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Prof. Hans Hillerbrand Receives German Honor

The award recognizes Hillerbrand's scholarship on the Reformation

Professor Hans Hillerbrand

Professor Hans Hillerbrand was honored by the German government for providing "insight into the roots of American religion and culture in German history," at a reception Monday, Sept. 29, at the Doris Duke Center.

German Consul General Lutz H. Görgens presented Hillerbrand with the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Görgens praised Hillerbrand for "reach[ing] out to a broad public on both sides of the Atlantic and stimulated transatlantic academic exchange."

He also recognized Hillerbrand's research on Jewish-German history in collaboration with colleagues at the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies at Potsdam University in Germany.

"Hans Joachim Hillerbrand has strived for a tolerant discussion of religious traditions and values, rather than for a clash of cultures and civilizations," Görgens said in his prepared remarks."

Both German and non-German citizens are eligible to receive the Cross of the Order of Merit award, which is given in several classes, with the highest class reserved for heads of state. About 3,000 people receive the award each year. It was created in 1951.

Hillerbrand is a professor of religion at Duke and editor of the German-language Journal for the History of Religion and Culture. He is a former president of the American Academy of Religion and the editor of the four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, as well as the Encyclopedia of Protestantism.

Duke Provost Peter Lange said the award is "an enormous honor for Hans."

"He's dedicated his career to not just to his area of specialization, but to making understood the significance of religion and its social context to a wider audience," Lange said.

The director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies, Julius H. Schoeps, a friend and colleague of Hillerbrand, said, "There is much that is idiosyncratic about Hans Hillerbrand."

"He grew up in Nazi Germany but saw his father arrested by the Gestapo," Schoeps said in prepared remarks. "He is German but spent his adult life in the United States. He is a Lutheran, but his mentor, my father Hans Joachim Schoeps, was a Jewish scholar."

"Hans has served as bridge builder at a time when scholars often talk past one another," he said.