Georg Mende

Georg (Kurt Wilhelm) Mende (born September 6, 1910 in Breslau ; † May 2, 1983 in Jena ) was a German Marxist philosopher , professor , director of the Institute for Philosophy and prorector of the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and a member of the editorial board of German magazine for philosophy .

Life

Born in Breslau (Wrocław, today's Poland) in a family of teachers; Reform-Realgymnasium, 1929 Abitur; 1929 to 1935 studied philosophy (with Prof. es Kühnemann, Baur, Hönigswald, Schulemann and Marck), German, English, folklore and psychology at the University of Breslau and the German University of Prague ; 1932 joined the KPD ; 1935 doctorate with Oskar Kraus and Emil Utitz in Prague with the thesis "Critique of dialectical materialism in the teaching of Ernst Mach" (Dr. phil.); then return to Germany; 1935 to 1937 indictment and imprisonment for “preparation for high treason”, then “non-profit” office technical work as a typist in a law firm in Breslau; 1939 to 1945 Wehrmacht , 1941 to 1943 military hospital, lastly NCO; 1945 British captivity, interpreter there.

1945/46 consultant in the Hamburg cultural administration; 1946 joined the SED ; 1946/47 employee in the provincial administration of Saxony-Anhalt ; 1947 new teacher and pre-semester lecturer at the ABF of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg as well as teaching position for materialistic philosophy at the pedagogical faculty; 1948 participation in the SED lecturer course at the party college "Karl Marx" in Klein-Machnow; 1949 lecturer in Marxist philosophy in Halle; 1950/51 Habilitation at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Leipzig on the subject of "Critique of Existential Philosophy Martin Heidegger" (published as Studies on Existential Philosophy , Berlin 1956), the reviewers were Ernst Bloch and Gerhard Harig ; 1951 professor with teaching position for dialectical and historical materialism at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg as well as director of the philosophical seminar and institute there; In 1953 appointed to the same functions at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena ; There he was at the same time Vice-Rector for the social sciences basic studies (1954-1958) and for the next generation of academics (1959-1961) and after the death of Paul F. Linke (1955) from 1956 professor with the chair of philosophy and director of the department of history philosophy; from 1967 working leave; Unable to work after a serious traffic accident in 1970; 1972 early retirement in Jena; from 1955 to 1983 member of the editorial board of the German Journal for Philosophy ; died 1983 in Jena.

In the obituary for Georg Mende in the German magazine for philosophy it was 1983 a. a. about him: »In word and writing Georg Mende addressed two main areas: the history of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and the criticism of late bourgeois philosophy, especially existentialism and phenomenology . [...] The unity of philosophy and politics was also expressed in Georg Mende's work in the fact that he constantly held positions of responsibility in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany . "

Effectiveness at the University of Jena

At the University of Jena, Mende was the initiator of ideological and sometimes defamatory campaigns against remaining "bourgeois scientists" (non-SED members), e. B. the physicians Julius Grober or Walter Brednow as well as the Germanists Joachim Müller and Hans Kaufmann or the pharmacologist Heinrich Hoffmann. After Georg Klaus left for Berlin, Mende established himself in Jena as the new party-Marxist institute director. Another tradition in the history of philosophy, especially concerning Jena, never occurred to this domineering and unphilosophical chief ideologist at the University of Jena for almost two decades. As early as 1950 in Halle, in a personal letter to Paul Wandel, the first East German minister of education in Berlin, he had expressly promised that the previous »academic philosophy seminar would be transformed into a real Marxist institute. (...) Georg Mende was not (...) an educated historian of philosophy, but above all a Marxist ideology critic who only fought the "decadent" (West German) existentialism of Heidegger and Jaspers. "With that he distinguished himself" on the University of Jena more and more as an ideological grand inquisitor and meanwhile led his subject in isolation and insignificance. "

The Romance studies Victor Klemperer noted about Mende on November 20, 1958 in his diary: “Mende is stubborn and narrow-minded fanatical socialist, also looks quite fanatical, and in the Hungary affair, in the Bloch affair, etc., he was entirely on the integration guidelines , has often told me, and this time again, that I am not a Marxist. "In her dissertation on the activities of the Ministry for State Security at the University of Jena, Katharina Lenski mentions a contemporary mockery in which Georg Mende also appears:" As the Jena Rector Josef Hämel fled westwards before the university jubilee in 1958 and thus initiated a scandal, under the impression of the wave of repression of 1958 the sentence circulated among the students: “ Don't be a demel, do like Hämel, otherwise you will be finished, alone with Mende. "By 1958 at the latest, the fighter Mende himself had become an enemy among university members, but it could not be circumvented politically or politically."

