- published: 05 Nov 2010
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Hagen Schulze (born 31 July 1943 in Tangier, Morocco) is a German historian currently working at the Free University of Berlin. He specializes in early modern and modern German and European history, particularly in comparative European nationalisms.
Schulze studied medieval and early modern history, philosophy and political science at the University of Bonn and the University of Kiel. In 1967 he earned his doctorate and worked during the following years at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin and for the Federal Archives in Koblenz. In 1977 he earned his habilitation with his biography of Otto Braun. In the following years he took up positions as a private tutor and as a substitute teacher at Kiel and Berlin, until he was named a full professor of modern history and historiography at the Free University of Berlin in 1979.
During the Historikerstreit of 1986-7, Schulze did not defend the views of Ernst Nolte that Nazi war crimes, including the Holocaust, constituted a reaction to a perceived "Jewish declaration of war" against Germany compounded by Nazi fears of Soviet communism. But he criticized Jürgen Habermas, the main opponent of Nolte, of presenting simplistic views: on the one hand liberals who learned form History of German history, on the other hand a group of historians promoted by conservatives.