Gerhard Brandt (sociologist)

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Gerhard Brandt (born February 3, 1929 in Hanover ; † November 25, 1987 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German sociologist and from 1974 to 1982 director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main.

Life

After graduating from high school (1948), he completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and became an active member of the youth union in Hanover . From 1954 he began studying sociology in Göttingen , after two semesters he switched to the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . There he belonged to the first generation of students under Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno . For a time he was a research assistant at the Institute for Social Research. After his diploma (1958) Ludwig von Friedeburg arranged for him a scholarship for a one-year study visit at the London School of Economics .

Already as assistant to Ludwig von Friedeburg at the Free University of Berlin (1963-66), he was in 1964 with a thesis on "defense and economic" doctorate . In 1966 he returned with v. Friedeburg returned to Frankfurt, where he was active in university teaching.

After he had taken over a professorship in Heidelberg in 1970, he completed his habilitation in 1971 with "Trade Union Representation of Interest and Social Change", a thesis on British trade unions in the phase of New Unionism . In 1971 he accepted a position in Frankfurt and in 1972 became director of the “orphaned” Institute for Social Research (after Adorno's death and von Friedeburg's move to the Hessian Ministry of Culture). There he was involved in the research focus on industrial and trade union sociology, which was still initiated by Ludwig von Friedeburg. Among other things, he led one of the first empirical studies on computer technology.

In 1984 he left the institute at his own request “with the declared intention of theoretically processing the research experience gained”. In the social sciences department of the university, he founded an interdisciplinary working group for technology research.

In 1987 he committed suicide.

Publications

  • Union advocacy and social change. A sociological study of the development of trade unions in the British iron and steel industry, 1886–1917 . European Publishing House, Frankfurt am Main 1973.
  • (Co-author) Computer and work process. A sociological study of the effects of the use of computers in selected operational departments of the steel industry and the banking industry . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1978.
  • (Co-author) Adaptation to the crisis. Unions in the 1970s . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1982.
  • Work, technology and social development. Transformation processes of modern capitalism . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990 (posthumously edited by Daniel Bieber and Wilhelm Schumm).

Literature about Gerhard Brandt

  • On the death of Gerhard Brandt . In: Journal of Sociology . Year 17/1988, issue 2, pp. 154–157.
  • Daniel Bieber and Wilhelm Schumm: Foreword . In: Work, Technology and Social Development. Transformation processes of modern capitalism . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 7-14.
  • Manfred Lauermann: Gerhard Brandt - the last Horkheimer student . In: Richard Faber, Eva-Maria Ziege (Ed.): The field of the Frankfurt cultural and social sciences after 1945 . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8260-3869-3 , pp. 205-231.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the death of Gerhard Brandt . In: Journal of Sociology . Volume 17/1988, issue 2, p. 156.
personal data
SURNAME Brandt, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1987
Place of death Frankfurt am Main