Author in Focus “Biography of Wolfgang G. Schwanitz”

Born in 1955, Wolfgang G. Schwanitz lived for seven years in Cairo, Egypt, as his parents were diplomats. Back in East Germany, he attended the Max Planck high school of Berlin. In 1982 he finished five years of Middle Eastern studies as Arabist/Economist at Leipzig University. In 1985 he completed there his Ph.D. on Egypt’s open-door policy.

In Berlin Mr. Schwanitz headed the research group on Middle Eastern history at the Academy of Sciences since 1986. He has taught at Humboldt University, University of Potsdam, and Free University of Berlin.

After German reunification, he worked (1990–95) at the Modern Orient Center of Berlin — founded by the Max Planck Society of Munich — and published books on relations between Germany and the Middle East.

His Book: Nazis, Islamists and the making of the modern Middle East

In the 1990s he was visiting fellow at the French Centre CEDEJ, Cairo (1992–93), at Princeton University (1995–97), and at the German-American Center for Visiting Scholars of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. (1998).

In his history of the German Orient Bank he showed by records from American and German archives how Jewish gold looted by Nazis in occupied Europe was sold in Turkey via the German Orient Bank. This bank was founded in 1906 by Dresdner Bank in Berlin, the second-largest German bank, and served 40 years in the Middle East. In 2000, Mr. Schwanitz settled near Princeton, NJ.

He researches and teaches Arabic, world history, and Middle Eastern history at local colleges, Burlington County College in Pemberton, New Jersey, and Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey (2004–08). He edits a book series of comparative studies, is visiting professor at the Rubin Center, Herzliya, Israel, since 2007, and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum of Philadelphia, since 2012, and there since 2014 Hochberg Family Writing Fellow.

His works on the German and American Islam policy met a wide response. Mr. Schwanitz authored seven and edited ten books. He authored 70 book chapters in collective works, 66 articles in academic journals and over 400 articles in top newspapers on history and politics of the region in international relations since 1798, as modernity came to the Middle East. Website.

Mr. Schwanitz has authored eight books: Middle East Mosaic 2014(Berlin: Weist 2016); Middle East Mosaic 2013 (Berlin: Weist 2015); Islam in Europe, Revolts in the Middle East (Berlin: Weist 2013, 2014 2nd. ed.); Nazis, Islamists and the Modern Middle East, with Barry M. Rubin (New Haven: Yale 2014, Polish, Hungarian, 2014); A History of the German Orient Bank (Berlin: Weist 2002); and Germans in the Middle East, 2 vols. (Haensel-Hohenhausen: Frankfurt M. 1998).

He edited ten books, among them Germany and the Middle East (Leipzig: University Press 2004); Germany and the Middle East (Princeton: Wiener 2004); Germany and the Middle East in the Cold War (Leipzig: University Press 2006); Egypt and Germany, with Wajih A. Atiq (Cario: Dar ath-Thaqafa 1998); August Bebel’s Muhammadan-Arab Period of Culture (Berlin: Edition Ost 1999); 125 Years of the Suez Canal (Hildesheim: Olms 1998); Arabs, Jews and Germans (Berlin: Dietz 1994); and Berlin-Cairo: Then and Today (Berlin: German-Egyptian Society 1991).