Volker Klemm

Volker Klemm

Volker Klemm (born April 28, 1930 in Spremberg , Niederlausitz ; † February 28, 2018 ) was a German agricultural historian . From 1966 to 1995 he taught agricultural history at the Humboldt University in Berlin . His research focus was the history of agricultural sciences in Germany. He broke new ground in the field of agricultural biography . With numerous publications and lectures about the life's work of Albrecht Daniel Thaer , he has played a decisive role in shaping Thaer research over the past decades and has had a lasting influence.

Life

Volker Klemm passed the Abitur in spring 1949 at the Jakobson High School in Seesen am Harz. He then completed a nine-month course as a primary school teacher at a teacher training institute in Cottbus . From 1950 to 1952 he mainly taught mathematics and natural science subjects at a primary school in Frankfurt (Oder) . In 1951 he passed the first and in 1952 the second teacher examination. After retiring from teaching in the summer of 1952, he studied history and education at the Philosophical Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin until 1956 .

On his further path to becoming a university professor, this university became his academic home. From 1957 he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Agricultural Economics at Humboldt University. Under the aegis of Karl Obermann and Walter Schmidt , he received his doctorate in 1960 with a dissertation on the revolutionary year of 1848 in the city of Frankfurt (Oder). In his habilitation thesis from 1965 he dealt with the crisis in German agriculture between the years 1927 and 1933.

In 1966, Klemm was appointed lecturer in agricultural history at the Agricultural and Horticultural Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin . After the subject of agricultural history had been assigned to the plant production section in 1970 , an independent scientific area was created in 1975, the Institute for Foreign Agriculture and Agricultural History. Klemm, who was appointed associate professor in 1972, was responsible for teaching and researching agricultural history at the agricultural science sections of the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1981 he was appointed full professor and appointed to a newly created chair for agricultural history. It was the only chair for this subject at a university in the GDR.

From 1990 to 1993, Klemm was Vice Rector of the Humboldt University in Berlin and also Vice Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture. After the evaluation and restructuring of the Humboldt University, he was taken on as a university professor in 1993 for the newly created subject area “Social History of Agricultural Development”. He worked here until his retirement in 1995.

Volker Klemm sat as an NDPD member in the People's Chamber of the GDR and was most recently a member of the "Temporary Committee to review cases of abuse of office, corruption, personal enrichment and other actions that were suspected of being." There is a violation of the law ". Its publications have made the committee's work and results available to a wide public.

Research and Teaching

Klemm, editor-in-chief of the official GDR university textbook “ Agricultural history. From bourgeois agrarian reforms to socialist agriculture in the GDR ”(1978, 1985), although he represented the entire field of his subject in teaching, the history of agricultural sciences soon developed into his research focus since the late 1960s . With his exemplary documented biography of Albrecht Daniel Thaer , published in 1968, he presented remarkable new thoughts and findings and set standards for future Thaer research. Numerous diploma and research theses, as well as dissertations on Thaer, were supervised by him in the following years.

The resistance of the GDR institutions leading research at the time to his new field of work was initially considerable. However, a growing interest in some scientific areas from the agricultural science sections for Klemm's research project gradually had a beneficial effect. In the end, he also gained greater acceptance by joining a research group at the Institute for Economic History of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR , which developed a multi-volume history of the productive forces , which also included the agricultural sciences. Since this research group made very slow progress with its work, Klemm was able to carry out his research on the history of agricultural sciences for almost two decades under the protection of this project.

In 1978, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of Albrecht Daniel Thaer, Klemm succeeded, particularly actively supported by representatives from the agricultural scientific and technological fields, the Berlin Humboldt University, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the GDR and the Historians' Society of the GDR for a to win a joint conference with international participation. The festivities and the academic lectures made a major contribution to the fact that Thaer's historical importance in the GDR came back into the public consciousness. From then on, Volker Klemm was considered the most competent Thaer researcher worldwide.

The agricultural biographies , which have been neglected in historical research , have been particularly cultivated by Volker Klemm. In addition to Albrecht Daniel Thaer , he has paid tribute to numerous other personalities from the history of agriculture in lengthy treatises or shorter articles and brought their services to humanity back to life. Noteworthy are the highlights written together with Hans-Heinrich Müller about important German farmers and scientists, which were published in 1988 as a book under the title “ In the service of Ceres ”.

Klemm's 1992 work “ Agricultural Sciences in Germany ” is considered a milestone in the history of science in agriculture. History - tradition. From the beginning to 1945 ”. It is the first comprehensive presentation of the development history of agricultural sciences in the German-speaking cultural area since the monumental work by Carl Fraas "History of Agricultural and Forestry Science" published in 1865 . Klemm's repeated attempts to specifically examine the history of agricultural sciences in Germany from 1933 to 1945 were at times countered by strong reservations in the GDR. Therefore, he was only able to publish his most important research results about it after 1990. He documented this period best in the book “ Agricultural Sciences in the Third Reich. Rise or fall? "

Klemm's last book publication is the bibliophile work “ From the Royal Academy of Agriculture in Möglin to the Agricultural and Horticultural Faculty of the Humboldt University of Berlin ” , which was published in collaboration with several employees in 1998 - a historical overview of the development of academic agricultural science traditions in Berlin. The book was published at a time when the Berlin state government was planning to close the Berlin agricultural faculty. Perhaps the existence of this book contributed to preventing the planned closure of the “green” faculty at the time.

