Wilhelm Heizmann was born in
Eggenfelden, Germany on 5 September 1953. From 1974 to 1981, Heizmann studied
German philology, ancient and medieval history,
ethnology,
Nordic philology and
Germanic Antiquity at the
University of Munich and the
University of Vienna. He received his
MA at Munich. From 1981 to 1982, Heizmann studied at the
University of Oxford and the
University of London. With funding from the
German Academic Exchange Service, Heizmann subsequently stayed for two years as a researcher at the
Arnamagnæan Institute at the
University of Copenhagen, during which he also conducted research at
Reykjavík University. He held a scholarship at the
Studienstiftung from 1983 to 1984. From 1984 to 1993, Heizmann was a research assistant at the
Scandinavian Seminar at the
University of Göttingen. He earned a
PhD at the University of Munich in 1987, and completed his
habilitation at Göttingen in 1994. Since 1994, Heizmann taught at the University of Göttingen, where he was appointed an associate professor in 1999. From 2000 to 2001, Heizman was a visiting professor at the Institute for Germanic Studies at the University of Vienna. Since 2002, Heizmann has been Professor and Chair of the Institute for Nordic Philology at the University of Munich. He was appointed a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the
Brothers Grimm Society in 2002, an honorary professor at the University of Göttingen in 2004, and a corresponding member of the
Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2009. Heizmann specializes in
Germanic studies. He researches and teaches
Germanic paganism and
mythology (including
Old Norse religion and
mythology),
Old Norse literature,
runology, as well as the scientific works of the
Brothers Grimm. He is Co-Editor of
Germanische Altertumskunde Online. ==Selected works==