Richard G. Salomon Collection

Richard Georg Salomon was born in Berlin on April 22, 1884, the eldest child of Georg Anton Salomon (1849-1916), a medical doctor and lecturer at the University of Berlin and his wife Anna Salomon née Herfort (1856-1931). In Berlin Richard G. Salomon attended the Königliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium and later the University of Berlin where he studied history and completed his doctoral dissertation in February 1907.

From 1907 to 1914 he worked as an assistant at the Department of East European History at the Berlin University and in March 1907, he was also appointed to the editorial staff of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Between 1914 to 1916 Salomon served in the Imperial German Army and after his release from the military he lectured at the Colonial Institute in Hamburg, which later was converted into the University of Hamburg. In 1920 he was appointed to the board of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg. In March 1934 Salomon was removed from his academic post on racial grounds. After his dismissal, he started his work on Avignonesischen Akten des Hamburger Archivs.

In 1936 Richard G. Salomon traveled to the U.S. to explore the possibilities of a new position. As the undertaking was successful and Salomon was offered rotating positions to lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College and Swarthmore College, the family immigrated to the U.S. in 1938. In 1939 Salomon had an appointment at the Kenyon College. This later turned into a permanent full professorship for the history department. From 1944 to1945 his academic work was interrupted by his work as research analyst in the Central European Section of the Office of Strategic Services in Washington.

Salomon was appointed Historiographer of the Diocese of Ohio in 1956 and in 1962 he retired from undergraduate teaching and was given the position of an Emeritus at the College and the Seminary. Richard G. Salomon died in Mount Vernon, Ohio on February 3, 1966, leaving behind the two children, George Salomon and Edith Lenneberg, he had with his first wife Gertrud J. Horwitz (1889-1942).