Friedrich Möbius (art historian) , full professor of art history in Jena from 1976 to 1991, describes Mende as a "convinced Marxist" and as "sympathetic and intelligent". »Georg Mende embodied the type of communist fighter with the overpowering authority of the personal and authentic, with him the GDR anti-fascism, which was politically excessive, possessed a witness from the days of the martyrs, to whom I showed devotion and admiration. [...] Perhaps Mende was not an important philosopher, but a university professor who knew how to prepare the material pedagogically and who knew how to listen to his students in the seminars. «In 1958 Mende took his oral examination in philosophy as part of Mobius' doctorate and was Vice-Rector for young academics (1958–1961) responsible for his appointment as an assistant. According to Möbius, Mende "always attached great importance to a broad education in art and literature among his students."

Honors

• 1962 National Prize of the GDR
• 1970 Honorary doctorate (Dr. hc) from the University of Halle-Wittenberg
• Karl Marx Order
• Patriotic Order of Merit (in silver)
• Anniversary medal "In memory of the 100th birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (Lenin medal)
• Medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945

From 1985 to 1991, today's Friedrich-Zucker-Straße in Jena was called Georg-Mende-Straße in the new building area between Winzerla and Ammerbach (Jena) .

Fonts (selection)

• Mende, Georg: Karl Marx 'development from revolutionary democrat to communist . Berlin 1954.
• Mende, Georg: Studies on Existential Philosophy . Berlin 1956.
• Mende, Georg: Freedom and Responsibility: Small Essays . Berlin 1958.
• Mende, Georg: The atom and philosophy . Berlin 1960.
• Mende, Georg: World literature and philosophy . Berlin 1965.
• Mende, Georg: Philosophy and Ideology . Berlin 1971.

Articles (selection)

• Kant's “Opus postumum” and natural science; in: Aufbau 7 (1951) 2, 607-610.
• Two existentialism studies. I. German existentialism and its role in the ideological preparation of fascism. II. The Existentialism Analyzes by Georg Lukács ; in: Scientific journal of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (social and linguistic series) 2 (1952/53) 1, 17–25.
• On the scientific significance of the teaching of Karl Marx ; in: Scientific journal of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (social and linguistic series) 2 (1952/53) 3, 171–177.
• Necessary remarks on the essay by Dr. Rolf Koch: "Are" the sentences identical to each other from the forbidden contradiction and-excluded third parties or equivalent? ; in: Scientific journal of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg University (mathematical and natural science series) 2 (1952/53) 4, 441–444.
• Contribution to the discussion on the article by Prof. Dr. W. Rothmaler "Evolution and Revolution in the Development of Organisms" ; in: Scientific journal of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg University (mathematical and natural science series) 2 (1952/53) 4, 563-565.
• Martin Heidegger's worldview ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 3 (1953/54) 1, 201–251.
• Principles that are opposed to science must not be applied in it (brief remarks on the essay "Bioklimati Entsteppung" by Julius Grober) ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (mathematical and natural science series) 3 (1953/54) 5, 551–553.
• Aside from a lecture on German literature in the 20th century ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 6 (1956/57) 5, 641–645.
• Emil Utitz in memory ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 6 (1956/57) 1/2, 1–2.
• Philosophy wrong ways ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 7 (1957/58) 1, 93–96.
• An Introduction to Philosophy ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 7 (1957/58) 2/3, 183–211.
• Introduction to philosophy (continuation and conclusion) ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 8 (1958/59) 1, 3–40.
• Karl Marx - creator of the communist worldview ; in: German Journal for Philosophy 6 (1958) 3, 337–354.
• About socialist morality. A contribution to the methodology of German teaching ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 9 (1959/60) 1/2, 77–82.
• The German reactionary philosophy of the XX. Century and German literature ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 10 (1960/61) 2, 189–201.
• The programmatic declaration of the Council of State and Karl Jaspers' image of Germany ; in: German Journal for Philosophy 9 (1961) 2, 133–149.
• For a partisan and national literary study ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 13 (1964) 1, 53–55.
• The history of philosophy according to Edmund Husserl's views ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 13 (1964) 2, 243–248.
• Hegel and the French Revolution - the development of his philosophical thought in Jena ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 21 (1972) 1, 11–24.

