Georg Weippert

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Georg Heinrich Weippert (born February 10, 1899 in Munich , † July 13, 1965 in Erlangen ) was a German economist and sociologist with main areas of work in general sociology , agricultural sociology , cooperative society , methodology of the social sciences and economic theory. One focus of Weippert's work was the investigation of structural change in rural areas . Weippert is counted among those scientists who practiced empirical sociology during National Socialism .

Studies, political orientation and starting a career

After completing his studies, Weippert became an assistant at a technical and economic institute at the Technical University of Munich in 1926 . In 1930 he received his doctorate there to the Dr. rer. techn. A year later he completed his habilitation in social science, also at the TH Munich. Weippert was since March 1933 (according to other sources: since 1931) private lecturer for economic theory and social theory at the TH Munich. In the winter semester of 1933/34 he took over two-hour courses on money, banking and stock exchange as well as three-hour teaching assignments on social economics in Weihenstephan .

During this time, Weippert, who was considered a young conservative , published writings on the social order of the National Socialist state. a. by the title “ The sociological structure of the national community ” (1934). Weippert was one of a number of other sociologists (including Hans Freyer , Gunther Ipsen , Andreas Pfenning ) who, in the early years of the dictatorship, believed that they could “help define” the burning questions of the time as scientists. Weippert's writings from this period appear to be characterized by ingratiation:

“The enrichment that sociology and folk theory, for their part, can learn from racial studies is considerable. Considerable, if only because every comprehensive knowledge of human beings and every deepening of our insight into the essence of man increases the weight of a sociological statement. But the importance of racial studies for folk and social doctrine goes much further; it is more immediate. "

In these writings, all of which appeared around 1933, Weippert saw the individual in the form of a leader alone as the way out of the individual back to idealized “ wholeness ”. Only an authoritarian leader could still bring about the good of the community, if necessary even against the declared will of the “multitude”. According to Wilhelm Bernsdorf, the writings of Werner Sombart were an important point of reference in Weippert's thinking . The economist Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld had a similar meaning for him . Also can be a preference for " corporative recognize" thought that was suspicious of the Nazis. Weippert cultivated a closeness to Catholicism , which also had a negative effect on him.

Weippert held a deputy professorship from the winter semester 1934/35 to the summer semester 1936. "Pure" sociology and empirical sociology formed a unit for Weippert. During his time in Munich, Weippert also gave suggestions for empirical studies to research the social structures in urban workers' settlements.

Weippert was a member of the Working Group for Agricultural Policy Class IV of the Academy for German Law .

Weippert's involvement in spatial research / Eastern research

In 1937 and 1938 Weippert was given leave of absence to take up a professorship in Königsberg. From 1938 until the end of the war he was an associate professor for economic political science . Weippert became director of the political science seminar at the political science institute. In Königsberg, Weippert also met the sociologists and historians Gunther Ipsen , Carl Jantke and Werner Conze . The Osnabrück sociologist and sociology historian Carsten Klingemann sees this fact and the fact that as a political advisor you were able to apply social science knowledge as a factor in the much later formation of the working group for modern social history . (see below) The historian Thomas Etzemüller has recognized that this time together in Königsberg was an important point of reference for the Dortmund Social Research Center (sfs). Georg Weippert, however, never became an employee of sfs.

Similar to the historians Werner Conze and Theodor Schieder , Weippert came into more or less close contact with the Nazi settlement policy: At a conference of the university study group for spatial research at the University of Königsberg in November 1939, Weippert declared his willingness to be supported by the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung (RAG ) to work on the war research program 'The East'. Weippert prepared several reports as part of the RAG working group “Possibilities for strengthening and consolidating the German nationality and the formation of the new German people's soil in the German East”. In 1940, a limited edition of the reports prepared together with the geographer Erwin Scheu on the “Absorption capacity and population structure in the agrarian area of ​​the new eastern areas” , “Soil assessment (with two maps)” and “Existing viable ethnic German farms in the new eastern area” appeared. In the same volume, von Weippert appeared on his own: "The basics of the people in the new eastern regions" and "Germanization policy and the question of agricultural workers". The agricultural scientists Emil Lang , Georg Blohm and the settlement practitioner Klaaßen ( East Prussian Land Society ) were also involved in these expert statements .

