JÖRG, Joseph Edmund. — Historian, publicist, and political figure, born at Immestandt on 23 Dec. 1819, died at Landshut on 18 Nov. 1901. He studied theology, philosophy, and history in Munich, a pupil and collaborator of Döllinger in his Geschichte der Reformation.
In 1852 he entered the Bavarian administration (archives department) and in the same year took over the editorship of Historisch-politische Blätter, which he retained (from 1857 with Franz Binder) until shortly before his death. On account of his opposition to the government he was transferred to Neuburg on the Danube, but in 1863 he was elected substitute member of the Bavarian Parliament; from 1868 to 1869 he was a member of the Zollparlament, and from 1874 to 1879 of the Reichstag.
He wrote: Deutschland in der Revolutionsperiode 1522-1526, i.e. the history of the Peasants' War (1851); Geschichte des Protestantismus in seiner neuesten Entwicklung (1858); Die neue Ära in Preussen (1860). He was one of the first to grasp the significance of the development of socialism in Europe, and his Geschichte der sozialpolitischen Parteien in Deutschland (1867) is a testimony to this. J. was a convinced Catholic, conservative, monarchist, a staunch opponent of the Bavarian Liberal Party and of Bavaria’s subordination to Prussia. Through his efforts, the Bavarian Volkspartei grew in a few years from a small group of deputies to a majority in the Chamber. In his later years he withdrew from politics but not from his work as a publicist.