Dead is Johannes Willms. Soon after a temporary disease, the historian, author, and creator of the “literary quartet” passed away in Munich overnight on Monday into Tuesday at the age of 74. The filmmaker Evelyn Schels of the SZ, the publicist’s widow, confirmed this on Tuesday.

Willms, the son of a lawyer and 1948 Würzburg native, attended universities in Vienna, Heidelberg, and Seville to study historical past, political science, art historical past, and archeology. He obtained his PhD from Reinhart Koselleck in 1975 with a thesis on the governance of the French kingdom in the 1600s, but he in the end made a decision to pursue a profession in journalism.

To begin with used by the Börsenverein as a press agent, Johannes Willms later on held positions at ZDF as a tradition editor. There, he developed the concept for the now-renowned “Literary Quartet” with Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Willms then served as the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s feuilleton editor from 1993 to 2000 prior to transferring to Paris to function as the SZ’s society reporter. He was awarded the Berlin Academy Prize in 2009.

For CH Beck Verlag in Munich, Willms, a native of France with intensive understanding of the state, has lately published several critically acclaimed biographies, which includes people on the Struggle of Waterloo, Napoleon, and Charles de Gaulle. the most new “The Napoleon Fantasy. Guarantee, Exile, and Transformation “appeared in print in 2020.