literature

• Dietrich Alexander / Frank Lindner: Mende, Georg ; in: Erhard Lange / Dietrich Alexander (Hrsg.): Philosophenlexikon. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1982, pp. 650-651, ISBN 978-3-88436-133-7 .
• Michael Eckardt: Complete bibliography of the "Scientific Journal" of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (GS series) 1951–1990. RLS-Thuringia, Jena 2006, ISBN 3-935850-39-5 .
• Ursula Krebs / Christian Neumann / Ursula Richter / Herta Schulz / Ingrid Hoppe: German magazine for philosophy. Register 1.-25. Born 1953–1977. German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1978.
• Frank Lindner: Directory of publications by Georg Mendes ; in: Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 19 (1970) 4, 701–708.
• Hans-Christoph Rauh:  Georg Mende . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Hans-Christoph Rauh: Jena: One of the "world capitals of the history of philosophy" ; in: ders .: Philosophy from a closed world. On the history of the GDR philosophy and its institutions. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, 61–105, ISBN 978-3-86153-882-0 .
• Marxist-Leninist Philosophy Section of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena / Scientific Council for Marxist-Leninist Philosophy / Editorial Board of the German Journal of Philosophy: Georg Mende † ; in: German Journal for Philosophy 31 (1983) 6, 768.
• Burchard Thaler: Report 1951–1966. Complete register of years I-XV. Scientific journal of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Self-published, Halle / S. 1969.
• Torsten Witt (Ed.): On the philosophy of the post-war period in Halle from 1945–1950. Medienwerker / Prius Schenk Verlag, Halle an der Saale 2015, pp. 147–174, ISBN 978-3-936228-11-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans-Joachim Dahms: Philosophy at the University of Jena 1945 to 1989 ; in: Uwe Hoßfeld / Tobias Kaiser / Heinz Mestrup (eds.): University in socialism. Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (1945–1990). Vol. 2. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, pp. 1582 and 1620, ISBN 978-3-412-34505-1 .
2. ↑ Hans-Christoph Rauh: Hommage: The early years of the German magazine for philosophy; in: Simone Barck / Martina Langermann / Siegfried Lokatis (eds.): Between "mosaic" and "unity": magazines in the GDR. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1999, 434–445, here p. 440, ISBN 978-3-86153-191-3 .
3. ^ Section Marxist-Leninist Philosophy of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena / Scientific Council for Marxist-Leninist Philosophy / Editorial Board of the German Journal of Philosophy: Georg Mende † ; in: DZPh 31 (1983) 6, p. 768.
4. ↑ Günter Schmidt: "Half the truth is not enough". The controversies with Joachim Müller in 1956/57 and 1962/63; in: R. Hahn / A. Pöthe (Ed.): "... and what kind of fights there were." Studies on the history of German at the University of Jena. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2010, pp. 229–248, ISBN 978-3-8253-5648-4 .
5. ^ Rolf Hennrich: Breaking out of guardianship: memories. Ch.links-Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 45, ISBN 978-3-96289-035-3 .
6. ^ Herbert Gottwald: Heinrich Hoffmann and the State Security. A contribution to the history of the Jena Pharmacological Institute; in: Uwe Hoßfeld / Tobias Kaiser / Heinz Mestrup (eds.): University in socialism. Studies on the history of the University of Jena (1945–1990), Vol. 2. Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, pp. 2116–2119, ISBN 978-3-412-34505-1 .
7. ↑ Hans-Christoph Rauh: Jena: One of the "world capitals of the history of philosophy" ; in: ders .: Philosophy from a closed world. On the history of the GDR philosophy and its institutions. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, 79, ISBN 978-3-86153-882-0 .
8. ^ Hans-Joachim Dahms: Philosophy at the University of Jena 1945 to 1989; in: Uwe Hoßfeld / Tobias Kaiser / Heinz Mestrup (eds.): University in socialism. Studies on the history of the University of Jena (1945–1990), vol. 2. Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, p. 1588, ISBN 978-3-412-34505-1 .
9. ↑ Victor Klemperer: So I sit between all chairs. Part: 2., Diaries 1950-1959. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1999, p. 729.
10. ↑ Katharina Lenski: Secret Communication Spaces? State Security at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Frankfurt / Ney York: Campus-Verlag 2015, pp. 85–86.
11. ^ Friedrich Möbius: Reality, Art, Life. Memories of an Art Historian. Publishing house Dr. Bussert & Stadeler, Jena 2001, p. 74, ISBN 978-3-932906-17-6 .
12. ↑ Ibid .: p. 88.
13. ↑ Ibid .: p. 78 and 79.
14. ↑ Ibid .: p. 98.