German · 1934–2017
Hans-Peter Schwarz (1934-2017) was a German historian and political scientist. He taught at the universities of Hamburg, Cologne and Bonn, and for many years held the chair of political science at Bonn. He was a leading scholar of the Federal Republic's foreign policy and of contemporary German history. His two-volume biography of Konrad Adenauer, published in 1986 and 1991, became the standard work on the first chancellor. He also wrote a long study of the Adenauer era, a biography of Helmut Kohl, and works on Germany's place in Europe after 1945. He edited the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte for a period and worked with the Institut für Zeitgeschichte. Schwarz wrote in a measured, documented style, drawing on archives and on his acquaintance with the political world of Bonn. His books shaped how Germans understand the postwar republic and its chancellors.