Erich PAUER is Professor emeritus at the University of Marburg, Germany. Born 1943 in Vienna he majored in Japanese studies at the University of Vienna (PhD, 1972). After his post-doctoral research at the University of To-kyo- he took up a lectureship at the University of Vienna in 1974 and later moved to the University of Bonn, Germany, in 1977. He became full professor at the University of Marburg in 1987, where he established the Centre for Japanese Studies. He retired from this university in 2008. His main interests lay in the field of history of technology in Japan in early-modern period and the period of Japan’s industrialization, and Japanese economic history. He also published on GermanJapanese relations in pre-war Japan.