Heinrich August Winkler was born in 1938 in Königsberg. He studied history, philosophy, and public law in Tübingen, Heidelberg and Münster. He was associate professor at the Freie Universität in Berlin in 1970-72 and then professor of modern history in Freiburg until 1991. He has been at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin since 1992, and has been a visiting scholar in Princeton, at the Wilson Center in Washington, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin, and at the Historisches Kolleg in Munich.
