Jonathan Petropoulos

How did you become a writer?

Writing is part of the job when one is an academic (“publish or perish”), but, like most of my cohort, I write for other reasons besides survival. Writing clearly satisfies a need to express oneself and to communicate with others. It’s also a craft where one can hone skills, and I have enjoyed evolving as a writer—in my case, loosening up a bit and enjoying telling a story. While I want my books to make a contribution in terms of scholarship, I’m also interested in making my work more accessible and engaging. I have derived satisfaction from people who have said they are “enjoying” Göring’s Man. 

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

I suppose I go back to my graduate training at Harvard with Charles Maier and Simon Schama—both brilliant individuals and talented writers. Maier, my Doktorvater, asks the best questions of anyone I have ever encountered, and his voice has remained with me over the years. As I process information or tell a story, I hear his many questions about what happened and why (and why is that important)? Simon Schama is remarkably erudite and eloquent—he sets a standard that I will never match--but in particular, I admire the manner in which he makes an event or object come to life, and the way he drives home a point or offers an insight. With both his presentations and his prose, his mastery of the English language helps make him an extraordinary teacher who connects with his audience. I would add that if required, I would point to Ian McEwan as my favorite writer: the way he masters a subject and transports the reader into different worlds is brilliant and magical. 

When and where do you write?

I am a plodder and like my routine. During summers and sabbaticals, I work in my home office and write from 8 a.m. until about 2 p.m. Ideally, I’ll then go for a swim or get some other exercise, and then come back in the afternoon to do “library work” (read and prepare for the next day’s writing).

What are you working on now?

I have a new book project about the end of the Third Reich. I am writing it with my colleague and partner, Wendy Lower, who also just finished a book. We are both at Yale University on sabbatical this semester, enjoying the hunting and gathering, as well as the conceptual phase of the project.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I rarely suffer from writer’s block, and this is for two reasons. First, I don’t always write sequentially. I will jump around and work on a section that I feel prepared to write (rather like filming a movie out of sequence). So, with book projects, I can usually find something to work on. Second, I tell myself that everything is subject to revision, and this seems to have a liberating effect. I tell myself that everything is provisional and that I can come back and fix it. Just get down a first draft…

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Good writing is about re-writing. Very few of us can craft perfect prose on the first draft.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Find a topic you love—where it doesn’t seem like a chore to pursue a project. If one is a historian, like I am, look for sources that are special. If one finds a diary, or letters, or a trove of documents, well, it’s a huge advantage to have sources that are special. With my current book on Nazi art plunderer Dr. Bruno Lohse, I interviewed him for 9 years and obtained many of his private papers upon his death. I knew that someone else could write his biography, but it wouldn’t be my story.

Jonathan Petropoulos is the John V. Croul Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California. Previously, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University (1990), where he also had an appointment as a Lecturer in History & Literature. He began working on the subject of Nazi art looting and restitution in 1983, when he commenced graduate work in history and art history. He is the author of Art as Politics in the Third Reich (University of North Carolina Press, 1996); The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 2000); Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 2006); Artists Under Hitler: Collaboration and Survival in Nazi Germany (Yale University Press, 2014); and Göring’s Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and his World” (Yale University Press, 2021), and has helped edit a number of other volumes.

From 1998 to 2000, Dr. Petropoulos served as Research Director for Art and Cultural Property on the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, where he helped draft the report, Restitution and Plunder: The U.S. and Holocaust Victims’ Assets (2001). He has also served as an expert witness in a number of cases where Holocaust victims have tried to recover lost artworks. This includes Austria v. Altmann, which involved six paintings by Gustav Klimt claimed by Maria Altmann and other family members (five were returned).

He is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.