Gustav Kafka

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Gustav Kafka (born July 23, 1883 in Vienna , † February 12, 1953 in Veitshöchheim near Würzburg ) was a German philosopher and psychologist.

Life

After studying in Vienna, Göttingen and Leipzig from 1902 onwards, he received his doctorate in philosophy ( on the increase in toning excitation ) under Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig in 1906 . In 1911 he completed his habilitation in Munich ( attempt at a critical presentation of the newer views on the ego problem , 1910) and in 1915 he became an associate professor. In 1919, Kafka was given a teaching position on “applied psychology, mainly for instruction in the methods of the professional aptitude test”.

On April 1, 1923, he was appointed full professor for philosophy and education at the TH Dresden . In the following years he held more lectures and internships for teacher training. After founding the Institute for Philosophy, Psychology and Education, Kafka became its co-director in 1928. In the winter semester of 1929/30 he received a visiting professorship at Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore Md, USA.

In protest against the persecution of Jews in Germany and against the exclusion of Jewish colleagues from the German Society for Psychology , he obtained his retirement in 1934. During the “Third Reich” he only wrote scientific papers as a private person. During this time he was exposed to numerous reprisals, as you can read in the “diaries” of his Dresden colleague Victor Klemperer ( I want to give testimony to the last ). His book What are races , published in 1949 ? , on which he had worked in secret during the Nazi era , represents an attempt to scientifically refute the Nazi racial theories . Only published in the post-war period, however, the work met with little interest.

In addition to Professors Gehrig and Klemperer , Kafka also received a confirmation of reinstatement at the TH Dresden in 1945.

In 1947, Kafka was appointed to the chair of philosophy and psychology at the University of Würzburg , where he was head of the Philosophical Seminar with Hans Meyer and sole director of the Institute of Psychology, at which Wilhelm Josef Revers initially worked as Kafka's assistant. In 1952 Kafka retired there. In 1948 he was re-founder of the German Society for Psychology in the American occupation zone and from 1951 until his death in early 1953 chairman of the 1949 reunited society in the western zones and the FRG.

From his first marriage he had two sons ( Gustav Eduard , born February 4, 1907 in Munich; † January 17, 1974 in Graz, lawyer and political scientist, and Stefan * 1908; † March 8, 2002 in Rechtmehring). His wife died in 1924 before moving to Dresden. A daughter was born from a second marriage in 1925 (Maria Theresia, * 1926 in Dresden). The family was bombed out in Dresden in February 1945 and moved to Veitshöchheim in 1947.

Works (selection)

literature

  • In memory of Prof. Dr. Gustav Kafka , in: Yearbook for Psychology and Psychotherapy , 1st year (1952/1953), pp. 370-512; therein: Geza Révész : In Memoriam Gustav Kafka (p. 373–375) and Philipp Lersch : Gustav Kafka to the memory (p. 375–376)
  • Wilhelm Arnold:  Kafka, Gustav. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 15 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Frank Schirmer: Gustav Kafka's contribution to psychological research and training at the Technical University of Dresden from 1923 to 1934 , in: Psychologie und Geschichte , 2. Jg., 1990, Issue 2, pp. 70–76 [1]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg: Lecture directory for the summer semester of 1948. University printing house H. Stürtz, Würzburg 1948, pp. 12 and 17.
personal data
SURNAME Kafka, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist, professor of psychology
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1953
Place of death Veitshöchheim near Würzburg