Angelika Sievers

Angelika Sievers (born September 28, 1912 in Stolp , † June 16, 2007 in Bonn ) was a German geographer . During the time of National Socialism Sievers worked in research institutes for spatial planning and as a freelancer for the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Volkstum under Konrad Meyer, along with Herbert Morgen and Walter Christaller , she might have worked out the General Plan East . After the Second World War she became a lecturer, from 1964 professor of geography and its didactics at the Vechta University of Education . She presented research in social geography with a focus on South Asia and Sri Lanka , and dealt with issues of tourism and religious geography .

life and work

Studied and worked during National Socialism

The daughter of the lawyer and Stolper city council member Georg Sievers (1870-1935) passed her Abitur in 1932 at the Lessing grammar school in Stolp. She then studied English, geography, modern history and pedagogy at the universities of Heidelberg , Bonn and Berlin until 1938 and, with a DAAD scholarship in 1935/6, ​​at Clark University in Worcester (Massachusetts) , where she worked in 1936 with the work “Agricultural regions of Pomerania “obtained a Master of Arts .

In January 1939 Sievers received his doctorate under Carl Troll on "Cattle farming in the United States of America" . In 1937 she joined the NSDAP and the Reich Colonial Association. After completing her doctorate, Sievers first worked in the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung (editor of the journal " Raumforschung und Raumordnung ") and from 1940 as a clerk at the Institute for Agriculture and Agricultural Policy at the University of Berlin. As an employee of Herbert Morgen , with whom she was to have a lifelong friendship, Sievers was involved in social analyzes of rural regions in Lower Saxony and, according to Morgen's methods, created cartographic models, so-called "social plans" of villages and communities:

"The consideration of the social structure, especially the social ground plan, teaches us that there are no longer purely single-farm communities (not single-farm settlements) - apart from a few exceptions - in the present day. They have ceased to exist in the pure form as the desire for urban ones Consumer goods and urban cultural institutions conquered the country when, with the growing division of labor, urban handicrafts relieved the farmer of some of the work that he had previously done himself (baker, butcher, carpenter, hairdresser) and when the transport infrastructure moved the country closer to the city. "

Such analyzes served to build up a " national community " in the so-called "new German east". Like Herbert Morgen and Walter Christaller , Sievers worked as a freelancer at the Institute for Agriculture and Agricultural Policy for Office IV "Planning and Soil" of the 1939 newly created SS Main Office Reichskommissariat for the consolidation of German nationality under Konrad Meyer in the planning practice other social and agricultural scientists such as Friedrich Kann and Josef Umlauf participated. Due to this construction, the named scientists did not have to specify the Reichskommissariat as their office. In addition to Morgen and Christaller, Sievers comes into question as one of Meyer's employees who worked out the General Plan East .

From 1942 she was head of the section and editor of the reports on German regional studies in the regional studies department under the direction of Emil Meynen in the Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme .

In autumn 1942, a Wissenschaftlerausstausch led as part of the German-Italian cultural agreement Sievers as an exchange assistant by Italy to the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome as well as Bologna , Florence , Pavia and Pisa . There she collected material for a planned habilitation on the cultivation areas in Latium , which was later lost in the war.

Sievers returned to Germany to the Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme , which had been relocated to Worbis in Thuringia in December 1943 .

After the Second World War

The institute was taken over by the US Army in April 1945 and evacuated to Scheinfeld in Franconia in July 1945 before Thuringia was handed over to the Soviets , where it was re-established as the Office for Regional Studies under Emil Meynen and under American supervision. Sievers, who had acted as interpreter, was paid by the Americans. Together with Erich Otremba , she wrote a description of the Scheinfeld district .

On January 1, 1949, Sievers was fired by Meynen. From April 1949 she took, although not qualified as a professor without teaching examination and without college experience a first temporary teaching position at the University of Education Vechta at the end of 1950 into a permanent lectureship in "History and didactics of geography" and later in "Geography and its Didactics “Was converted. On June 23, 1964 she was appointed professor.

In 1955 Sievers began researching South Asia and traveled to India and Ceylon with the aim of submitting a post-doctoral degree. In addition to smaller publications and lectures, she published a geography of Ceylon in 1964. Further trips for comparative studies to Thailand and Malaysia followed. On behalf of UNESCO , she took over the development of the geography school subject for two years at the Secondary Teachers School in Zaria ( Nigeria ) in 1964 .

On March 31, 1976 Sievers retired in Vechta . She continued research on tourism in South Asia and religious- geographic issues and co-founded the Geographia Religionum series .

