THIS IS THE STORY OF MY FATHER: both a remarkable human being and a symbolic figure for German-Jewish existence in the twentieth century. It took place during momentous years, the Nazi takeover of government in Germany, World War II, the Holocaust, and the resurgence of postwar Germany. Born in 1909, Hans-Joachim Schoeps came to maturity at the fateful time the Nazi Party got ready to assume power in Germany in the context of a largely dysfunctional Weimar Republic. On January 30, 1933, when Hitler became chancellor, Schoeps celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday, having the previous year received his PhD under Joachim Wach, later at the University of Chicago. He was twenty-nine when under adventurous circumstances he fled Germany. On the evening of December 24, 1938, Hans-Joachim Schoeps flew from Tempelhof airport in Berlin to freedom in Sweden. His escape was made possible by the head of the Asian Department in the German Foreign Ministry. Through him, Schoeps received the exit visa that allowed him to leave the country as a courier for the Foreign Ministry. Schoeps spent seven years in exile. Both his physician father, who had been decorated in World War I for bravery, and his mother perished in Theresienstadt.

Schoeps's ancestors had lived in Germany for centuries; his lineage included both Moses and Felix Mendelssohn. If there ever was an “authentic” German family, here it was. Except that it was not what was called “Aryan.” Though Hans-Joachim Schoeps intended a university career, the new Nazi law “to restore a professional civil service,” passed within weeks of Hitler's succession to power, made that impossible.

From the mid-1920s onward, already as a teenager, Schoeps was a prolific and engaged participant in the Jugendbewegung, the youth movement. In fact, he organized a movement, the Vortrupp. He was aware of the growing importance of the Nazi movement. Fatefully, he felt kinship with its anti-Weimar orientation, taking it to be a conservative movement that affirmed the values of tradition and religion, a means, perhaps, that might enable the return of the monarchy in Germany. Nazi anti-Semitism seemed a peripheral issue, making an alliance between conservative Jews and conservatives of all ilks seem possible. His father was a distinguished physician in Berlin who had proven his loyalty to Germany on the battlefield during WWI; his mother was of the prominent Mendelssohn family.