Arcadius Rudolf Lang Gurland

Arcadius Rudolf Lang Gurland (also: Arkadij Gurland) (born September 1, 1904 in Moscow , † March 27, 1979 in Darmstadt ) was a German political scientist of Russian origin.

Life

After graduating from high school in Berlin (1922), Gurland studied mathematics, physics, philosophy and history at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin until 1924 . In 1923 he was a member of the social democratic class struggle group and full-time employee of its magazine Marxist Tribune for Politics and Economics . From 1924 to 1928 Gurland studied economics and social science at the University of Leipzig , where he received his doctorate in 1929 . In the same year he began his functionary work for the SPD, from 1931 he was editor of the Socialist Press Conference . In 1932 he became the deputy editor-in-chief of Volksstimme Leipzig .

Gurland emigrated to Belgium in March 1933 and then to France in August. There he became an employee of the Documentation de Statistique Sociale et Économique and Free Germany (especially for economic issues) and under various code names (W. Gundal, Rudolph Lang, Felix Graham, Vexator) author of the journal for social research . He was also a member of the Paris SPD group.

In 1940 Gurland emigrated to the USA. 1941 Isaac his father Gurland was in the ghetto of Vilna shot, his mother Juliane Gurland could emigrate to England. Arcadius RL Gurland conducted research at the Institute of Social Research in New York until 1945 . "In 1947 Gurland toured the American and British occupation zones on behalf of the US War Department and in 1948/1949 wrote a handbook on working conditions in West Germany for the Office of Foreign Labor Conditions." During his stay he was in contact with Erich Lewinski . In May 1947 he reported to “dear Hermann” ( Hermann Ebeling ) about a visit by Gurland who was “for a project in Germany”. Ebeling, in turn, informed his wife Gretel in detail on May 23, 1947 about a meeting with Gurland, who left immediately because he had to be in Washington on July 1. Ebeling wrote about Gurland, who was in contact with Heinrich Rodenstein's Braunschweig district : “I have the impression that Gurland would really like to go to Germany if he could only find a reasonably well-paid (ie in dollars) job. He will visit you if he should return earlier than me. "

Gurland's hopes for a speedy return to Germany were initially not fulfilled. "Due to a denunciation to American government agencies, he [...] did not receive an entry visa to West Germany until 1950." It was not until the spring of 1950 that he accepted Franz L. Neumann and Otto Suhr's suggestion to help establish an institute for empirical social research in Berlin arrived in Berlin in November 1950. Until 1954 he was head of the Institute for Political Science at the Free University of Berlin . One of his assistants during this time was the later Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Schütz .

After the establishment of the Institute for Political Science (IfpW), Gurland was appointed its deputy director on March 6, 1951. As a result, however , there were controversies between Gurland and the director of the institute, Otto Heinrich von der Gablentz , the causes of which were to be found in "the different academic and political socialization of Gurland and von der Gablentz in organizational issues and questions of research priorities". Probably the reasons for Gurland's departure from the IfpW are to be found here,

Gurland worked as a freelance writer and translator from 1954. From 1962 until his retirement in 1972 he taught as a professor for scientific politics at the Technical University of Darmstadt , one of his assistants was the political scientist and civil rights activist Jürgen Seifert .

Fonts (selection)

• The proletarian class struggle in the present. On the tactical orientation of social democracy in the post-war phase of capitalism. Leipziger Buchdruckerei, Leipzig 1925.
• Marxism and dictatorship. Leipziger Buchdruckerei, Leipzig 1930.
• Today of proletarian action. Obstacles and changes in the class struggle. E. Laub, Berlin 1931.
• Political Science in Western Germany. Thoughts and writings, 1950-1952. Library of Congress, Reference Department, European Affairs Division, Washington 1952.
• The CDU / CSU. Origins and development until 1953. European publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-434-00436-X .
• Social Democratic Struggle Positions 1925-53 / ARL Gurland , edited by Dieter Emig and Hubertus Buchstein, Nomos-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Baden-Baden, 1991, ISBN 978-3-7890-2277-7 . The volume contains a selection of Gurland's writings. The detailed introduction to this, tracing Gurland's life, is available online: Hubertus Buchstein / Dieter E; mig / Rüdiger Zimmermann: Arkadij Gurland's political career and work .

As translator

• Erich Fromm : Sigmund Freud's mission. Personality, historical location and impact. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1961.
• Otto Kirchheimer : Political Justice. Use of legal process options for political purposes. Luchterhand, Neuwied / Berlin 1965.
• Pierre Broué : Revolution and War in Spain. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1968.

literature

• Mario Keßler : Arkadij Gurland: Social Democrat and Political Scientist Between Weimar Republic, Exile and Western Post-War Germany (1907-2009) , in: Mario Keßler: Historia magistra vitae? On history and political education , Trafo Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2010, pp. 191–210. ISBN 978-3-89626-646-0

Web links

• Literature by and about Arcadius Rudolf Lang Gurland in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biographical information (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Tilman Fichter, Siegward Lönnendonker: The remigration of political science. Historical-empirical political research in Berlin , in: ZdF 23/2008, p. 146
2. ^ Tilman Fichter / Siegward Lönnendonker: Historical-Empirical Political Research in Berlin. On the early history of the Institute for Political Science at the Free University , in: Karol Kubicki / Siegward Lönnendonker (ed.): Social sciences at the Free University of Berlin. Educational science, psychology, university didactics, political science, research association SED state, communication studies, sociology and tourism , V&R unipress, Göttingen, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8471-0141-3 , p. 153
3. ^ Tilman Fichter / Siegward Lönnendonker: Historisch-Empirische Politikforschung in Berlin , p. 167
4. ^ Tilman Fichter, Siegward Lönnendonker: Die Remigration der Politischen Wissenschaft , p. 147