Leo Hilberath

Leo Hilberath (born April 11, 1903 in Remagen ; † 1967 ) was a German local scientist, economist and sociologist . After training in communal science and sociology during the Weimar Republic, Hilberath worked during the Nazi era, primarily in National Socialist communal science and spatial research . Hilberath was one of those sociologists who also promoted empirical sociology during the dictatorship and were also supported in this by official bodies ( Reichsnährstand , German Research Foundation , Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung , Deutsche Arbeitsfront, etc.). In 1941/42 Hilberath was imprisoned in a concentration camp . Between 1947 and 1955 Hilberath headed the " First German School of Journalism " in Aachen (together with Carl Max Maedge ).

Training in Cologne and sociological field research

Hilberath spent his childhood and youth in Remagen and Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler . He attended the secondary school in Ahrweiler. At Easter 1919 he reached the upper secondary level . The Rhinelander started his professional career in the local community administration. He worked in the Ahrweiler district office , in the Ahrweiler district committee administration and in the mayor's office in Ringen until 1925. Hilberath took up a suitable academic course (authorization: “with a small matriculation”). From the winter semester of 1925/26 onwards, he began studying local science at the Law and Political Science Faculty of the University of Cologne . He passed the municipal preliminary examination in the summer semester of 1926; on July 19, 1927 he was awarded the municipal civil servant diploma. In April 1928, he passed a gifted test and obtained the right to study “with full matriculation” and in the winter semester of 1928/29 he passed the diploma test for economists. In addition to the sociologist Leopold von Wiese , Heinrich Herkner and Erwin von Beckerath were among his teachers . In July 1929 Hilberath started the study “ The bachelor club in the Eifel. A contribution to the sociology of male societies, age groups and the sexes ”(Cologne 1931) by the Cologne sociologist von Wiese. Hilberath had undertaken empirical field research in the Eifel to prepare the study . The executive director of the Research Institute for Social Sciences, the government councilor Prof. Dr. Christian Eckert , on. Hilberath became the university assistant to Leopold von Wiese, who was head of the sociology department of the research institute in Cologne. He acquired knowledge of the state of the socio-political debate. In his historical study on Mailehen, Hans-Willi Wey comes to the conclusion that Hilberath described the characteristics of social change , especially in rural areas, in great detail:

“Observations that Hilberath (...) made under research conditions similar to field research in the Ahrweiler district confirm the inexorable change in custom under the influence of urbanization and industrialization. The primarily sociologically oriented analysis comes to the conclusion that the Eifel bachelor association and its institutions, especially those of the Milan marriage auction, are in a phase of restructuring, dissolution and revitalization. Since the creation of couple relationships among single women and men has been made easier in many ways by social change and is also possible on a personal level, it is unnecessary for the bachelors to join the Milanese couples together. The custom could even be perceived as particularly annoying where an increased development of diversity of interests and individualization of the population could already be expected. Hilberath (...) did not fail to recognize that the position of women under the pressure of the Milan marriage auction was affected to a greater extent by this change. "

Hilberath was close to the relationship- sociological teaching of Wieses and he also became a 'student' of Hugo Lindemann , previously head of the social policy department of the Research Institute for Social Sciences. Hilberath remained connected to other students of Leopold von Wiese, some of them for decades: Hanna Meuter , Willy Gierlichs , Wilhelm Vleugels and others. a.

In the following years Hilberath dealt with further sociological surveys. Together with the economist Annemarie Wissdorf (German Housewives Association), he prepared a questionnaire study on the professional and life fate of the saleswoman in the grocery store . The written survey, which was initially started on the basis of 4,000 questionnaires, failed after the investigation - according to Hilberath - was scandalized in the Cologne local press. Hilberath and Wissdorf then conducted oral interviews in the first half of 1931. In the investigation, five hundred shop assistants, some of them unemployed, were interviewed by Annemarie Wissdorf. The study essentially contained factual information about the social origin , school and professional training, employment relationships and income of the respondents. In the epilogue of the research results, which were only published in 1934, Hilberath came to the conclusion that the cultural and leisure life of the working class must be influenced and that the " Kraft durch Freude " organization of the German Labor Front now do this.

Leo Hilberath's eventful career in Nazi spatial research and spatial planning

After the National Socialists ' seizure of power ' in January 1933, Hilberath was dismissed from the University of Cologne because he was perceived as a follower of the social democrat Hugo Lindemann, who also lost his job. Hilberath found a return to his profession as a speaker and department head in the Institute for Communal Studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. Associated with this were also activities at the German Municipal Association and in the municipal department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior . By 1936 at the latest, Hilberath also worked for the Reich Working Group for Spatial Research (RAG). Together with the sociologist Erika Fischer , Hilberath received various reports on the status of spatial planning abroad for the RAG magazine "Raumforschung und Raumordnung" - with special consideration of their social science aspects. Venhoff calls Hilberath's research report to RAG “Development and current situation of population and economy in Alt- Jaromierz - Hauland ” (1937). Hilberath also published essays on the newly initiated Nazi administrative science in the journal “Raumforschung und Raumordnung”. He also published in the context of local science.

