Erwin Wiskemann

Erwin Fritz August Wiskemann (born April 20, 1896 in Mulhouse / Alsace , † April 19, 1941 in Berlin ) was a German economist . His areas of expertise lay in theoretical economics, economic history since mercantilism , trade and trade policy. In 1932 he took on the first teaching position for questions of job creation and the labor service at the Philipps University of Marburg . He is considered to be one of the most important representatives of National Socialist economics. In doing so, he assumed a special approach in German economics, the climax of which was National Socialist economics. In addition to relevant publications, Wiskemann contributed significantly to new study and examination regulations for the subject of economics.

Life

The son of a doctor attended the humanistic grammar school in Mulhouse from 1902 to 1914. From August 16, 1914, he took part in the First World War as a war volunteer with Field Artillery Regiment 45 . Wiskemann was deployed on the Eastern Front with the Reserve Field Artillery Regiments 65 and 62 . In June 1916 he switched to the Air Force as a sergeant and became a pilot on the Western Front . He suffered serious injuries in a crash in 1918.

From 1918 to March 1921 Wiskemann studied law and political science at the Universities of Breslau and Marburg . On March 18, 1921 , he received his doctorate in Marburg under Walter Troeltsch with a thesis on “Economic considerations on the development of aviation”. rer. pole. From May 1922 Wiskemann worked as an assistant and head of the press department of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce . Here he was one of the co-founders and was the first managing director of the Hamburg Enlightenment Committee, an institution for German propaganda abroad, which supplied German business people for trips abroad with materials in exchange for reparation payments under the Treaty of Versailles . In June 1924 he returned to the Department of Political Science at the University of Marburg as von Troeltsch's assistant. Here he completed his habilitation in May 1927 in economics and finance.

In June 1932 Wiskemann received the first German teaching assignment for "Questions of job creation, labor service and the settlement". He sat voluntarily on the supervisory board of the savings and construction association of the city of Marburg and was the first managing director of the Hessian association for settlement and labor service in Marburg. In Marburg, he also headed the University Press Office Marburg, which was founded in 1932. In 1933 he became an associate professor and represented von Troeltsch's chair in the 1933 summer semester. In September 1933 he was appointed full professor of economics at the Albertus University in Königsberg , where he took over the management of the Institute for East German Economics. In the winter semester of 1933/34 Gustav Adolf Walz tried to bring Wiskemann to Breslau, where Walz wanted to set up a legal "shock troop faculty". In November 1934 Wiskemann went to the Berlin School of Management as a professor , where he became the managing vice-rector. He was considered a close confidante of the economist Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld, who teaches at the Berlin university , and also held a lectureship on foreign trade at the university. In 1936 he was supposed to be proposed as chairman of the Verein für Socialpolitik , which he refused on the grounds that he was injured in the war.

On May 1, 1933, Wiskemann joined the NSDAP (membership number: 2,828,895). In 1934 he was political advisor to the local group Tragheim / Königsberg and in 1935 block leader in Elsterfeld. He belonged to the NS-Juristenbund and the NSDB . He was a member of the Presidium of the German Economic Association and headed its university group in Berlin.

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Wiskemann is considered a leading National Socialist economist. He competed with Jens Jessen , with whom he also worked in part, to establish himself as a central force in National Socialist economics. With Georg Dahm , Karl August Eckhardt , Ernst Rudolf Huber and Jessen, Wiskemann published the new series Fundamentals of Law and Economics for the Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg , where he was responsible for the economics series together with Jessen . When Jessen's textbook People and Economy (1935) was objected to by the party official examination commission for the protection of Nazi literature , Wiskemann distanced himself from Jessen, although he had proofread the book. The economist Karl Häuser sees Wiskemann, like Wilhelm Vleugels, exposed in the sense of the Nazi ideology, while the scientific work of Jessen, Johannes Popitz and Heinrich Freiherr von Stackelberg remained largely unaffected by their political convictions. For Hauke Janssen, Wiskemann was committed to the work of Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld in terms of economic theory , but worked more in the service of the National Socialist movement.

Already before 1931 Wiskemann was the co-editor of the seventh band Friedrich-List List Society -Edition the history of dogma worked and contributed to the article about the "political-economic national unity of the Germans" in the work of Friedrich List. At the beginning of the National Socialist era, Wiskemann attested that economics was backward and said that its decline was promoted by "Jewish-liberalist elements". Initially with regard to Othmar Spann , he called for a holistic system; later he criticized Spann, whose approach was not formed “from a bloody conception of history”. Between Spann's universalism and National Socialism there was “a sharp contrast” with regard to the racial idea, since National Socialism recognized that “the spirit could not appear differently than racially”.