The " Joint Proposals " from these reports (pp. 107f.), Dated September 18, 1940, contained inter alia. a. Recommendations on the agricultural structure and on the social and ethno-political composition of new villages (agricultural workers as upwardly mobile farmers; complete 'Germanisation' through the model of rural family farming á 15-25 ha; but also elite large-scale farms up to 200 ha; displacement of local farmers from Polish villages and from good soils in favor of German settlers; provisional retention of formerly Polish large estates, etc.).

In 1940 the geographer Erwin Scheu was director of the Institute of Economic Geography at the Königsberg Commercial College and at the same time its rector; the agricultural economist Georg Blohm was director of the department of economics at the Agricultural Institute of the Technical University of Danzig and Emil Lang was director of the Institute for Economics of Agriculture at the Albertus University of Königsberg .

Weippert in the context of historical-sociological economics

In 1945 Weippert became associate professor in Göttingen, two years later associate professor in Erlangen. In Erlangen he also became head of the research institute for cooperatives . Weippert was one of a number of economists who had one thing in common with the reference to the historical school of economics in the Federal Republic of Germany:

“The historical-sociological method was also close to the supporters of ontological economics, who were still numerous in the Federal Republic, such as the well-known financial scientist Horst Jecht , who worked in Göttingen, Münster and Munich after the war, the Göttingen professor Erich Egner and Joseph Back and Georg Weippert, who both taught in Erlangen. But despite the unity of economics, history and sociology, which many continued to postulate, the historical approach rapidly lost its influence in scientific practice. Even economists who were fundamentally committed to the traditions of the historical school have long gone other ways in their own research. "

Like Weippert, Horst Jecht and Erich Egner had developed a comparatively close relationship with the spatial research established in the Nazi state (see above). However, the commitment to this 'political science' did not prevent Georg Weippert from placing value on the objectivity of knowledge in 1939 :

“If 'political theory' is to be able to lay claim to scientific quality, to the objectivity of knowledge, then it is not appropriate to simply set any 'value', such as the national or the racial, absolutely. If we did that, we would succumb to dogma. "

In Klingemann's assessment, Weippert "did indeed deal with Weber very thoroughly". Controversies in the debate about sociology under National Socialism also always revolve around which forms of knowledge were offered to those in power by scientists (also in the context of political advice); which could even be of use to them. Wilhelm Bernsdorf described Weippert's sociological approach in the "International Sociological Lexicon" after the war as follows:

“W's goal is to develop an ontology of the social, in particular following suggestions from Max Weber and Werner Sombart . His sociology wants to be anthropologically oriented sociology in a specific sense. The ontology of the social thus demands a doctrine of being from man. He is particularly interested in the question of the socio-cultural structural change in modern society. "

Away from the big sociological 'schools' in West Germany: Weippert as an agricultural sociologist

Agricultural issues did not leave Weippert even after 1945. He worked on the large empirical collaborative work that the Research Society for Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Sociology eV (Bonn) initiated at the beginning of the 1950s: Living Conditions in Small Farming Villages (1953ff.). The founding members of the society and employees of the study again included personalities who, like Weippert, previously succeeded in research on Nazi space and settlement, so u. a. Max Rolfes , Herbert Morgen and Heinrich Niehaus . Georg Weippert, together with Hermann Schorr, wrote the final report of this survey with regard to the questions "on sociology - population, occupational and social structure, family, neighborhood, groups -"

Between the 1940s and 1960s, Weippert published several festivities for the economist Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld .

In January 1957, Weippert was one of those scientists who were informed by the historians Werner Conze and Carl Jantke about a meeting in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, which finally led to the establishment of the working group for modern social history in April 1957 .

Weippert was also involved in the dispute about the accession of the Nazi agricultural politician Konrad Meyer to the German section of the European Society for Rural Sociology in the spring of 1963 (to the displeasure of Constantin von Dietze !):

“Even the social science expert consulted in the matter, the Erlangen cooperative researcher Georg Weippert, had little to criticize about the applicant. He knows the aspirant personally, Professor Dr. Konrad Meyer, although not, is well aware of its decisive role in the agricultural research of the 'Third Reich'. A well-informed colleague told him that Meyer was by no means classified internally as sharp-eyed, but rather as too soft and too indulgent. What should one argue against membership of such an unproblematic personality? "

Fonts (selection)

