Adolf Kossakowski

Adolf Kossakowski (born May 11, 1928 in Lindenau , East Prussia ; died September 6, 2017 in Berlin ) was a German psychologist . From 1975 to 1989 he was chairman of the Society for Psychology of the GDR .

Life

The farmer's son Kossakowski attended the Patschkau teacher training college from 1942 to 1944 . In 1944/45 he served in the Reich Labor Service , had to flee East Prussia with his mother and in 1945/46 worked as a farm worker in Heiligenhagen near Rostock. In 1946/47 Kossakowski started as a new teacher in Warnow . From 1947 to 1949 he studied education at the University of Rostock . From 1949 to 1951 Kossakowski was a teacher at the Bad Doberan secondary school . In 1950 he joined the SED . In 1951/52 Kossakowski was senior consultant in the Ministry of Popular Education of the State of Mecklenburg . In 1952/53 Kossakowski studied at the German Academy for State and Law in Potsdam-Babelsberg and from 1953 psychology at the University of Leipzig , where he obtained his diploma in 1956. From 1957 to 1964, Kossakowski was an aspirant and also studied in Moscow . In 1960 he received his doctorate on "On dysfunctional functions in poor reading and writing ", followed in 1964 with his habilitation with the thesis "Conditions for developmental change in puberty ". From 1964 Kossakowski taught as a lecturer in psychology, from 1966 as a professor with a teaching position and director of the Psychological Institute. In 1968 Kossakowski became a full professor of psychology ( personality psychology ) at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. In 1970 he switched to the newly founded Institute for Educational Psychology at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the GDR (APW) in Berlin, which was subordinate to the GDR Ministry for Public Education . From September 1975 on, Kossakowski was chairman of the Society for Psychology of the GDR until he was voted out of office in 1989. After the APW was liquidated, he retired at the end of 1990.

Kossakowski contributed to the establishment of educational psychology in the GDR and got into tension with the Ministry of National Education because he did not want to overlook the increasing difference between the official view of young people and the elevated situation, as Walter Friedrich from the Leipzig Youth Institute also described . He was instrumental in organizing the World Congress of Psychologists in Leipzig in 1980.

Awards

• 1979 Order Banner of Labor Stage II
• 1988 Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze

literature

• Günther Buch: Names and dates of important people in the GDR. 4th, revised and expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin (West) / Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-8012-0121-X , p. 171.
• Dieter Hoffmann, Ulrich Jahnke:  Kossakowski, Adolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Wolfgang Schönpflug , Gerd Lüer: Psychology in the German Democratic Republic: Science between. In: Ideology and Pragmatism. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17967-4 .

Fonts

• How do we overcome difficulties in reading and learning? Learn to write, especially if you have weak reading and writing skills? Berlin 1961.
• with Walter Friedrich : On the psychology of adolescence . Berlin 1962.
• On the psychological changes in puberty: condition analysis . Berlin 1965.
• Action-psychological aspects of personality development . Berlin 1980.
• as editor: Psychological development of personality in the child and Adolescence . Berlin 1987.
• The educational psychology of the GDR in the field of tension between child-oriented research and educational policy demands. In: E. Cloer, R. Wernstedt (Ed.): Pedagogy in the GDR . Weinheim 1994.
• with Horst Kühn: Educational psychology in the field of tension between politics and science. (= Society and Education. Historical and Systematic Perspectives. Volume 7). Peter Lang Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60068-9 .