William Leonard Langer (March 16, 1896 – December 26, 1977) was an American historian, intelligence analyst and policy advisor. He served as chairman of the history department at Harvard University. He was on leave during World War II as head of the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services. He was a specialist on the diplomacy of the periods 1840–1900 and World War II. He edited many books, including a series on European history, a large-scale reference book, and a university textbook.
When William was only three, his father died unexpectedly, leaving the family in difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, his mother, who supported the family by working as a dressmaker, made education a priority for her children. After studying at the Boston Latin School, Langer attended Harvard University.
His job and education were interrupted by military service World War I. After the war, he returned to his studies and obtained his Ph.D. in 1923. In 1921 he married Susanne Katherina Langer (née Knauth) who became a noted philosopher. They had two sons together before divorcing in 1942.
He taught modern European history at Clark University for four years before accepting an assistant professorship at Harvard. In 1936 Langer became the first to hold the Archibald Coolidge chair.
Langer was remembered at Harvard especially for his History 132 course on modern European history, History 157 on the Ottoman Empire, and the graduate seminars held at his home.[8][9] He also taught at the Harvard Extension School.[10]
With the help of other scholars during the 1930s, Langer completely revised the Epitome of History by German Scholar Karl Ploetz. Langer's massive work was published in 1940 under the title An Encyclopedia of World History.[11] Its fifth edition (1972) is the last to be edited by Langer. Peter N. Stearns and thirty other prominent historians edited the sixth edition, published in 2001. Stearns paid tribute to Langer's great achievement in the introduction to the new edition.
In 1932, as an associate professor Langer was chosen by Harpers as editor for their series on modern Europe.[12] He wrote the volume covering 1832-1852, "Liberalism, Nationalism and Socialism." Originally in hardcover, the series was republished in the 1960s in paperback as "The Rise of Modern Europe."
Langer was an enlisted man in the United States Army Chemical Service in World War I, and saw combat in a chemical weapons unit on the Western Front in France. He described the experience in a book he wrote with another man in his company.[6]
The US government asked to Langer to justify this policy initially very favourable to Vichy France: this book was entitled Our Vichy Gamble (1947) and it almost totally whitewashed the policy.[16] Langer’s book was then used as new evidence to request a review of the trial of Pétain by his lawyer in 1950 (the case was eventually dismissed).[17] According to one reviewer, this book should have been called Our Vichy Fumble.[18]
Langer, William L.; MacMullin, Robert Burns (1919). With "E" of the First Gas. Brooklyn: Holton printing co. revised as: Gas and Flame in World War I (1965) online
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"William Leonard Langer". Dictionary of American Biography(fee, via Fairfax County Public Library). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1995. Gale Document Number: GALE|BT2310009409. Retrieved February 3, 2014. Biography in Context. (subscription required)
^"CIA's Directorate of Intelligence Marks its 50th Anniversary". Central Intelligence Agency. November 4, 2002. Archived from the original on June 13, 2007. Retrieved February 3, 2014. William Langer Award for outstanding analytic contributions to the DI. Langer - a distinguished scholar and pioneer OSS analyst - was the first chairman of CIA's Office of National Estimates and later served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). During his career, Langer demonstrated the feasibility of performing intelligence analysis by combining information from multiple intelligence collection disciplines, including imagery, signals intercepts, and human intelligence.
^Waggoner, Walter H. (July 10, 1981). "Walter Langer is Dead at 82; Wrote Secret Study of Hitler". New York Times. Walter Langer was born in Boston on Feb. 9, 1899, the son of Charles Rudolph and Johanna Rockenbach Langer. He was a practicing psychoanalyst from the late 1930s until about 1960, and he was the brother of William L. Langer, the Harvard historian, and Rudolph Ernest Langer, chairman of the mathematics department at the University of Wisconsin.
^Shinagel, Michael (2010), The Gates Unbarred: A History of University Extension at Harvard, 1910–2009, Harvard University Press, p. 52, ISBN978-0674051355
United States
