Josef Joachim Menzel

Josef Joachim Menzel (born 19 June 1933 in Miłowice, Opole Voivodeship, died 29 August 2020 in Mainz) was a German historian.

He was born on June 19, 1933, in Mühlsdorf near Neustadt, Germany (nowadays Miłowice, Opole Voivodeship, Poland). After 1945 he lived with his family in Münsterland. He graduated from high school in Recklinghausen, then he studied history, classical philology and German at the University of Münster and Heidelberg University. Later Menzel worked at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung. He obtained his PhD in 1962.

In 1966 he moved to Mainz, where he worked as an assistant of Ludwig Petry. He passed his habilitation in 1970. The topic of his habilitation thesis was ''Die schlesischen Lokationsurkunden des 13. Jahrhunderts''. He became an adjunct professor in 1972 and university professor in 1978. Menzel taught medieval history and historical auxiliary sciences at the University of Mainz until 1998.

The spectrum of his research included the history of the Merovingians, the Hanseatic League, the emergence of the Swiss Confederation and history of Silesia. He was editor or co-editor of ''Schlesischen Urkundenbuches'', the three-volume ''Geschichte Schlesiens'', ''Schlesischen Lebensbilder'' and the ''Jahrbuchs der Schlesischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau''.

He died on August 29, 2020, in Mainz. Provided by Wikipedia