interpreter and sent to the Balkans where he served in Albania, and later in Croatia. He died of typhus in an army camp near Zagreb on 5 March 1945. Selected bibliography Die Enstehung des Kreuzzugsgedanken, Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte 6 (Stuttgart, 1935). English trans.: The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. M. W. Baldwin & Walter Goffart (Princeton, 1977). "Das Wappen und die Fahne der römischen Kirche", Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 22 (1930–31), pp. 227–255. "Die Briefe Meinhards von Bamberg", Neues Archiv 49 (1931–32), pp. 332–431. "Die Anfänge der staatlichen Propaganda im Investiturstreit," Historische Zeitschrift 154 (1936), pp. 491–512. (editor) Die Briefe Heinrichs IV. MGH Deutsches Mittelaler 1 (1937). Studien zur Briefliteratur Deutschlands im XI. Jahrhundert, Schriften des Reichinstituts 1 (Leipzig, 1938) "Das ottonische Reich als Imperium Romanum", Deutsches Archiv 6 (1943), pp. 412–441. Erdmann's posthumously-published work is collected in: Carl Erdmann: Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt des Frühmittelalters. Aus dem Nachlass des Verfassers, ed. Friedrich Baethgen (Berlin, 1951). References Friedrich Baethgen, "Gedenkwort," in Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt, pp. viii–xxi. Norman F. Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages (New York, 1991), pp. 402–404. (N.B. Cantor confuses some chronological details of Erdmann's life (e.g. on 402f.), but provides some interesting context for the politics of his scholarship.) 1898 births 1945 deaths People from Tartu People from Kreis Dorpat Baltic-German people German medievalists Historians of the Crusades German male non-fiction writers University of Würzburg alumni Humboldt University of Berlin alumni German Army personnel of World War II Deaths from typhus German Army personnel killed in World War II Infectious disease deaths in Croatia