Julius Hans Schoeps (born June 1, 1942 in Djursholm, Sweden) is a German historian.
He is the founding director of the Moses-Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam and chairman of the board of the Moses-Mendelssohn Foundation. Schoeps is the first director and co-founder of the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute in Duisburg.
Biography.
Julius H. Schoeps, whose ancestors include the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) and the religious reformer and textile entrepreneur David Friedländer (1750-1834), was born during the exile from Nazi Germany of his parents, the religious philosopher and historian Hans-Joachim Schoeps (1909-1980) and Dorothee Busch (1915-1996), in Djursholm, Sweden. His younger brother Manfred was born there on January 1, 1944. In 1948, Schoeps followed his father, who had already returned to Germany from exile in 1946.
Education and work.
In 1963, Schoeps passed his "Abitur" and began studying history, political science, communications and theater at Erlangen and the Free University of Berlin. In 1969, he obtained his doctorate, and in 1973 his habilitation. From 1974 to 1991, he was professor of political science at the University of Duisburg, and from 1986 to 1991, he was also founding director of the Salomon-Ludwig-Steinheim Institute for German Jewish History in Duisburg. Between 1980 and 2007, Schoeps held visiting professorships in Budapest, Tel Aviv, New York, Oxford and Seattle.
Since the late 1960s, Schoeps has worked as a journalist for daily and weekly newspapers (including "Die Zeit", "Die Welt", "FAZ", "NZZ", "PNN"), magazines and numerous radio and TV stations.
From 1991 to 1994, Schoeps was a member of the founding senate of the University of Potsdam, and from 1991 to the 2007 summer semester, he was professor of modern history (focusing on German Jewish history) at the University of Potsdam. From 1992 to 2014, he was founding director of the Moses-Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies, an institute affiliated to the University of Potsdam. From 2001 to 2007, Schoeps was also spokesman for the DFG doctoral school "Makom - Ort und Orte im Judentum" at the University of Potsdam.
From 1984 to 2014, Schoeps was President of the Society for Intellectual History (GGG), founded by his father Hans-Joachim Schoeps in Erlangen in 1958, and Editor-in-Chief of the "Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte" (ZRGG). From 1993 to 1997, Schoeps was founding director of the Vienna Jewish Museum, from 1995 to 2005 founding director of the Moses-Mendelssohn Academy in Halberstadt, and since 2018 he has been chairman of the board.
Since 2002, Schoeps has been President of the Moses-Mendelssohn Foundation, which continues the tradition of the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation for the Advancement of the Humanities founded in 1929. The foundation - founded by Mendelssohn descendants and members of the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy family - promotes education, training, science and research in the field of European Jewish history and culture. The foundation is a shareholder in the GBI group of companies, and in this context is involved in charitable building projects, including the construction and management of student residences in various cities in Germany and Austria.
Claims for restitution for artworks from the Nazi era.
Since 2003, as spokesperson for the heirs of banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Schoeps has been fighting for the return of various works of art that belonged to him. In early 2009, an agreement was reached with the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York concerning two paintings by Picasso, Le Moulin de la Galette and Boy with a Horse. In January 2010, the heirs reached an agreement with the owner of the Picasso painting Portrait d'Angel Fernández de Soto, Andrew Lloyd Webber. The painting remained in the possession of Webber, who subsequently sold it to Christie's auction house in June 2010.
Scholarly work and associations.
From 2008 to 2014, Julius H. Schoeps is spokesperson for the Walther Rathenau Graduate School "Liberalismus und Demokratie: Zur Genealogie und Rezeption politischer Bewegungen von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart" of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, and since 2014, for the Ludwig Rosenberg Research College "Historische Bezüge zwischen Arbeiterbewegung und Judentum" of the Hans Böckler Foundation. Schoeps' academic students include Anna Carolin Augustin, Sven Brömsel, Hannah Lotte Lund, Barbara Steiner, Olaf Glöckner, Anna-Dorothea Ludewig, Alexandra Nocke, Dekel Peretz, Ines Sonder, Susanne Urban-Fahr, Elke-Vera Kotowski et Armin Pfahl-Traughber. Schoeps is a member of the PEN Centre Germany.
The scholarly work of Julius H. Schoeps deals with questions of religious and intellectual history, the history of political ideas and the history of German-Jewish relations. As a publisher and co-publisher, Schoeps edits writings and letters by German-speaking authors of the 19th and 20th centuries (including by Felix Busch, Hermann Cohen, Gabriel Riesser, Theodor Herzl, Léon Pinsker, Aaron Bernstein, Franz Oppenheimer, Karl Emil Franzos, Fritz Heymann, Hans-Joachim Schoeps). Many of Schoeps' books and essays are available in different languages.