Freiburg School (Political Science)

The so-called Freiburg School of Political Science was one of several schools in German political science . She is closely associated with Arnold Bergstraesser . Another important representative of this school is Hans Maier . Wilhelm Hennis is also indirectly assigned to this direction . It is a normative-ontologically oriented school of political science, in contrast to the Marburg school , which was explicitly Marxist oriented or the analytical-empirical Cologne school of political science . The Freiburg School was particularly influential in the 1960s. In relation to the Freiburg School, Wilhelm Bleek speaks of the “most successful example of a political science school”.

The Freiburg School is a. from the fact that she attempted to tie the political science, which was institutionalized and university-based only in the Federal Republic, closely to the teaching of the politics of Aristotle . In the development of the subject, the Freiburg School took on a leading role, especially in questions of the “historical foundation of the subject”. In a festschrift published by Dieter Oberndörfer in 1962 in honor of Bergstraesser, the normative-ontological orientation was explicitly worked out.

Important points of reference for the Freiburg School are Aristotle, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas . Criticism, on the other hand, was primarily made of the teachings of Niccolò Machiavelli and the thinking about state and power in modern times that was based on him. Max Weber's concept of politics was also criticized.

Bergstraesser, as the “father” of the Freiburg School, pursues an independent “scientific and political research program” in Freiburg. He understood political science as a "synoptic science" His focus was on the question of the common good. Bergstraesser wanted to raise the concern with the understanding of politics and the political to "an independent level". For Bergstraesser, political science is a clearly normative scientific discipline. In his understanding, the reference point for the analysis and, above all, the evaluation of actual political reality is the orientation towards an order that is as good as it is just. This is also expressed in the fact that Bergstraesser conceived political science as a "practical [...] science". As a result, the subject of political science was also referred to as "scientific [...] politics". Bergstraesser and the Freiburg School were primarily concerned with linking politics as science and politics as practice.

The Freiburg School saw it - within the framework of its understanding of political science - as its task to scientifically examine the social order of the Federal Republic of Germany with its orientation towards freedom and democracy and to support and strengthen it both internally and externally.

Kurt Sontheimer became Bergstraesser's first assistant at the University of Freiburg. The two met in the United States of America in 1952 when Sontheimer met as an exchange student and Bergstraesser as a lecturer at the University of Chicago . Hans Maier succeeded Sontheimer as Bergstraesser's assistant. Maier took his doctorate from this in 1957. Alexander Schwan received his doctorate from Bergstraesser in 1959 and also completed his habilitation in Freiburg in 1965. Dieter Oberndorfer was another student of Bergstraesser and in 1963 he worked alongside him as a second professor of political science in Freiburg. Other students are Gottfried-Karl Kindermann and Hans-Peter Schwarz .

With Hans Maier, who was appointed to the Munich Geschwister-Scholl-Institut in 1962 , and Alexander Schwan and Kurt Sontheimer , both of whom worked in Berlin , the Freiburg School gained greater influence on German political science beyond Freiburg.

literature

• Horst Schmitt: Political Science and Liberal Democracy. A study on the “political research program” of the “Freiburg School” 1954–1970, Nomos, Baden-Baden 1995, ISBN 3-7890-3785-0
• Horst Schmitt: The Freiburg School 1954-1970. Political science in "Concern for the German State", in: Wilhelm Bleek / Hans J. Lietzmann (Ed.): Schools in German political science. Leske + Budrich, Opladen, 1999, ISBN 3-8100-2116-4 ; Pp. 213-243.
• Wilhelm Bleek : History of Political Science in Germany . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47173-0

Individual evidence

1. ^ See: Wilhelm Bleek : History of Political Science in Germany, Munich 2001, p. 50.
2. ^ See: Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 269.
3. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 337.
4. ^ See: Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 50.
5. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 298.
6. ^ See: Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 299.
7. ^ See: Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 299.
8. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 269.
9. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 337.
10. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 337.
11. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 338.
12. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 338.
13. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 338.
14. ↑ See: Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 337f.
15. ↑ See Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 338.
16. ^ See: Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 339.
17. ↑ See Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 340.
18. ^ See: Wilhelm Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany, p. 299.