Hartmut Steinecke (12 March 1940 – 25 January 2020[1]) was a German literary critic and university lecturer.
Born in Nürnberg, Steinecke studied history and philosophy at the Universität des Saarlandes and the University of Bonn, where he received his doctorate in 1966 with a thesis about Hermann Broch.
From 1967 to 1973 he was a research assistant at the German Department of the University of Bonn, where he habilitated in 1973 with a thesis on Romantic theory and criticism in Germany.
In 1974 he became professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Paderborn.
In 2002 Steinecke was accepted into the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.