In addition to the numerous books, Volker Klemm's list of publications includes around 150 articles in scientific journals, handbooks and compilations. After the reunification, Klemm became involved in the " Fördergesellschaft Albrecht Daniel Thaer " founded in 1991 and based in Möglin . At times he was chairman of this society. The lectures he gave there on Thaer were published in the "series of publications of the promotion company Albrecht Daniel Thaer" (1991–1995).

Klemm led 50 doctoral students to PhD; He accompanied several of his students up to their habilitation. On the occasion of leaving university on June 30, 1995, colleagues, students and friends honored him with an honorary symposium. The lectures held there were published as a commemorative publication under the title “ Development tendencies in teaching and research in agricultural history ”. The Lajus Kossuth University Debrecen ( Hungary ) awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1996 for his scientific merits as an agricultural historian . In autumn 1998, the Agricultural and Horticultural Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin awarded him the newly donated Albrecht Daniel Thaer Medal as the first scientist .

Major works

• Peasant movements of the 16th century in the Margraviate of Upper Lusatia . In: Letopis. Series B. No. III, 1. Bautzen 1958, pp. 26-62.
• Frankfurt / Oder in the revolutionary year 1848 . Diss. Phil. Humboldt University of Berlin 1960. Typescript.
• Causes and course of the crisis in German agriculture from 1927/28 to 1933 . Habil.-Schr. Agricultural gardening. Faculty of Humboldt University Berlin 1965. Typescript.
• Albrecht Daniel Thaer. Agricultural science pioneer in Germany (with Günther Meyer). VEB Max Niemeyer Verlag Halle (Saale) 1968.
• From the bourgeois agrarian reforms to socialist agriculture in the GDR . Recognized textbook for training at universities and colleges. Lead editor: Volker Klemm. VEB Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag Berlin 1978; 2nd revised and supplemented edition ibid. 1985. - Edition in Japanese, translated by Tetsuo Oyabu and Takeshi Murata. Otsuki Shoten Publishers Tokyo 1980.
• Albrecht Daniel Thaer - Personality and Work . In: Conference report of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the GDR No. 173, Vol. 1 - Plenary conference (Albrecht-Daniel-Thaer-Tagung), Berlin 1979, pp. 27–38.
• From Thaer to Mitscherlich. Short biographies of important Berlin agricultural scientists (with Kurt Illner and Rita Rindermann). Contributions to the history of the Humboldt University of Berlin No. 16, Berlin 1987.
• Hans-Heinrich Müller and Volker Klemm: In the service of Ceres. Highlights on the life and work of important German farmers and scientists . Urania-Verlag Leipzig-Jena-Berlin 1988.
• Corruption and abuse of office in the GDR . Report and documentation on the committee formed in November 1989 to investigate corruption and abuse of office in the GDR. German publishing house Stuttgart 1991.
• Agricultural Sciences in Germany. History - tradition. From the beginning until 1945 . Scripta Mercaturae Verlag St. Katharinen 1992.
• Agricultural sciences in the “Third Reich”. Rise or fall? (1933-1945) . Published by the support company Albrecht Daniel Thaer in cooperation with the social history of agricultural development department at the Agricultural and Horticultural Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin. Berlin 1994.
• History of agriculture in Brandenburg . Edited by V. Klemm, G. Darkow and H.-R. Bork. Verlag Mezögadsa Budapest 1998. - In it by Volker Klemm (pp. 77–129): The agricultural sciences in Brandenburg / Berlin - From the beginnings to 1945 .
• The revolutionary year of 1848 in the Prussian administrative district of Frankfurt an der Oder . Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Successor Weimar 1998 = Publications of the Brandenburg State Main Archives Vol. 35.
• From the Royal Academy of Agriculture zu Möglin to the Agricultural and Horticultural Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin . With the participation of Reinhard Deutsch and others and Kerstin Neumann (color pictures). Humboldt University of Berlin 1998.
• About the agricultural science teachings of Thaer and Thünens - differences and causes . In: Tellower Thünen-Schriften Vol. 4, 2004, pp. 9–35 (with a short biography of Volker Klemm on p. 36).

literature

• Development tendencies in teaching and research in agricultural history. Honorary symposium on the occasion of the farewell to Prof. Dr. habil. Volker Klemm . Berlin, June 30, 1995. Published by the Institute for Agricultural Policy, Market Studies and Agricultural Development, Department of Social History of Agricultural Development at the Agricultural and Horticultural Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Albrecht Daniel Thaer zu Möglin funding company. Berlin 1995 (laudation and lectures, with picture).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christine Papendieck: Obituary Prof. Dr. habil. Dr. hc Volker Klemm. Fördergesellschaft Albrecht Daniel Thaer, April 16, 2018, accessed on April 23, 2018 .