Hans Mottek

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Hans Mottek (born September 26, 1910 in Posen , † October 24, 1993 in Berlin ) was one of the most important economic historians of the GDR .

Life

Hans Mottek grew up in an assimilated middle-class Jewish family. From 1929 to 1932 he studied law at the Universities of Freiburg and Berlin . In 1932/33 he was a trainee lawyer at the Bernau District Court near Berlin . After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Mottek had to break off the career he had just begun. In the same year he emigrated to Palestine . In 1935 Mottek joined the KPD . The emigration then took him to Great Britain from 1936 to 1946 , where he had to earn his living as a farm and construction worker. There he was a co-founder of the FDJ .

In 1946 he returned to Germany from emigration and became a lawyer in the Central Administration for Labor and Social Welfare in Berlin. From 1947 he prepared for a scientific career as an economic historian and received his doctorate in 1950 at the Humboldt University in Berlin with the dissertation The causes of the Prussian railway nationalization in 1879 and the preconditions for its success .

His first teaching assignment at the then Greater Berlin University of Education was followed in autumn 1950 by the task of building up the seminar for economic history at the newly founded University of Economics (HfÖ) in Berlin-Karlshorst , which later became the Institute for Economic History of the HfÖ, which he held for four decades remained connected and where he founded his school of economic history. In 1951 he became a lecturer there , and in 1952 a full professor . From 1952 until his retirement in 1975 he was director of this institute.

From 1969 he was a corresponding, from 1971 a full member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin and the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW). From 1971 to 1974 he was head of the environmental research commission at the AdW.

Act

Between 1957 and 1974, based closely on the teaching of Mottek's main work, the three-volume economic history of Germany was created . This outline of German economic history quickly found recognition and recognition both in Germany and internationally.

Mottek transferred his initial special interest in researching industrialization in the 19th century to his students, who - encouraged and accompanied by him - have published several studies on the history of the industrial revolution in Germany since 1960. His students included Lothar Baar , Walter Becker and Horst Blumberg .

Mottek also researched and wrote about the problem of economic crises, about stagnation and growth in economic history and about choosing the right technology to accelerate economic growth in the past and present.

Mottek, who never left his basic Marxist position, entered a new field of science - for the GDR - at the beginning of the 1970s, research into the human-environment problem. In addition to further research on economic history, he now devoted himself increasingly to concern about the global problems of mankind and their future in the face of impending ecological catastrophes.

Honors

Works

Monographs

  • The causes of the Prussian railroad nationalization in 1879 and the preconditions for its success . Berlin 1950 (diss.).
  • Economic history of Germany. A floor plan .
    • Volume 1: From the beginning to the time of the French Revolution . Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1957 (6th edition, 1983).
    • Volume 2: From the time of the French Revolution to the time when the Bismark Empire was founded . Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1964 (3rd edition, 1987).
    • Volume 3: From the time of Bismarck's establishment in 1871 until the defeat of fascist German imperialism in 1945 (together with Walter Becker and Alfred Schröter). Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1974 (3rd edition, 1977).
  • Society and the environment . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1976.
  • Theoretical-historical considerations on the problem of economic crises in capitalism . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978.
  • The crises and the development of capitalism . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982.
  • On the laws of development of the capitalist monetary system . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982.
  • The seventies . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1984.
  • Development tendencies of state monopoly regulation after the Second World War . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1988.
  • Economic history and the environment . BdWi-Verlag, Marburg 1996.
  • (Ed.): Studies on the history of the industrial revolution in Germany . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1960 (2nd edition, 1975).

Articles (selection)

  • On the problem of stagnation and growth in economic history . In: Yearbook for Economic History (1969 / III), pp. 151-170.
  • On some basic questions of the human-environment problem . In: Wirtschaftswwissenschaften 20 (1972), pp. 36-42.
  • Economic history and the environment . In: Yearbook for Economic History (1974 / II), pp. 77–82.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mottek, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economist
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1993
Place of death Berlin