Franz Borkenau

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Franz Borkenau (born December 15, 1900 in Vienna ; † May 22, 1957 in Zurich ) was a history philosopher , cultural historian and sociologist who worked in Austria, Germany and the USA .

Life

Borkenau was christened Franz Carolus Richard Albert Pollack. He was the son of the lawyer Rudolf Pollack, who in the course of his life managed to rise to the position of university professor and councilor of the Austrian Supreme Court and his wife Melanie Pollack, nee. Fuerth. Despite his Jewish origins, Rudolf Pollack was baptized a Catholic. The conversion to the Christian faith was not by law, but de facto the first condition for a higher career in Austria, wrote his son in his history of Austria “Austria and after”. Rudolf Pollack sought a military career for his son, for which the surname Pollack seemed unfavorable to him. He managed that Franz was adopted by a great-aunt named Borkenau and could take her last name. Initially he was called Borkenau-Pollack, he also wrote his dissertation from 1924 under the double name, and later he received permission to omit the addition "Pollack".

From 1910 to 1918 he attended the Schottengymnasium in Vienna , where he passed the Abitur examination with distinction. In the last months of the war he was drafted into the military, but he no longer needed to actively participate in the war. He refused the military career his father wanted for him. According to Richard Löwenthal , Borkenau grew up in passionate rebellion against parents and school, the monarchy and the church. He became one of the youngest members of the radical youth culture group around Siegfried Bernfeld . A number of well-known psychoanalysts and a number of communist intellectuals emerged from this movement, such as Ruth Fischer and her brother Gerhart Eisler .

In the winter semester of 1918/19 Borkenau began studying history, political economy and philosophy at the University of Vienna , moved to the University of Leipzig in 1919 , returned to Vienna for a semester in 1921 and then went back to Leipzig, where he worked in July In 1924 by Medievalist Alfred Dören as Dr. phil. received his doctorate . He had already joined the KPD in 1921 . After receiving his doctorate, he worked for the Communist International (Comintern) in Berlin in 1924 . According to Löwenthal, he worked secretly in the building of the Soviet embassy under the direction of the Hungarian emigrant Eugen Varga . The department was concerned with the analysis of the international development of politics, economy and the labor movement. Borkenau's job was to study the social democratic parties, and in doing so he learned to read newspapers in ten different languages. At the same time he was Reichsleiter of the “Communist Student Group” under the code name “Wegner”. During this activity he met Richard Löwenthal, with whom he remained lifelong friends.

His conflict with the communist party line began in 1928 when the Comintern proclaimed the approach of an acutely revolutionary situation in the capitalist world and declared social democracy to be the main enemy and accused them of social fascism . Borkenau was one of those who opposed this policy. When the "Varga Department" was moved from Berlin to Moscow at the end of 1928, he preferred to stay in Berlin. Also so as not to get caught up in the internal party struggle between Stalin and Comintern chairman Bukharin . He worked for another year in the Comintern's Western European Office, which, under the direction of Dmitri Sakharovich Manuilski, also had its secret seat in Berlin. On behalf of the office, he traveled to England, Belgium, Spain and Norway to report on the situation in these countries and their communist parties. At the end of 1929, his open statement against KPD policy in the course of a “wave of purges” against supporters of the so-called “right-wing opposition” around Heinrich Brandler led to his exclusion from the party. For a short time he joined the Communist Party Opposition (KPDO) , but soon broke away from this group.

In 1929 Borkenau received a research assignment or a grant from the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, he investigated the basic forms of the emergence of modern thought. The result of the project was the book The transition from feudal to bourgeois worldview. Because of its political and economic superficiality, it did not meet the expectations of the institute and was only published two years late. In the meantime, Germany was under National Socialist rule and the book was published by a Parisian publishing house. Löwenthal reports that the Frankfurt Institute published a “bitter, doctrinal criticism” at the same time as the book.

In 1933 Borkenau left the German Reich (also threatened as a so - called half - Jew ) and lived and worked in Vienna, Paris and Panama City . During his time at the Institute for Social Research he was at the u. a. Involved in a study on authority and family led by Max Horkheimer , published in Paris in 1936. Borkenau published his article on authority and sexual morality in the free bourgeois youth movement under the pseudonym Fritz Jungmann. In 1936, in the middle of Spain during the civil war , he undertook its political investigation and then decisively criticized communist terror against the anarchist syndicalists (who were also fighting for the republic and against Franquism ) .

