Hans Rosenberg, who died in Freiburg on 26 June 1988, was not only a critical historian, he was above all a self-critical one. Looking back upon his life during his last years, he always saw first what he had set out to do but had not accomplished, or what, in his judgment, had turned out less well than he would have wished. At most he granted that he had exercised a certain influence upon many historians of the next generation. “Not everything has been futile”: that was the most positive statement he allowed himself to make about his work.