Schulze, the son of orientalist and diplomat Peter Hans Schulze (* 1919), a member of the
Sicherheitsdienst in
WWII, and his wife Dr. phil.
Sigrid Hunke, 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
Reiner Braun, after which he worked as a private tutor and as a substitute teacher at Kiel and Berlin until 1979, when he was named a full professor of modern history and historiography at the
Free University of Berlin. 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. However, he did criticize Nolte's principal opponent,
Jürgen Habermas, for presenting overly-simplistic views: on the one hand,
liberals who supported the mainstream view of German history; on the other hand a group of historians promoted by
conservatives. From 2000 to 2006 Schulze was the director of the
German Historical Institute in
London. ==Selected works==