In 1939 Hilberath received 2,500 Reichsmarks from the RAG budget for an investigation into the "settlement structure of Poland". He was also mentioned by name in the RAG research volume “ People and Living Space ” (1938). Hilberath took part as a representative of the Reich Office for Spatial Planning (RfR) in conferences of the specialist working group " Central Places " of the RAG. What Hilberath dealt with at RfR / RAG is also clear from another source. In the introduction to the bibliography Der Neue Deutsche Osten published by RAG (or Paul Ritterbusch ) in 1940 :

“The present bibliography of the new eastern territories arose from practical needs. It is based on extensive material that has been compiled on behalf of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung under the guidance of State Archives Councilor Bellee in the Prussian Secret State Archives and in the Publication Office . The processing of the material for the present purpose was carried out on behalf of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung Fräulein Dr. Erika Fischer in front. We are responsible for adding and reviewing the material to Dr. RA Klostermann, Dr. Curt Poralla, Dr. Thanks to Leo Hilberath and the Eastern European Institute in Breslau. In its current form, the bibliography emerged from the examinations of the Eastern Research Program of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung, which was important for the war effort, and is therefore primarily intended to provide the necessary scientific documents for the purposes of rebuilding in the Eastern regions. "

Hilberath also worked on the RAG special publication The Sudetenland in Literature. A bibliography (1941) with. At the Berlin University, local science was relatively closely linked to spatial research. The head of the local university study group for spatial research (HAG) was Kurt Jeserich . In December 1940 Leo Hilberath acted as the deputy head of the university study group for spatial research at the University of Berlin. In this position, Hilberath represented Harry Goetz - also a municipal science institute - after an oral consultation . Since Hilberath had also entered the service of the RfR as a consultant, RAG director Paul Ritterbusch made the rector of Berlin University aware that one person could not be both a consultant for the RfR and the deputy head of the HAG at the same time; in addition, Hilberath was not qualified as a professor. Hilberath was then replaced in July 1941 by the agricultural sociologist and spatial researcher Hans Weigmann .

Hilberath also got into the dispute between the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung, the Reichsstelle für Raumordnung and the Reichskommissariat for the consolidation of German nationality (RKF). According to Michael Venhoff, an insubordinate criticism of Konrad Meyer in a yearbook is said to have led to Hilberath's dismissal from the RfR; which is contradictory because Meyer fought out his own battles with the Reich Office from the start. In addition, after the end of National Socialism, Leo Hilberath defended Konrad Meyer in a letter to the editor of the magazine " Der Spiegel " (1954) by depicting Meyer's role in such a way that in the publications he also edited (in this case the magazine " Neues Bauerntum ")" Objective criticism "of Heinrich Himmler's " violent Germanization "within the framework of the SS settlement policy should have been exercised. For Hilberath, the problem was not the planning expert Konrad Meyer, who argued “objectively” for him, but “the 150 percent Nazis with their exaggerated and sometimes inhuman demands”. He counted Theodor Oberländer among these Nazis .

According to his own statements, from July 1941 Hilberath was transferred as scientific director "to the planning department for Bohemia at the regional council in Prague". Why Hilberath was locked in a concentration camp in the same year (1941/42) has so far been little researched.

Hilberath in the post-war period: Turning towards democracy

After the war, Hilberath initially worked as a consultant for the local political center of the SPD (from 1946). During this time, with the support of the American military government in Aachen, the " First German School of Journalism - Academy for Journalism eV ." founded. Hilberath headed this school from January 1947, which was largely built up by the sociologist Hanna Meuter and Carl Max Maedge. " The institution wanted to contribute to the democratization of Germany ." Leo Hilberath now also published in magazines that had deliberately set the goal of democratic reorientation in the western zones. He reported on " Science, University and Politics " in the second edition of the magazine Die Umschau. International Review (Editor: Heinz Maus, February 1947, pp. 207ff.).

The journalists' school had to close in 1955 due to falling student numbers. Various publications by Leo Hilberath appeared in the Archive for Journalism (AfP), including the Festschrift for Hanna Meuter. Brought to you by friends and students for the 60th birthday on January 30, 1949 (Aachen 1949) and basic information on the training of journalists: Address for the opening of the 1952/53 winter semester of the First German School of Journalism on November 4, 1952 (AfP, 1952).

Hilberath was also represented with an essay at the XIV. International Sociological Congress in Rome (" Thoughts on the Functional Change of the Parties and their Relationship to the State ", 1950).

Heinz Maus described Hilberath's research interests as follows: "H. understands sociology as the basis of social research in general, as well as political science, in addition to social psychology, and tries to apply it to administrative science and journalism."

Memberships

• Association for the History of Berlin eV

literature

• Wilhelm Bernsdorf (Ed.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon . Edited by Wilhelm Bernsdorf in conjunction with Horst Knospe. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag 1959.