  • The ideology in the cooperative. In: Genossenschaftliches Lesebuch: Testimonials from a hundred years. Frankfurt / M .: Knapp 1967, pp. 244-254.
  • Founder's Witiko. On the essence of the political. With an afterword by Theodor Pütz (edited from the estate and provided with sources by Christian Thiel). Munich: Oldenbourg 1967 (= Adalbert Stifter Verein e.V. Munich. Publications of the scientific department. 16).
  • Economics as a cultural theory . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1967.
  • From value judgment dispute to political theory. In: Essays on science. Göttingen Vol. 1 1966, pp. 71-163.
  • (together with Hans Freyer and Johannes Chr. Papalekas , eds.): Technology in the technical age. Statements on the historical situation , Düsseldorf: Schilling 1965.
  • Beyond individualism and collectivism. Studies on the Present Age . Düsseldorf: Schilling 1964.
  • Understanding sociology , in: Concise Dictionary of Social Sciences, Stuttgart - Tübingen - Göttingen 1961.
  • (with Abel , Steden, Westphalia): The village in the industrial development of the present (Vienna studies on agricultural policy and agricultural sociology 1), 1958.
  • The late trick . A contribution to the foundation of the science of politics and political economy as a design theory of the economy . Erlangen: University Association; University library in Komm.) 1956. (= Erlanger research, series A, humanities, vol. 7).
  • Basic questions of rural sociology . In: Hans-Jürgen Seraphim . Written Jürgen Heuer (Hrsg.): German settlement and housing policy. Present problems and future aspects; Festschrift for the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Settlements and Housing of the Westphalian Wilhelms-Universität Münster iW Köln-Braunsfeld: R. Müller, 1956. (Special publication of the Institute for Settlements and Housing, 3), pp. 187–229 .
  • The social structure in the country. Expert opinion for the German Committee for Education , Bonn, no year.
  • Werner Sombart's idea of ​​the economic system . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1953.
  • (together with Constantin von Dietze, Max Rolfes, ed.): Living conditions in small farming villages. Results of an investigation in the Federal Republic of 1952. (Reports on Agriculture, NF Sh. 157) Hamburg-Berlin: Paul Parey 1953.
  • The formation of social groups , 1950 (No. 6 of the publication series of the University of Political Sciences , Munich)
  • The Crisis of the Peasantry , Lecture, October 1946, Göttingen.
  • From value judgment dispute to political theory . In: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 49th Vol. (I); and special edition Jena: Fischer 1939.
  • The ideal-typical understanding of meaning and essence and the thought structures of the formal theory. On the logic of the ' ideal type ' and the 'rational schemes' . In: Journal for the entire political science 100th Vol. (1939/1940), Issue 3, pp. 257-308.
  • Shaping existence . Leipzig: Felix Meiner 1938.
  • The Reich as a German mission . Tübingen: Mohr 1934.
  • The sociological structure of the national community . In: Volksspiegel 1 (1934), 2, 62–67.
  • The stand and its structure . In: Volksspiegel 1 (1934), 5/6, 266-271.
  • The corporate state . In: Deutsche Rundschau 59 (1933), pp. 148–153.
  • Outline of the new popular order . Hamburg: Hanseatic Publishing House 1933.
  • The principle of hierarchy in social theory from Plato to the present . Hamburg: Hanseatic Publishing House 1932.

Writings on Georg Weippert's work (selection)

  • Hans Georg Schachtschabel : (Review by) Weippert, Georg: Essays on science teaching . Vol. 1.2. Goettingen 1966.1967. In: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv Vol. 102 (1969), Issue 2, pp. 57-61.
  • Hans Albert : Sociology as political science: Georg Weippert's hermeneutic science theory. In: “Soziale Welt”, Vol. 18.1967, 2/3, pp. 241-252.
  • Ernst Rudolf Huber : Weippert, Georg, Daseinsgestaltung. Leipzig 1938, Felix Meiner, 158 S. In: Journal for the entire political science. Edited by Hermann Bente , Ernst Rudolf Huber, Andreas Predöhl . 101. Volume (1941), pp. 728-733.

