Walter Laqueur was a German-born American historian, journalist, and political commentator who became one of the leading scholars of 20th-century Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East. He fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and built an academic career without ever earning a university degree. Over more than 6 decades, he wrote over 30 books, including A History of Terrorism, one of the field’s earliest academic studies.
Who Was Walter Laqueur?
Walter Laqueur was a historian, journalist, and Holocaust survivor known for his scholarship on terrorism, fascism, and Soviet and Middle Eastern affairs. He founded 2 academic journals, directed a major Holocaust research library, and held professorships at universities including Brandeis, Georgetown, and Harvard. He continued publishing new books into his 90s, including Putinism: Russia and Its Future with the West in 2015.
What Was Walter Laqueur’s Early Life in Germany?
Walter Ze’ev Laqueur was born on May 26, 1921, in Breslau, Germany, now Wrocław, Poland, into a Jewish family. His father, Fritz, manufactured overalls, and his mother, Elsa, was a homemaker. He graduated from the Johannes Gymnasium in Breslau in February 1938. In November 1938, at age 17, he fled Germany alone, just days before Kristallnacht, and never saw his parents again. Both were later murdered in the Holocaust.
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name | Walter Ze’ev Laqueur |
| Born | May 26, 1921, Breslau, Germany |
| Died | September 30, 2018, Washington, DC, aged 97 |
| Fields | History, journalism, political commentary |
| Known for | A History of Terrorism (1977) |
| Degrees | None; self-taught scholar |
How Did Walter Laqueur Build His Career Without a University Degree?
Walter Laqueur reached British Mandatory Palestine after fleeing Germany. He enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but left after less than a semester to join a kibbutz. For the next 8 years, he worked as an agricultural laborer, a factory worker, an auxiliary policeman, a longshoreman, and a bookseller in Jerusalem. During this period, he learned Russian and Arabic from Russian emigres and Arab laborers he worked alongside, languages that later shaped his academic career.
In 1946, Laqueur’s break into journalism came when he was hired as Jerusalem correspondent for Hamishmar, a Hebrew daily newspaper, and The Palestine Post, later renamed The Jerusalem Post. He covered the final years of the British Mandate and the early years of the new State of Israel, and is credited with breaking the news that the emerging state would be named Israel rather than Yehuda, an alternative name under consideration.
What Did Walter Laqueur Do in London?
Walter Laqueur moved to London in 1955, where he founded and edited Soviet Survey, a journal covering Soviet and East European culture, published under the Congress for Cultural Freedom. In 1964, he became Director of the Wiener Library, the world’s oldest Holocaust memorial institution, succeeding its founder, Alfred Wiener. He directed both the Wiener Library and the Institute of Contemporary History until 1994. During this period, he co-founded the Journal of Contemporary History with fellow historian George Mosse, a publication that remains a leading journal in its field.
What Academic Positions Did Walter Laqueur Hold in the United States?
Walter Laqueur served as Professor of the History of Ideas at Brandeis University from 1968 to 1972, then at Georgetown University from 1976 to 1988. He also held visiting professorships at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Tel Aviv University, and Johns Hopkins University. From 1969, he was a member, and later chairman until 2000, of the International Research Council at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He served as founding editor of The Washington Papers during this period.
What Books Did Walter Laqueur Write?
Walter Laqueur wrote over 30 books across a 6-decade career, alongside 2 novels and an autobiography.
| Year | Title | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| 1977 | A History of Terrorism | Pioneering academic study of political violence |
| 1989 | The Long Road to Freedom: Russia and Glasnost | Soviet reform under Gorbachev |
| 1990 | Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations | Soviet history under Stalin |
| 1992 | Thursday’s Child Has Far to Go | Autobiography |
| 1996 | Fascism: Past, Present, Future | History of fascist movements |
| 2006 | The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism | History of antisemitism to the present |
| 2015 | Putinism: Russia and Its Future with the West | Published at age 93 |
He also edited The Holocaust Encyclopedia and wrote 2 novels drawing on his own history, The Missing Years and Farewell to Europe, both exploring the life of an aging Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Germany. His awards included a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970 and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1985.
What Is Walter Laqueur’s Legacy as a Historian?
Walter Laqueur’s legacy rests on 3 achievements: pioneering the academic study of terrorism, directing one of the world’s leading Holocaust archives, and producing scholarship across more than 6 decades without formal academic credentials. He died on September 30, 2018, at his home in Washington, DC, at age 97, having published his final major book only 3 years earlier. His path from a teenage refugee with no university degree to one of Washington’s most consulted historians remains central to how he is remembered.