Fonts (selection)

• Agricultural divisions of Pomerania. 1936.
• The cattle industry of the United States of America. Mittler, Berlin, Berlin 1939.
• The land use of Great Britain in the light of statistics. [with 4 cards]. 1940.
• Characteristics of internal migration in the United States. Results of American research. In: Spatial research and spatial planning: RuR. 4 (1940) 1940, pp. 506-514.
• Herbert Morgen and Angelika Sievers: The natural foundations of the rural property system. A methodical contribution. In: Spatial research and spatial planning: RuR. 5 (1941) 1941, pp. 368-377.
• (A. Sievers): Work report from the Institute for Agriculture and Agricultural Policy at the University of Berlin. In: Reports on German regional studies . Published by the department for regional studies in the Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme, 1941/42, 1st volume, pp. 87-89.
• Agricultural Problems in the United States. In: Spatial research and spatial planning: RuR. 6, No. 6/7 1942, pp. 227-229.
• The economic importance of Ukraine. In: Spatial research and spatial planning: RuR. 6 (1942) 1942, pp. 226-229.
• Literature on agricultural geography. An overview of the last decade. In: The Research Service: Organ d. German agricultural science. 13 (1942) 1942, pp. 205-248.
• On the geography of the farm sizes. A comparative view of the north-east German Diluviall landscape. In: Spatial research and spatial planning: RuR. 6 (1942) 1942, pp. 114-126.
• The influence of the forms of settlement on the economic and social structure of the village. In: Reports on Agriculture: Journal of Agricultural Policy and Agriculture. 29 (1943/44) 1943, pp. 1-52.
• Literature on agricultural geography. An overview of the last decade. Koehler, Leipzig 1944.
• A research trip to Ceylon. Pick-Verlag, Hagen 1956.
• The Sinhalese village. In: Geographische Rundschau: GR. 10, No. 8 1958, pp. 294-303.
• Research trip to Ceylon and South India. Ferdinand Schöningh publishing house, Paderborn 1959.
• Mission and School: Christian Villages on the Malabar Coast. , Paderborn 1959.
• The Christian groups in Kerala. , Münster 1962.
• The national tensions in Ceylon and their bases. In: Geographische Rundschau: GR. 14, No. 9 1962, pp. 357-365.
• Development problems of Ceylon. In: Development Aid and Developing Country: Concept, Problems and Possibilities. 1962, pp. 65-79.
• Ceylon. Society and living space in the oriental tropics; a socio-geographical regional studies. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1964, ISBN 351500176X .
• (Ed.): Christ's word in all the world. A geographical representation of the main mission countries. Patmos-Verl., Düsseldorf 1965.
• South asia. Zurich 1970.
• and Willi Walter Puls : Nigeria. Tribal problems of a new state in tropical Africa. 1st edition. Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1970.
• Helmut Ottenjann and Angelika Sievers: Northwest Lower Saxony regional research. Schuster, Leer 1974.
• The Relevance of Developing Countries in Geography Thoughts on Conceptualization. [Sn], [s. l.] 1982.
• South Asia and other selected contributions from research and practice. Reimer, Berlin West 1982.
• Tourism in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). A socio-geographical contribution to the tourism phenomenon in tropical developing countries, especially in South Asia. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 9783515038898 .
• Surinder Mohan Bhardwaj and Gisbert Rinschede: Pilgrimage in world religions. Presented to Prof. Dr. Angelika Sievers on the occasion of her 75th Birthday. D. Reimer, Berlin 1988, ISBN 9783496009597 .

literature

• Horst-Alfons Meißner: A life for geography in teaching and research. Angelika Sievers on her 100th birthday . In: Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 2013 , pp. 350–362.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hansjörg Gutberger: Social structure and social space research under National Socialism. A sketch of the research lines . In: Jahrbuch für Soziologiegeschichte 1992 (1994), p. 68.
2. ↑ Angelika Sievers: The influence of the forms of settlement on the economic and social structure of the village. In: Reports on Agriculture . tape 29 , no. 1 . Berlin 1943, p. 1–52 (here: 15) .
3. ↑ Hansjörg Gutberger: Social structure and social space research under National Socialism. A sketch of the research lines . In: Jahrbuch für Soziologiegeschichte 1992 (1994), p. 73.
4. ↑ Mechtild Rössler: "Science and living space". Geographical research on the East under National Socialism. A contribution to the history of the discipline of geography . Reimer, Berlin 1990, p. 165.
5. ↑ Mechtild Rössler: "Science and living space". Geographical research on the East under National Socialism. A contribution to the history of the discipline of geography . Reimer, Berlin 1990, p. 220.