DROYSEN, JOHANN GUSTAV German historian, was born on July 6, 1808 at Treptow, Pomerania, son of an army chaplain. In his childhood Droysen witnessed some of the military operations during the War of Liberation, for his father was pastor at Greifenhagen, near Stettin, occupied by the French in 1813. The impressions of these early years laid the foundation of his ardent attachment to Prussia. He was educated at the gymnasium of Stettin and at the University of Berlin. Droysen occupied various positions in the schools as well as at the University of Berlin until 1840, and there his early works, on Alexander the Great and on Hellenism, were mainly written.
In 1840 Droysen succeeded F. C. Dahlmann (q.v.), professor of history at Kiel, and was drawn into the political movement for the defence of the rights of the Elbe duchies. In 1848 he was elected a member of the Frankfort parliament, and acted as secre tary to the committee for drawing up the constitution. A deter mined supporter of Prussian ascendancy, he retired after the king of Prussia refused the imperial crown in 1849. In 185o, with Carl Samwer, he published a history of the dealings of Denmark with Schleswig-Holstein, Die Herzogthiimer Schleswig-Holstein and das Kcnigreich Ddnemark seit dem Jahre i8o6 (Hamburg, 185o; Eng. trans. 1850), a book formative of German public opinion on the rights of the duchies in their struggle with Den mark. After 1851 he had to leave Kiel, and he was appointed to a professorship at Jena; in 1859 he was called to Berlin, where he remained till his death. In 1851 he brought out his admirable biography of Count Yorck von Wartenburg (1851-52) and then began his great work on the Geschichte der preussischen Politik (7 vols., 1855-86). It forms a complete history of the growth of the Prussian monarchy down to the year 1756. This, like all Droysen's work, shows a strongly marked individuality, and a great power of tracing the manner in which important dynamic forces worked themselves out in history. Droysen died in Berlin on June 19, 1884. His eldest son, Gustav (1838-1908) wrote Gustav Adolf (Leipzig, 1869-70) ; Herzog Bernhard von Weimar (Leipzig, 1885) ; an admirable Historischer Handatlas (Leipzig, 1885), and several writings on various events of the Thirty Years' War.
See M. Duncker, Johann Gustav Droysen, ein Nachruf (1885) ; and Quellenkunde der deutschen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1906).