Cosmopolitan, Bridge-Builder and Missionary: Prof. Dietmar Rothermund, 1933–2020

Abstract

On 9 March 2020, Dietmar Rothermund, one of the leading historians of South Asia, passed away at the age of 87 at his residence near Heidelberg, Germany. He will be remembered by his friends, colleagues and students as a distinguished professor at the University of Heidelberg and longstanding executive director of the university’s South Asia Institute. In addition, through countless interviews in the media and a number of non-academic publications targeted at a broad readership, he was known to a wider public in Germany as an expert on South Asia. On yet another level, Dietmar Rothermund served the cause of fostering interest in the Indian subcontinent and its history as a networker, institution builder and academic manager both in his native Germany and internationally.