Georg Jacoby (sociologist)

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Eduard Georg Jacoby (also: Peter Jacoby ; born April 3, 1904 in Breslau ; † August 10, 1978 in the Fiji Islands ) was a German-New Zealand sociologist and population scientist .

Live and act

The son of the classical philologist Felix Jacoby passed the Abitur examination at the school of scholars in Kiel in 1922, took up law studies there and continued it at the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg and the Humboldt University in Berlin. From 1923 he attended Ferdinand Tönnies ' sociological courses , who made a lasting impression on him; In 1926 Jacoby took a year off to work empirically and statistically for Tönnies.

In 1925 he passed his state legal traineeship examination in Kiel, his assessor examination in 1929 and received his doctorate in 1930 under Walter Jellinek with the thesis Der Finanzausgleich. A conceptual examination of the Dr. jur.

In 1931 he took up a position at the Prussian Ministry of Commerce in Berlin, where his hopeful career was broken off in 1933 when the son of a Jewish father was dismissed from civil service - a National Socialist injustice that he was unable to get over his entire life.

He then worked in a Jewish banking business, was a co-editor of Tönnies' last work Geist der Neuzeit until 1935 , but after the closure of this company he emigrated to New Zealand with his bride Ilse Susanne Moschel (* 1913; † 2003) (previously they are still getting married in Oxford). Jacoby initially worked as an accountant for several companies, but was not interned when the war broke out (like comparable German emigrants in Great Britain) and was naturalized in 1946. In 1948 he took over demographic planning in the New Zealand Ministry of Education; so successful that in 1959 UNESCO adopted his ideas. Instead of his German first name, the nickname " Peter " was used, which was the nickname his wife used to address him.

In 1971, in sharp criticism from René König's Tönnies reception, Jacoby published his view of Tönnies' thinking as evidence of his fundamental theoretical achievement in understanding modern societies (the work is also the first significant personal and work biography of Tönnies). To research the work and life of his teacher and former fatherly friend, he repeatedly visited the German libraries and archives, especially the Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel, where Tönnies' estate is located.

Successful as a pioneer of modern demography in his new home, he died in 1978 during a vacation trip to the Fiji Islands and is buried in Wellington (New Zealand) (urn burial). His written estate is partly in the library of Victoria University in Wellington, partly in the Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel.

Publications (selection)

  • Ferdinand Tönnies, Friedrich Paulsen . Correspondence 1876–1908. Edited together with Olaf Klose and Irma Fischer. Hirt, Kiel 1961 (publications of the Schleswig-Holstein University Society, NF, 27).
  • Philosophy and sociology. Ferdinand Tönnies' scientific path , Hirt, Kiel 1970.
  • The modern society in the social scientific thinking by Ferdinand Tönnies. A biographical introduction , Enke, Stuttgart 1971 [New edition Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-89019-699-2 ].
  • Pedagogy as applied sociology , in: Hans-Joachim Krause u. a. (Ed.), Orientierungspunkte international education , Fundament-Verlag, Hamburg 1973, pp. 64–80 [reprinted in: Tönnies-Forum , vol. 8, 1999, no. 2, pp. 27–42].
  • New Zealand. Travel guide with regional studies , Verlag Volk und Heimat, Buchenhain ²1975.
  • (Ed.): Ferdinand Tönnies: Studies on philosophy and social theory in the 17th century , Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1975.

literature

  • Peter Russell: Peter Jacoby , in: James N. Bade (ed.), Out of the Shadows of War: The German Connection with New Zealand in the Twentieth Century , Oxford University Press, Auckland 1998, pp. 204-207.
  • Jürgen Zander: Eduard Georg Jacoby , in: Tönnies-Forum , 10th year, no. 2, 2001, pp. 61–67.
  • ders .: Jacoby, Eduard Georg (Peter) , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck. Vol. 12, pp. 228-232, Neumünster.
  • ders .: Eduard Georg Jacoby: In the footsteps of the Kiel sociologist who emigrated to New Zealand , in: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History (ZSHG) 124, 1999, pp. 165–170 (previously printed in Tönnies-Forum, 7th year ., H. 1, 1998, pp. 114-118.)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jacoby, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jacoby, Eduard Georg (full name); Jacoby, Peter; Jacoby, EG
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-New Zealand sociologist and population scientist
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1978
Place of death Fiji Islands