Germán Arciniegas Angueyra (December 6, 1900 - November 29, 1999) was a Colombian historian, writer and journalist who was known for his advocacy of educational and cultural issues, as well as his outspoken opposition to dictatorship.

His father died young, leaving his mother struggling to support the family, his sister Maria Mercedes and his younger brother Joaquín Arciniegas Tavera migrated to El Salvador.

His maternal great-grandfather was Perucho Figueredo, an early Cuban freedom fighter who wrote La Bayamesa, Cuba's national anthem.

He would continue to contribute articles and opinion pieces to El Tiempo for the rest of his life,[1] speaking out against drug trafficking, Marxist guerrillas and restrictive immigration policies.

[3] Their activism eventually helped to end the Conservative Party's grip on the government and, in 1933, led to the passage of university reforms, which gave students the right to elect their own rectors and have a representative in the legislature to act as their advocate; a position Arciniegas held for a time.

During this time, he founded the Caro and Cuervo Institute and moved the Colombian National Museum to its current home in a former prison building.

Due to this resurgence of Conservative ideology in the 1940s, Arciniegas felt that he and his family were in danger and moved to the United States, taking advantage of an offer to teach at Columbia University.

He served as vice consul in London (1929), chancellor at the Colombian embassy in Argentina (1940) and as Ambassador to Italy (1959), Israel (1962), Venezuela (1966) and the Holy See (1976).