Wiskemann tried to translate his interest in a “new economic science” into research and teaching. He worked on study and examination regulations and endeavored to integrate economic subjects and law. Together with Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld, he played a leading role in shaping the content of the guidelines for the study of economics, which the Reich Minister for Science, Education and National Education , Bernhard Rust , announced on May 2, 1935. Thus the political science department of the Berlin University was reorganized and assigned to the former law faculty, now renamed the law and political science faculty. The students of economics and business administration should be taught together in the first two "political semesters" in order, according to Wiskemann, "to put the humanities on a common political and ethnic foundation."

With the help of his assistant Heinz Lütke , Wiskemann published the Nazi-influenced dogma story Der Weg der deutschen Volkswirtschaftslehre (1937), for which he himself contributed articles on List, Karl Marx , Liberalism and National Socialism. In this dogma story, the history of the historical school was understood as a German special path in economics. In this way Wiskemann constructed a tradition of the National Socialist economy up to historicism, which he characterized as the "forerunner of the National Socialist line of ideas". Gottl-Ottilienfeld's work, which Wiskemann and Lütke attested to having represented “the category of people as it was formed by National Socialism”, served as a reference point for the field of economics. In his essay National Socialism and Economics (1937), Wiskemann stated that the state had absolute priority over the economy. In doing so, he appropriated Gustav Schmoller's work from the National Socialist point of view, because Schmoller had represented the cause of “Prussian socialism”. The person and work of Friedrich List were of particular importance in this historiography. Wiskemann reassessed the lack of theoretical cohesion of List's work positively by describing List as a political person with a specific goal. In the style of a National Socialist leader's biography, Wiskemann List attributed “political prophethood”, which he classified in a racial-national context. According to Wiskemann, German economics must "be based primarily on the people and the ethnic, must clarify the question of space, peoples and races in their connection with the economy".

Fonts

Campaign 1914. From the diary of a Mülhausen war volunteer. [Sn], Mulhouse 1915.
Economic considerations on the development of aviation. phil. Diss. Marburg 1921.
Hamburg's position in trade policy. In: Hamburger Übersee-Jahrbuch. 1924, pp. 183-196.
Hamburg between Europe and overseas. In: Hamburger Übersee-Jahrbuch. 1928, pp. 235-258.
Hamburg's position in world trade policy. From the beginning until 1814. De Gruyter, Hamburg 1928.
Export propaganda as a form of export promotion. In: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 34 (1931), 1.
The history of the reparations question. Teubner; [Sn], Leipzig [u. a.] 1932.
The structure of the German economy in the present. In: German agricultural policy in the context of internal and external economic policy. 2, pp. 3-31 (1932).
Marburg as a political university. In: Marburg. The University in the Present. Elwert, Marburg 1933, p. 9 f.
Central Europe. A German task. Volk und Reich Verlag, Berlin 1933.
National Socialist Economics. In: People in the process of being. Journal for cultural policy. 1, No. 4 (1933), pp. 35-45.
Economic history. Gloeckner, Leipzig 1933.
On the psychology of the world economy and its crisis. In: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 39 (1934), 2.
The reorganization of economics studies. Presentation given at the conference of university teachers on March 28, 1935. In: Karl August Eckhardt (Hrsg.): The study of economics. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1935, pp. 34–46.
The German East as a task. In: Journal for the entire political science (ZgS). 95 (1935), pp. 365-382.
The new economics. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1936.
Economics in the new economics. In: German magazine for economics. 1 (1936), pp. 164-177.
Edited with Heinz Lütke: The way of German economics. Their creators and designers in the 19th century. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937.
German economics and liberalism. In: The way of German economics. Their creators and designers in the 19th century. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937, pp. 165–176.
Friedrich List. In: The way of German economics. Their creators and designers in the 19th century. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937, pp. 47–56.
Karl Marx and Marxism. In: The way of German economics. Their creators and designers in the 19th century. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937, pp. 57–70.
with Heinz Lütke: Current directions in German economics. In: The way of German economics. Their creators and designers in the 19th century. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937, pp. 177–194.
with Carl August Emge and Paul Ritterbusch : Law in the New State. Deutscher Rechts-Verlag, Vienna 1938.
Edited with Heinrich Hunke and Otto Friedrich Bollnow : Contemporary questions of economics. [Dedicated to Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld on his 70th birthday, Nov. 13, 1938]. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1939.

