Georg Anschütz

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Georg Ernst Anschütz (born November 15, 1886 in Braunschweig , † December 25, 1953 in Hamburg ) was a German psychologist who worked particularly in the field of music psychology and synesthesia . Due to his exposed role during the Nazi era , he was dismissed from university after 1945; his writings were nevertheless reprinted until the 1970s.

Life

Anschütz was born in Braunschweig as the son of the late deaf-mute teacher Chr. Anschütz and his wife Elwine, both of Prussian citizenship and Evangelical-Lutheran denominations . There he attended the Bürgerschule for three and a half years and the Wilhelm Gymnasium for nine years . After graduating from high school in 1905, he studied philosophy , psychology and education in Leipzig and Munich . In 1908 he received his doctorate in Munich under Theodor Lipps with a thesis on gestalt qualities . He then went to study in Würzburg and Berlin and went to Paris for a year , where he worked with Alfred Binet in the psychological-pedagogical laboratory. The German adaptation of Binet's work "Les idees modern sur les enfants" comes from this time under the German title The new thoughts about the school child . In 1910 he returned to Munich, where he stayed until the end of 1911. During this time he published the first major work on the methods of psychology , which was soon followed by a second speculative, exact and applied psychology . To support his scientific work, he was twice awarded the Froschammer Philosophy Scholarship by the Philosophical Faculty of Munich University. After further stays abroad, especially in Austria, Italy and Switzerland, he moved to Leipzig at the beginning of 1912, where he worked with Wilhelm Wundt and Eduard Spranger .

Activity in Hamburg

In Hamburg from 1913 to 1915 he was assistant to the experimental psychologist Ernst Meumann in his psychological laboratory. From 1915 to 1918 Anschütz taught as a visiting professor in Constantinople . In 1920 he received his habilitation at the newly founded University of Hamburg and was appointed private lecturer, but was initially unable to get a permanent position under Meumann's successor William Stern . In addition to teaching assignments and non-academic activities, Anschütz made a name for himself as a pioneer of synesthesia and from 1927 onwards he organized several congresses on this topic that addressed both scientists and interested laypeople. In 1931 Anschütz was appointed (unpaid) extraordinary professor .

time of the nationalsocialism

Anschütz benefited directly from the rise of the National Socialists: After his Jewish director, Stern, had already been dismissed in April 1933 under the law to restore the civil service , Anschütz finally received the longed-for assistant position in November 1933. Martha Muchow , who was driven to suicide by the Nazis , had previously held the position . Anschütz had already joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933, and on November 11, 1933, he signed the professors' commitment to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist state at German universities and colleges . From 1939 to 1945, Anschütz was the leader of the lectureship at the University of Hamburg and the Gaudozentenbundführer of Hamburg. In this capacity he was responsible for the political review of his colleagues and influenced the appointment of chairs. In 1942 he was finally given an associate's position in psychology and at the same time took over the management of the psychological institute, which until then had been temporarily headed by the National Socialist Gustaf Deuchler . In 1944, Anschütz was awarded the War Merit Cross, First Class.

post war period

Due to his exposed position as a leader of the entertainment lecturers, Anschütz was temporarily interned after the end of the war and permanently dismissed from university service. At the end of the 1940s he then founded a “Free Research Center for Psychology and Frontier Areas of Knowledge”, in which he worked with laypeople and other dismissed Nazi scientists. a. dealt with phenomena of the occult . In addition, Anschütz also supervised doctorates in the Soviet occupation zone . Shortly before his death, he published a comprehensive overview of the subject under the title Psychology , which was recognized by colleagues as a "life's work". In particular, his outline of musical aesthetics from 1930 was received and repeatedly published until the 1970s.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Guhl in: Hamburgische Biographie. P. 17.
  2. ^ Harry Waibel : Servants of many gentlemen: Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , p. 22.
  3. ↑ DNB 770137741
personal data
SURNAME Anschütz, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Anschütz, Georg Ernst (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1953
Place of death Hamburg