literature

  • Wilhelm Bernsdorf, Horst Knospe (ed.): Lemma Weippert, Georg Heinrich . In: International Sociological Lexicon. Volume 1: Articles on sociologists who died by the end of 1969. With the collaboration of numerous specialists from home and abroad, published by Dr. Wilhelm Bernsdorf, Berlin in conjunction with Dr. Horst Knospe, Berlin. 2nd, revised edition. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag 1980, pp. 493-494. (also Stuttgart 1959, p. 628f.)
  • Theodor Scharmann: Georg Weippert . In: Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology 1965, pp. 434–436.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Bernsdorf: Lemma Weippert, Georg Heinrich . In the S. (Ed.) Internationales Soziologenlexikon. Stuttgart 1959, p. 628.
  2. ^ Otthein Rammstedt: German Sociology 1933-1945. The normality of adaptation . Frankfurt / M .: Suhrkamp 1986, p. 103; Wilhelm Bernsdorf: Lemma Weippert, Georg Heinrich . In the S. (Ed.) Internationales Soziologenlexikon. Stuttgart 1959, p. 628.
  3. ↑ Georg Weippert personnel file. In: Archive of the Technical University of Munich.
  4. ^ Georg Weippert: The sociological structure of the national community . In: Volksspiegel. Journal for German Sociology and Folk Studies. Stuttgart / Berlin 1934, p. 63.
  5. ^ Carsten Klingemann: Sociology in the Third Reich . Baden-Baden: Nomos 1996, pp. 187, 253.
  6. ^ Sepp Eichinger, Social and Economic Structure of the Freimann Small Imperial Estate in the city of Munich . Munich 1940 (= contributions to social settlement studies, edited by the Munich Office for Folk Research and Home Education), p. 9.
  7. ^ In: Bundesarchiv R61 / 100, p. 18.
  8. ↑ Carsten Klingemann: Symbiotic Fusion. Folk history - sociology - social history and its empirical turn to the social under political auspices . In: Comparativ. Leipzig contributions to universal history and comparative social research . 12, 2002, (1), pp. 34-62 (here: p. 53).
  9. ↑ Thomas Etzemüller: Social history as political history: Werner Conze and the reorientation of West German historical studies after 1945 . Munich: Oldenbourg 2001, pp. 200-203.
  10. ^ Report on the meeting of the university study groups for spatial research - Königsberg - November 6, 1939 in the State Science Institute of Albertus University . In Federal Archives R113 / 1152. (quoted from Gutberger 2017: 367).
  11. ↑ Erwin Scheu (Ed.), Proposals for the rural settlement of the new German eastern region. Expert statements by G. Blohm, H. Klaaßen, E. Lang, E. Scheu, G. Weippert edited by Prof. Dr. E. Shy. Not in bookstores. Königsberg (Pr): Königsberger Verlagsanstalt 1940 (economic geographic works. Special issue).
  12. ↑ Alexander Nützenadel: Hour of the Economists. Science, Politics and Expert Culture in the Federal Republic 1949-1974 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005 (Critical Studies in History, 166), p. 30.
  13. ↑ Hansjörg Gutberger: Spatial Development, Population and social integration. Research for spatial planning and spatial planning policy 1930-1960 . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017.
  14. ↑ Georg Weippert: From value judgment dispute to political theory , in: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 49th vol., 1939 quoted. after Carsten Klingemann, Sociology in the Third Reich. Baden-Baden: Nomos 1996, p. 188.
  15. ^ Carsten Klingemann: Sociology in the Third Reich . Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1996, p. 188 .
  16. ^ Wilhelm Bernsdorf, Horst Knospe (ed.): Lemma Weippert, Georg Heinrich . In: International Sociological Lexicon. Volume 1: Articles on sociologists who died by the end of 1969. With the collaboration of numerous specialists from home and abroad, published by Dr. Wilhelm Bernsdorf , Berlin in conjunction with Dr. Horst Knospe, Berlin. 2nd, revised edition. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag 1980, p. 493.
  17. ^ Richard Struff: Regional living conditions, part 2. Social science village and community studies in Germany . Bonn: Research Society for Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Sociology e. V., 1999, p. 103. See also: Village investigations: Lectures and negotiations of the working conference of the Research Society for Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Sociology e. V. Bonn, from 21.-22. January 1955 ; Excerpts from the individual reports 1953/54 / published by the Research Society for Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Sociology e. V., Bonn. Hamburg [u. a.]: Parey, 1955.
  18. ↑ Carsten Klingemann: Symbiotic Fusion. Folk history - sociology - social history and its empirical turn to the social under political auspices . In: Comparativ. Leipzig contributions to universal history and comparative social research. 12, 2002, (1), pp. 34-62 (here: p. 53).
  19. ^ Willi Oberkrome: Consensus and Opposition. Max Sering, Constantin von Dietze: and the 'right camp' 1920-1940 . In: Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie 55, 2007, (2), pp. 10–22 (here p. 10).
personal data
SURNAME Weippert, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weippert, Georg Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economist and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1965
Place of death gain