Hans-Josef Steinberg

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Hans-Josef Steinberg (born October 22, 1935 in Cologne , † December 16, 2003 in Würzburg ) was a German historian and from 1971 the first professor for the history of the labor movement in the Federal Republic of Germany .

biography

education and profession

Steinberg was the son of an insurance salesman and a grocery retailer. Steinberg, also known as Hanjo for short , attended high school and studied history, German and philosophy at the University of Cologne from 1956 to 1962 . He had been a member of the SPD and Juso board in the Cologne sub-district since 1962 , as a student trainee at Bayer Leverkusen and in the sports department of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger .

At the University of Cologne Steinberg was initially assistant to Joseph Quint at the chair for older German studies from 1962, but turned away from ancient German studies because of its low socio-political relevance and became a doctoral student to the modern historian Theodor Schieder . Steinberg received funding through a research grant that the then Hessian Prime Minister Georg August Zinn had donated in 1963 on the 100th anniversary of the General German Workers' Association (ADAV).

In preparation for his dissertation, he worked on the archives of the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam and was thereupon 1967 on the basis of the text Socialism and German Social Democracy. Doctorate on the ideology of the party before the First World War in Cologne. In it he dealt with the then almost forgotten socialist theorist Karl Kautsky and came to the conclusion that the socialist theoretical debate at the turn of the 20th century largely took place without the participation of workers. Steinberg's dissertation got into an ideological conflict between the student movement and the SPD and the GDR , all three of which claimed the legacy of the workers' movement, and by the end of the 1970s it had five editions.

After completing his doctorate, Steinberg was elected to the district council of the Rheinisch-Bergisches Kreis for the SPD and was employed as a research assistant at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung . For his second book, Resistance and Persecution in Essen from 1933 to 1945 , Steinberg initially had the support of the city of Essen, especially the city director and former resistance fighter Karl-Heinz Rewoldt. But even this work by Steinberg, published in 1969, which was one of the first in the FRG to take note of workers' resistance to National Socialism , sparked controversy: The social democratic city council did not like the great importance of the communists in the Essen resistance; the recently founded German Communist Party was bothered by Steinberg's criticism of the KPD tactics, which had claimed many victims in its own ranks; Steinberg's findings about the broad popular support for the Nazi regime, which helped replace a sophisticated machinery of persecution with denunciations , also contradicted the Federal Republic's “bourgeois legitimation ideology” at the time, according to which the Nazi state did not enjoy broad popular support. These controversial works made Steinberg, who was also a regular participant in the International Conference of Historians of the Labor Movement (ITH) in Linz, also known internationally.

Professor and Rector in Bremen

When the University of Bremen was founded in 1971, Steinberg received the professorship for the history of the labor movement and its theories, as well as European history of the 19th and 20th centuries, which he first taught in the so-called integrated social science introductory course. After only five semesters, he applied for the office of resigned founding rector Thomas von der Vring , to which Steinberg was also elected in the spring of 1974. As the new rector, Steinberg introduced Zeit as follows:

“He has curly reddish hair, in his hometown he would be called 'ne Fuss'. He was born in Cologne in 1935 and can shine as surprisingly as Willy Millowitsch behind his glasses . He also speaks in the Cologne tone: Rhenish cheerfulness is really something new about the Bremen model, which is otherwise so North German and stubborn. There was also schnapps. "

The conservative campaign, which the University of Bremen demonized as a “red cadre factory”, did not let up during Steinberg's rectorate. The Maoist K-groups ridiculed the choice of Steinberg as a "change from tactician to Tünnes of the bourgeoisie". The number of students, however, almost doubled during his tenure, accompanied by the introduction of the subjects of biology and chemistry. While Steinberg defended the “Bremen model” of a democratic university, he was skeptical of the trend towards a mass university , in which the quality of academic education fell. He emphasized the co-determination of the non-academic employees, then called “service providers”, who, according to the unique Bremen third parity rule, were equally involved in decisions in all committees with students and teachers, and linked his rectorate with the controversial third parity at an early stage.

“But Steinberg failed with his vision of a university of all those involved because of the increasing reluctance to enter into dialogue on the part of both his left and right critics within the university as well as the political authorities. When the Bremen Senate [...] also joined the call for one third parity to be lifted, Steinberg resigned. Scientifically not an ideologist, he was also not a party soldier politically [...]. "

After his resignation as rector in 1977, Steinberg shied away from accepting higher offices at the university until his retirement in 1999, instead concentrating on the organization of the Bremen history course, which was establishing itself as an independent subject, and the training of historians: Steinberg not only supervised around 30 doctoral students, but also took "most of the state and master's examinations in history". A well-known student of his is Karl Heinz Roth .

Fonts

  • Socialism and German Social Democracy. On the ideology of the party before the First World War . Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, Hanover 1967 (also dissertation, University of Cologne 1967; 5th edition, Dietz, Berlin / Bonn 1979, ISBN 3-8012-1099-5 ).
  • Resistance and persecution in Essen from 1933 to 1945 . Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, Hannover 1969 (series of publications by the research institute of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2nd edition 1973, ISBN 3-87831-081-1 ).
  • The German socialist labor movement until 1914. A bibliographical introduction . Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1979, ISBN 3-593-32349-4 .

literature

  • Logie Barrow: Hans-Joseph Steinberg (1935–2003). In: History workshop journal , Vol. 59 (2005), pp. 291-294.
  • Inge Marßolek, Till Schelz-Brandenburg (Ed.): Social democracy and socialist theory. Festschrift for Hans-Josef Steinberg on his 60th birthday . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-279-9 (with bibliography of Steinberg's writings).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Nina Grunenberg : The pathos is gone . In: Die Zeit , No. 16/1974.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Till Schelz-Brandenburg: Sugar peas and socialism. Speech at the academic funeral service of the University of Bremen for Hans-Josef Steinberg on January 21, 2004 ( Memento of February 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). In: International Scientific Correspondence on the History of the German Labor Movement (IWK) 39, 2003, Issue 4, pp. 437–445, accessed on April 24, 2010.
  3. ^ Hans-Josef Steinberg: Bremen as a model . In: Die Zeit , No. 29/1975 ("In a campaign that is second to none, it was demonized as a 'red cadre factory'.")
  4. ↑ Till Schelz-Brandenburg: An obituary. Science as a pleasure to learn . In: taz.de , December 24, 2003, accessed April 24, 2010.
  5. ↑ Reimar Oltmanns: From German lands of contemporary history: The end of a utopia - a red university goes swimming . In: Stern , June 26, 1975. (here at http://reimaroltmanns.blogspot.com )
  6. ^ Till Schelz-Brandenburg: On the death of Professor Hans-Josef Steinberg ( Memento from June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). In: Bremer Uni-Schlüssel No. 76, January / February 2004, p. 3 (PDF; 1 MB). On Roth cf. Preface to the print version of his historical dissertation, thanks, p. 8
personal data
SURNAME Steinberg, Hans-Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steinberg, Hanjo (short form)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian of the labor movement
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 2003
Place of death Wurzburg