interest in the philosophy of logic and mathematics, and in 1911 he went to Cambridge to study logic with Bertrand Russell. Within a year he had learned all Russell had to teach; he then went to Norway, where he worked on logic in isolation in a wooden hut he built by the side of a fjord. There he developed in embryo what became known as the “picture theory” of meaning, a central tenet of which is that a proposition can express a fact by virtue of sharing with it a common structure, or “logical form.” When World War I broke out he joined the Austrian army, winning several decorations for bravery while serving on the Russian front. During the war he worked on a manuscript that was later published as Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922). Believing that he had solved all the major problems of philosophy, he abandoned the subject after the war and spent the next 10 years as a schoolteacher and doing other odd jobs in a remote Austrian village. Meanwhile, the Tractatus had attracted the attention of philosophers in Cambridge and Vienna, including those of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists (see logical positivism), some of whose meetings Wittgenstein was persuaded to join. He returned to Cambridge in 1929. During the early 1930s his ideas changed rapidly, and he gradually abandoned the doctrines of the Tractatus; indeed, he began to conceive of philosophy in radically different terms, as not the construction of theories designed to answer philosophical questions but as the activity of clearing up conceptual confusions arising from inattention to or misunderstandings of ordinary uses of language. What became known as the works of the “later Wittgenstein”—including Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956), Philosophical Grammar (1974), Philosophical Remarks (1975), and especially Philosophical Investigations (1953)—can be considered attempts to refine and definitively express this new approach. Though he worked with fierce energy and wrote prodigiously, he would allow none of his work from this period to be published in his lifetime. In 1939 he was appointed to the chair in philosophy at Cambridge previously held by G.E. Moore. Disliking professional philosophy, he resigned the post in 1947 to live in seclusion in Ireland and then with various friends. Diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1949, he continued working intensively until two days before his death. Seealso analytic philosophy.

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(born Feb. 4, 1897, Fürth, Ger.—died May 5, 1977, Bonn, W.Ger.) German economist and politician. As economics minister (1949–63), he was the chief architect of West Germany's postwar economic recovery. He achieved what has been called an economic miracle through his “social market system,” which was based on free-market capitalism but included special provisions for housing, farming, and social programs. In 1957 he was appointed federal vice-chancellor, and in 1963 he succeeded Konrad Adenauer as chancellor. His government was troubled by an economic downturn and a budget deficit, as well as Erhard's relative weakness as a leader, and he was forced to resign in 1966.

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German theatrical family. Ludwig Devrient (1784–1832) was the greatest actor of the Romantic period in Germany. At the Dessau court theatre he developed his talent for character parts. After his Berlin debut in The Robbers (1814), he played Falstaff, Shylock, King Lear, and Richard III to great acclaim. His eldest nephew, Karl August Devrient (1797–1872), acted in Dresden, Karlsruhe, and principally Hannover (1839–72), where he was popular in plays by Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller. Karl's brother Eduard (1801–77) began his career as an opera singer, then worked as an actor and stage director in Dresden (1844–52) and Karlsruhe (1852–70), where he directed German classics and made new translations of Shakespeare's plays. Karl's other brother, Emil (1803–72), made his stage debut in 1821 and acted with the Dresden court theatre (1831–68); his greatest successes were as Hamlet and as Goethe's Tasso. Eduard's son Otto (1838–94) acted in various companies, then became a director in Karlsruhe and other German cities. In Weimar he produced his own version of Goethe's Faust (1876); he also wrote several tragedies. Karl's son Max (1857–1929) made his debut in Dresden in 1878 and in 1882 joined the famed Vienna Burgtheater.

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(born June 29, 1880, Biebrich, Ger.—died July 20, 1944, Berlin) German general. After serving with the army general staff in World War I, he was later chief of the general staff (1935–38). He opposed Adolf Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland and resigned to protest the decision to conquer Czechoslovakia. He helped plan the unsuccessful July Plot to assassinate Hitler; when it failed, Beck committed suicide.

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(born July 28, 1804, Landshut, Bavaria—died Sept. 13, 1872, Rechenberg, Ger.) German philosopher. The son of an eminent jurist, he studied under G.W.F. Hegel in Berlin but later abandoned Hegelian idealism for a naturalistic materialism. In Thoughts on Death and Immortality (1830), he attacked the concept of personal immortality. His Abelard and Heloise (1834) and Pierre Bayle (1838) were followed by On Philosophy and Christianity (1839), in which he claimed that “Christianity has in fact long vanished not only from the reason but from the life of mankind.” In The Essence of Christianity (1841), he proposed that God is merely the outward projection of mankind's inward nature. Some of his views were later endorsed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

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Street, Berlin, oil on canvas by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1913; in the elipsis

(born May 6, 1880, Aschaffenberg, Bavaria—died June 15, 1938, near Davos, Switz.) German painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He was among the founders of the Expressionist group Die Brücke. Kirchner's highly personal style, influenced by Albrecht Dürer, Edvard Munch, and African and Polynesian art, was noted for its psychological tension and eroticism. He used simple, powerfully drawn forms and often garish colours to create intense, sometimes threatening works, such as his two versions of Street, Berlin (1907, 1913). Highly strung and often depressed, he took his own life when the Nazis declared his work “degenerate.”

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(born Aug. 11, 1778, Lanz, Brandenburg, Prussia—died Oct. 15, 1852, Freyburg an der Unstrut, Prussian Saxony) German educator who founded the Turnverein (gymnastic club) movement in Germany. As a teacher in Berlin from 1809, he began a program of outdoor exercise for students. He invented the parallel bars, rings, balance beam, horse, and horizontal bar, all of which have become standard equipment for gymnastics. In 1819 he came under suspicion for his fervent nationalism and strong influence on youth. He was arrested and imprisoned for almost a year; his gymnastic club closed, and a national ban was placed on gymnastics (lifted in 1842). He was awarded the Iron Cross for military bravery (1840) and served in the national parliament (1848–49).