See also

• Sociology in National Socialism
• Cologne School (Sociology)
• Spatial planning
• journalism

Individual evidence

1. ^ Max Horkheimer: Survey of the Social Sciences in Western Germany. A Report on Recent Developments by Max Horkheimer, Foreign Consultant to the Library on Congress. Washington 1952, p. 23.
2. ↑ Finding aid access 70 / SK University for Municipal and Social Administration: Social and Municipal Official Diploma Examinations 1913-1929 (PDF), accessed on June 25, 2018
3. ↑ Heinz Maus: Lemma Hilberath, Leo . In: International Sociological Lexicon . Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag 1959, p. 220.
4. ^ Leo Hilberath: The bachelor club in the Eifel. A contribution to the sociology of male societies, age groups and the sexes . Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate from the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne. Self-published. Cologne 1931, attached curriculum vitae.
5. ↑ Hans-Willy Wey: Mailehen - experience of the 'survivor'. A custom as a medium. Diss., Göttingen 2002, p. 13f. See: https://ediss.uni-goettingen.de/bitstream/handle/11858/00-1735-0000-0006-ABBD-3/wey.pdf?sequence=1
6. ↑ Leo Hilberath: The professional and life fate of the saleswoman in the grocery trade . Publishing house of the Research Institute for Social Sciences. Cologne 1934, p. 11f. (= Social Policy Writings. 4)
7. ↑ Leo Hilberath: The professional and life fate of the saleswoman in the grocery trade . Publishing house of the Research Institute for Social Sciences. Cologne 1934, p. 148.
8. ^ Leo Hilberath: Regionalism and spatial research in England. In: Raumforschung und Raumforschung, 1st year (1937), p. 504f .; Leo Hilberath: From American literature. In: “Raumforschung und Raumordnung” 1.Jg. (1937), p. 217f .; P. 425; Leo Hilberath: Progress and results of state planning and urban development in the Tennesee Valley (USA) . In: Raumforschung und Raumforschung 4th year (1940), pp. 514f.
9. ↑ Michael Venhoff: The Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung (RAG) and Reich German spatial planning since their creation until the end of the Second World War in 1945 . Hanover: ARL 2000, p. 96.
10. ^ Leo Hilberath: Basics and methods of a new administrative science. Starting points of a political science . In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung, 4th year (1940), pp. 460–472 .; Leo Hilberath: Administrative Science and Spatial Research in their Relationship to Spatial Planning and Administrative Policy with Special Consideration of Present Problems. In: Spatial Research and Regional Planning 4th year (1940), pp. 174-182.
11. ^ Leo Hilberath: Bibliography of communal literature from 1936 and 1937. Edited in the Communal Science Institute at the University of Berlin. Stuttgart / Berlin 1938 (= local science education and research. 2); Leo Hilberath: Training of municipal officials in Germany and England . Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1938.
12. ↑ Hansjörg Gutberger: Spatial Development, Population and social integration. Research for spatial planning and spatial planning policy 1930-1960 . Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2017, p. 414; Mechtild Rössler: "Science and living space". Geographical research on the East under National Socialism. A contribution to the history of the discipline of geography . Berlin, Hamburg: Reimer 1990, p. 86.
13. ^ Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung (Ed.): The new German East. A bibliography . Leipzig: KF Köhler 1940, foreword (= reports on spatial research and spatial planning. 6).
14. ↑ Ritterbusch to Rector Hoppe of December 6, 1940. In: Archives of the Humboldt University, Rectorate "Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung", holdings R / S 239, pp. 90f.
15. ↑ Michael Venhoff: The Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung (RAG) and Reich German spatial planning since their creation until the end of the Second World War in 1945 . Hanover: Academy for Spatial Research and Regional Planning, p. 50 (= work material / ARL. 258).
16. ↑ ^{a b} Letter to the editor from Dr. Leo Hilberath, DER SPIEGEL 19/1954 of May 5th, 1954, page 34.
17. ↑ Hilberath to Rector Hoppe on July 28, 1941. In: Humboldt University, archive, holdings R / S 239, sheet 92. (quoted from Gutberger 2017, p. 414).
18. ↑ Heinz Maus: Lemma Hilberath, Leo. In: International Sociological Lexicon . Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag 1959, p. 220.
19. ^ Martin Mende: The association for the history of Berlin and its members 1933-1945 . https://www.diegeschichteberlins.de/downloads/NS-Zeit-VfdGB.pdf
20. ↑ See also: Leo Hilberath: Principles for the formation of political representations and for communal work , 1946. Leo Hilberath: Science and politics at the German turning point. Commemoration for Hugo Lindemann on his 80th birthday , 1947. (quoted from Maus 1959, p. 220).
21. ^ Heinrich Dreidoppel: Ursula Diepgen-Magará: a German journalist in Greece. An interview . 2nd improved edition, Norderstedt 2008, p. 210. According to another source, Hilberath ran the school until 1956 (cf. Internationales Soziologenlexikon 1959, p. 220).
22. ↑ Heinz Maus: Lemma Hilberath, Leo . In: Wilhelm Bernsdorf (Ed.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon . Edited by Wilhelm Bernsdorf in conjunction with Horst Knospe. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag 1959, p. 220.