In 1946 Borkenau qualified as a professor at the University of Marburg for the subject of Middle and Modern History, especially the history of social theories . In 1947 he was appointed adjunct professor. Since 1948 he has been on leave due to his work as Chief Research Consultant at the Political Information Branch of the Information Service Division Frankfurt. He then worked as editor of the magazine Ostprobleme and freelance author, also in Paris , Rome and Zurich , where he died suddenly in 1957. During this time,  numerous manuscripts about the decline and beginnings of high cultures , especially those of the West, were published by his friend Richard Löwenthal only posthumously ( end and beginning ) - also in discussions with Oswald Spengler and Arnold J. Toynbee .

Fonts (selection)

  • The transition from the feudal to the bourgeois worldview. Paris 1934 (reprint: Wissenschaftl. Buchgemeinschaft, Darmstadt 1971).
  • Pareto. Wiley, London 1936.
  • under the pseudonym Fritz Jungmann: Authority and sexual morality in the free bourgeois youth movement. In: Max Horkheimer et al. (Ed.): Studies on Authority and Family. Research reports from the Institute for Social Research. Paris 1936, pp. 669-705 (writings of the Institute for Social Research , Volume 5) (new print Lüneburg 1987).
  • The Spanish Cockpit. An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War. Faber and Faber, London 1937 (reprint Ann Arbor 1963, German edition: Kampfplatz Spanien. Political and social conflicts in the Spanish Civil War. An eyewitness report. Klett-Cotta , Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-608-93088-4 ).
  • The Communist International. Faber and Faber, London 1937 (reprinted World Communism: A History of the Communist International. Ann Arbor 1962).
  • The Totalitarian Enemy. Faber and Faber, London 1940.
  • Three treatises on German history. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1947.
  • Epilogue to the German edition, in: A God who was none. Richard Crossman (Ed.) With Arthur Koestler, Ingnazio Silone a. a., Europa Verlag, 1950, p. 289ff.
  • The Russian Civil War 1918-1921. From Brest-Litowsk to NEP , Grunewald-Verlag, Berlin 1954.
  • Karl Marx. Selection u. Introduction by Franz Borkenau. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1956, 273th - 277th thousand 1977, ISBN 978-3-436-00123-0 .
  • End and beginning: From the generations of advanced cultures and from the emergence of the West . Edited and introduced by Richard Löwenthal, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-608-93032-9 (first 1984).

literature

  • Mario Keßler : Criticism of Communism in Western Post-War Germany. Franz Borkenau, Richard Löwenthal, Ossip Flechtheim , Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-942476-15-7 .
  • Birgit Lange-Enzmann: Franz Borkenau as a political thinker . Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1996, ISBN 978-3-428-08699-3 .
  • Sven Papcke : Society diagnoses , Classical texts of German sociology in the 20th century , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1991, ISBN 3-593-34432-7 , therein: Violence as an adversary of reason. Franz Borkenau on the civil war in Spain , pp. 116–142.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pollak, Rudolf Jurist, * 9.6.1864 Vienna, † 27.2.1939 Vienna. In: German biography
  2. ^ Franz Borkenau: Austria and after . Faber and Faber, London 1938, p. 108 and p. 114.
  3. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, biographical information is based on: Birgit Lange-Enzmann, Franz Borkenau as a political thinker . Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-428-08699-6 , pp. 10-22.
  4. ↑ Birgit Lange-Enzmann: Franz Borkenau as a political thinker . Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-428-08699-6 , p. 10, note 2.
  5. ^ Richard Löwenthal , Introduction by the editor . In: Franz Borkenau, End and Beginning. About the generations of advanced civilizations and the emergence of the West . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-608-93032-0 , pp. 12-45, here p. 13 f.
  6. ↑ Sven Papcke , How the Occident came into being. Borkenau and the "idea of ​​total personal responsibility" . In: Die Zeit , 15/1985.
  7. ^ Richard Löwenthal, Introduction by the editor . In: Franz Borkenau, End and Beginning. About the generations of advanced civilizations and the emergence of the West . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-608-93032-0 , pp. 12-45, here p. 14.
  8. ^ Richard Löwenthal, foreword to the American first edition . In: Franz Borkenau, End and Beginning. About the generations of advanced civilizations and the emergence of the West . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-608-93032-0 , pp. 7-10, here p. 9.
  9. ^ Richard Löwenthal, foreword to the American first edition . In: Franz Borkenau, End and Beginning. About the generations of advanced civilizations and the emergence of the West . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-608-93032-0 , pp. 7-10, here p. 16.
personal data
SURNAME Borkenau, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pollack, Franz Carolus Richard Alber
BRIEF DESCRIPTION History philosopher, cultural historian and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1957
Place of death Zurich