literature

Hauke Janssen: Economics and National Socialism. The German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), 4th, revised edition, Metropolis, Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-89518-875-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Institute for Applied Economics (Ed.): The economics professors at the imperial German universities and at the TH Danzig. Career and publications . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1938, pp. 274 f., 898 f.
^ Establishment of a teaching position for job creation and labor service in Marburg, September 15, 1932. Contemporary history in Hessen. (As of June 2012). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
^ ^A ^b Anne Christine Nagel (Ed.): The Philipps University of Marburg in National Socialism. Documents related to their history . Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, p. 550.
↑ Thomas Ditt: "Shock Troop Faculty Breslau". Law in the "borderland of Silesia" . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2011, p. 87.
^ The history of economics at the Humboldt University in Berlin .
^ ^A ^b Tetsushi Harada: Two Developments of the Concept of Explanatory Theory (Concrete Theory) in Germany and Japan . In: Peter Koslowski (Ed.): Methodology of the Social Sciences, Ethics, and Economics in the Newer Historical School. From Max Weber and Rickert to Sombart and Rothacke . Springer, Heidelberg 1997, p. 392.
↑ Irene Raehlmann: Human Factors in National Socialism. An analysis of the sociology of science . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, p. 240.
^ Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 599.
↑ ^a ^b The history of economics at the Humboldt University in Berlin .
^ Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 92–94.
↑ Karl Häuser: German National Economy in the Diaspora. The thirties and forties until the end of the war , In: Karl Acham et al. (Ed.): Knowledge gains, knowledge losses. Continuities and discontinuities in economics, law and social sciences between the 20s and 50s . Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, p. 205.
^ Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 129 f.
^ Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 129.
↑ ^a ^b Irene Raehlmann: Ergonomics in National Socialism. An analysis of the sociology of science . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, p. 151.
^ Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. The German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 259 f., Quoted. 260.
↑ Irene Raehlmann: Human Factors in National Socialism. An analysis of the sociology of science . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, p. 150.
↑ Uwe Czech: From political economics to modern economics . In: Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Ed.): History of the University of Unter den Linden 1810-2010 . Vol. 5: Transformation of the knowledge order . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2010, pp. 301 f., Cited above. 302
^ Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 129–131.
^ ^A ^b Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. The German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 133.
^ Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 134-136.

personal data
SURNAME	Wiskemann, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wiskemann, Erwin Fritz August (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German economist
DATE OF BIRTH	April 20, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH	Mulhouse , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH	April 19, 1941
Place of death	Berlin

[H1-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Institute for Applied Economics (Ed.): The economics professors at the imperial German universities and at the TH Danzig. Career and publications . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1938, pp. 274 f., 898 f.

[2] Establishment of a teaching position for job creation and labor service in Marburg, September 15, 1932. Contemporary history in Hessen. (As of June 2012). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

[N1-3] A ^b Anne Christine Nagel (Ed.): The Philipps University of Marburg in National Socialism. Documents related to their history . Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, p. 550.

[4] Thomas Ditt: "Shock Troop Faculty Breslau". Law in the "borderland of Silesia" . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2011, p. 87.

[H2-5] The history of economics at the Humboldt University in Berlin .

[H3-6] A ^b Tetsushi Harada: Two Developments of the Concept of Explanatory Theory (Concrete Theory) in Germany and Japan . In: Peter Koslowski (Ed.): Methodology of the Social Sciences, Ethics, and Economics in the Newer Historical School. From Max Weber and Rickert to Sombart and Rothacke . Springer, Heidelberg 1997, p. 392.

[7] Irene Raehlmann: Human Factors in National Socialism. An analysis of the sociology of science . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, p. 240.

[8] Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 599.

[H4-9] The history of economics at the Humboldt University in Berlin .

[10] Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 92–94.

[11] Karl Häuser: German National Economy in the Diaspora. The thirties and forties until the end of the war , In: Karl Acham et al. (Ed.): Knowledge gains, knowledge losses. Continuities and discontinuities in economics, law and social sciences between the 20s and 50s . Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, p. 205.

[12] Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 129 f.

[13] Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 129.

[R1-14] Irene Raehlmann: Ergonomics in National Socialism. An analysis of the sociology of science . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, p. 151.

[15] Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. The German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 259 f., Quoted. 260.

[16] Irene Raehlmann: Human Factors in National Socialism. An analysis of the sociology of science . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, p. 150.

[17] Uwe Czech: From political economics to modern economics . In: Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Ed.): History of the University of Unter den Linden 1810-2010 . Vol. 5: Transformation of the knowledge order . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2010, pp. 301 f., Cited above. 302

[18] Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 129–131.

[J1-19] A ^b Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. The German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, p. 133.

[20] Hauke Janssen: National Economy and National Socialism. German economics in the thirties (= history of the German-speaking economy , volume 10), Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 1998, pp. 134-136.