Following his studies at the universities of Tübingen and Berlin, he earned his doctorate in history in 1921 and his Habilitation in 1923. Subsequently he became Professor of Classical History at the University of Tübingen. He was Professor at the universities of Würzburg (1929), Breslau (1936), Tübingen (1940) and Freiburg im Breisgau (1944), before he returned to Tübingen again in 1946 and taught there until his retirement in 1963.
Joseph Vogt is well known for his works on the Roman Republic (1932) and the era of Constantine I (1949). In 1950, he led a major research project on slavery in the antiquity at the Mainz Academy of Sciences.
He joined the Nazi party during the years 1940-1945 and adopted the racial theories en vogue at the time. In this context, he described the history of the Roman world as the result of the struggle between the superior 'aryan' Roman race and the 'Semitic' Phoenician sub-race. Thus in the preface of his edited volume entitled 'Rom und Karthago' Joseph Vogt states that "Surrounded by races of sailors from Asia Minor, Rome often had to draw its sword to assert its power. The destruction of Carthage was a crucial event in terms of racial history: it preserved the future Western civilization from the miasmas of this Phoenician pest".
The ''Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt'', an extensive series of scholarly books dealing with the history and culture of Ancient Rome, was started as a Festschrift to Joseph Vogt.
