Hermann Kulke (born 1938 in Berlin) is a German historian and Indologist, who was professor of South and Southeast Asian history at the Department of History, Kiel University (1988–2003). After receiving his PhD in Indology from Freiburg University in 1967, he taught for 21 years at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University (SAI).
He was a founding member of the Orissa Research Project (ORP) of the Southasia Institute (1970–1975), and was coordinator of the second ORP.
Specialization: pre-colonial South and Southeast Asian History; early state formation and historiography; regional cultures of India with emphasis on Orissa; Indianization of Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean Studies.
He was a visiting professor at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar (1978–1979), Asiatic Society, Calcutta (1986), and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (1992). He was also the Fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, in Singapore (1987) and of the Asia Research Institute of the University of Singapore (2007).