Percy Ernst Schramm (14 October 1894 – 12 November 1970) was a German historian who specialized in art history and medieval history. Schramm was a Chair and Professor of History at the University of Göttingen from 1929 to 1963.
Early life and education Schramm was born to a wealthy and cosmopolitan family in Hamburg, that belonged to the class of Hanseatic families. His father, Max Schramm, was a lawyer, senator and second mayor (i.e. deputy mayor) from 1925 to 1928. His grandfather Ernst Schramm (1812–1882) had been a major sugar merchant in Hamburg and Brazil. His mother Olga O'Swald, grandniece of William Henry O'Swald, also belonged to a prominent Hanseatic family. The young Percy served in the German Army during World War I and went on to study history and art history at several of Germany's elite universities, including the University of Hamburg, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and Heidelberg University. In 1922, he completed his doctoral studies at Heidelberg University under the medieval historian Karl Hampe. He remained at Heidelberg University for two more years to write his Habilitationsschrift on the topic of German imperial ideology in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and in particular, how the Holy Roman emperors of the medieval period appropriated the imagery and history of the ancient Roman Empire for their own rule. Published in 1929 as Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio: Studien und Texte zur Geschichte des römischen Erneuerungsgedankens vom Ende des karolingischen Reiches bis zum Investiturstreit ("Emperor, Rome and Renovatio: Studies and Texts on the History of Roman Ideologies of Renewal from the End of the Carolingian Empire to the Investiture Controversy"), Schramm's thesis was a landmark piece of highly original, interdisciplinary scholarship that transformed the way medieval historians approached the subject of political ideology. He demonstrated that art history, a field of study which at the time fell mostly to dilettantes and gentleman scholars, deserved a place in serious academic inquiry alongside history and philology. Schramm's work also emphasized the centrality of symbols and ritual in articulating and defining political ideologies. In a rite of passage required of most German medievalists at the time, Schramm worked for two years at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica before being offered a professorship. In 1929, he was awarded a chair in history at the University of Göttingen, one of Germany's most prestigious universities. His students at the University of Göttingen included Berent Schwineköper; the American professor of German History, Donald Detwiler; and the Hungarian medievalist, János Bak. Schramm remained there until his retirement in 1963. In Spring 1932, Schramm spoke publicly in Thalburg on behalf of the re-election of Paul von Hindenburg, who was running against Adolf Hitler for the Presidency of the Weimar Republic. Speaking fluent English, Schramm received an invitation to teach at Princeton University during the 1933 academic year; he returned to the University of Göttingen in that same year, after Hindenburg had appointed Hitler to be Chancellor of Germany.
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