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(born Aug. 11, 1778, Lanz, Brandenburg, Prussia—died Oct. 15, 1852, Freyburg an der Unstrut, Prussian Saxony) German educator who founded the Turnverein (gymnastic club) movement in Germany. As a teacher in Berlin from 1809, he began a program of outdoor exercise for students. He invented the parallel bars, rings, balance beam, horse, and horizontal bar, all of which have become standard equipment for gymnastics. In 1819 he came under suspicion for his fervent nationalism and strong influence on youth. He was arrested and imprisoned for almost a year; his gymnastic club closed, and a national ban was placed on gymnastics (lifted in 1842). He was awarded the Iron Cross for military bravery (1840) and served in the national parliament (1848–49).

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(born Nov. 8, 1848, Wismar, Mecklenburg-Schwerin—died July 26, 1925, Bad Kleinen, Ger.) German mathematician and logician, inventor of modern mathematical logic and one of the founders of the analytic tradition in philosophy. He taught at the University of Jena from 1871 to 1917. His Begriffsschrift (1879, “Conceptscript”), was the first presentation of a system of mathematical logic in the modern sense. Using an original notation of quantifiers and variables, he was able to give formal expression to sentences containing multiple quantification, such as “Everybody loves someone”; this is impossible in the syllogistic derived from Aristotle, which had been considered complete until the time of Immanuel Kant (see predicate calculus). In the Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik he attempted to establish the doctrine later known as logicism. He also made significant contributions to the philosophy of language, including a highly influential theory of the distinction between sense and reference. Though Frege's work was admired by Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, it was unknown to or ignored by most other philosophers and mathematicians during Frege's lifetime; its significance was not generally appreciated until the mid-20th century.

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(born July 28, 1804, Landshut, Bavaria—died Sept. 13, 1872, Rechenberg, Ger.) German philosopher. The son of an eminent jurist, he studied under G.W.F. Hegel in Berlin but later abandoned Hegelian idealism for a naturalistic materialism. In Thoughts on Death and Immortality (1830), he attacked the concept of personal immortality. His Abelard and Heloise (1834) and Pierre Bayle (1838) were followed by On Philosophy and Christianity (1839), in which he claimed that “Christianity has in fact long vanished not only from the reason but from the life of mankind.” In The Essence of Christianity (1841), he proposed that God is merely the outward projection of mankind's inward nature. Some of his views were later endorsed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

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Street, Berlin, oil on canvas by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1913; in the elipsis

(born May 6, 1880, Aschaffenberg, Bavaria—died June 15, 1938, near Davos, Switz.) German painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He was among the founders of the Expressionist group Die Brücke. Kirchner's highly personal style, influenced by Albrecht Dürer, Edvard Munch, and African and Polynesian art, was noted for its psychological tension and eroticism. He used simple, powerfully drawn forms and often garish colours to create intense, sometimes threatening works, such as his two versions of Street, Berlin (1907, 1913). Highly strung and often depressed, he took his own life when the Nazis declared his work “degenerate.”

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(born Feb. 4, 1897, Fürth, Ger.—died May 5, 1977, Bonn, W.Ger.) German economist and politician. As economics minister (1949–63), he was the chief architect of West Germany's postwar economic recovery. He achieved what has been called an economic miracle through his “social market system,” which was based on free-market capitalism but included special provisions for housing, farming, and social programs. In 1957 he was appointed federal vice-chancellor, and in 1963 he succeeded Konrad Adenauer as chancellor. His government was troubled by an economic downturn and a budget deficit, as well as Erhard's relative weakness as a leader, and he was forced to resign in 1966.

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(baptized Dec. 17, 1770, Bonn, archbishopric of Cologne—died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria) German composer. Born to a musical family, he was a precociously gifted pianist and violist. After nine years as a court musician in Bonn, he moved to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn and remained there for the rest of his life. He was soon well known as both a virtuoso and a composer, and he became the first important composer to earn a successful living while forsaking employment in the church or court. He uniquely straddled the Classical and Romantic eras. Rooted in the traditions of Haydn and Mozart, his art also encompassed the new spirit of humanism expressed in the works of German Romantic writers as well as in the ideals of the French Revolution, with its passionate concern for the freedom and dignity of the individual. His astonishing Third (Eroica) Symphony (1803) was the thunderclap that announced the Romantic century, and it embodies the titanic but rigorously controlled energy that was the hallmark of his style. He began to lose his hearing from circa 1795; by circa 1819 he was totally deaf. For his last 15 years he was unrivaled as the world's most famous composer. In musical form he was a considerable innovator, widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto, and string quartet. His greatest achievement was to raise instrumental music, hitherto considered inferior to vocal, to the highest plane of art. His works include the celebrated 9 symphonies; 16 string quartets; 32 piano sonatas; the opera Fidelio (1805, rev. 1814);2 masses, including the Missa Solemnis (1823); 5 piano concertos; a violin concerto (1806); 6 piano trios; 10 violin sonatas; 5 cello sonatas; and several concert overtures.

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(born June 29, 1880, Biebrich, Ger.—died July 20, 1944, Berlin) German general. After serving with the army general staff in World War I, he was later chief of the general staff (1935–38). He opposed Adolf Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland and resigned to protest the decision to conquer Czechoslovakia. He helped plan the unsuccessful July Plot to assassinate Hitler; when it failed, Beck committed suicide.

Learn more about Beck, Ludwig with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Not to be confused with Ludvig, Ludwik, or Ludwick
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