No longer top of the class: Professorial salaries in the 20th century

Using individual income data from university archives, we look at the development of professorial salaries over a time-span covering the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich as well as the Federal Republic of Germany. We find that relative salaries have fallen dramatically, both with respect to other highly qualified labour and to the average income. We also find that inter-discipline dispersion among professorial salaries has decreased and that conversely to today it was professors in the social sciences rather than the natural sciences who earned the most.