Karl Dietrich Bracher

Karl Dietrich Bracher (born March 13, 1922 in Stuttgart ; † September 19, 2016 in Bonn ) was a German political scientist and historian . He initially taught at the Free University of Berlin and from 1959 to 1987 was professor for the science of politics and contemporary history at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . He emerged scientifically as a researcher of totalitarianism and democracy . In Bonn he built up the seminar for political science . More than 130 students completed their doctorates and habilitation with him ; many observers speak of a "Bonn school". Bracher was also chairman of the German Association for Political Science from 1965 to 1967 and co-editor of specialist periodicals. For his outstanding contribution to German political science, he received numerous national and international awards such as the Federal Cross of Merit and the Order Pour le Mérite and was visiting professor abroad.

Live and act

Origin, military service and imprisonment

Karl Bracher came from a Protestant family of the educated middle class. The great-grandfather Wilhelm Pelargus , a member of the Pelargus art foundry family , was a court ore caster in Stuttgart. Bracher's father, Theodor Bracher (1876–1955), worked as a high school teacher and later as a department head in the Württemberg Ministry of Education. The father was a member of the left-wing liberal DDP . Bracher belonged to a Protestant scout group and went to the humanistic Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium .

After graduating from high school in 1940, Bracher was drafted into the Reich Labor Service and later for military service in the Wehrmacht . In May 1943 he got near Tunis in American captivity until February 1946. In a detention center in Concordia in the State of Kansas , he was the prisoner of war historian Adam Wandruszka taught.

Studied at Tübingen and Harvard

From 1946 to 1949 Bracher studied ancient and new history as well as philosophy (among others with Eduard Spranger ), classical philology (among others with Otto Weinreich ) and literature at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen . In 1948 he was awarded a doctorate by Joseph Vogt with his dissertation Decay and Progress in Thinking of the Early Roman Empire with summa cum laude. phil. PhD. From 1949 to 1950 he did a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; his studies there were interdisciplinary and brought him into contact with renowned scientists such as Arthur M. Schlesinger .

University professor in Berlin and Bonn and seminar structure

From 1950 to 1955 Bracher was a research assistant to Otto Stammer and deputy director of the Institute for Political Science at the Free University of Berlin . He was also a lecturer at the German University of Politics in Berlin. During this time he turned to research on democracy and totalitarianism. His habilitation took place in 1955 with Hans Herzfeld and Ernst Fraenkel at the Free University of Berlin with the dissolution of the Weimar Republic. A study on the problem of the decline in power in democracy , which is still considered a masterpiece of contemporary historiography and was included in the ZEIT library of 100 books (non-fiction books). Bracher's habilitation was the first in Germany in the subject of political science . From 1955 to 1958 he worked in Berlin as a private lecturer in political science and modern history . In 1958 he was appointed adjunct professor early.

In 1959 Bracher became a full professor for science of politics and contemporary history at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . With his first assistant Hans-Helmuth Knütter , who later became Professor Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and others, he set up the Department of Political Science .

From 1970, he and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen published the series Bonner Schriften zur Politik und Zeitgeschichte . Bracher emerged mainly with works on the Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism (The German dictatorship) as well as on the history of Europe (The Crisis of Europe) and political ideas (Time of Ideologies) in the 20th century. The topics of resistance against National Socialism and political education played an important role.

Bracher stayed in Bonn until his retirement in 1987 and turned down calls to Giessen, Hamburg, Cambridge (Harvard) and Florence; He has held visiting professorships and fellowships in Stanford, Princeton, Oxford, Washington DC, Canada, Florence, Tel Aviv, Japan, Paris and Sweden, among others.

Bracher was Senator of the German Research Foundation from 1981 to 1987 and advised several research institutions, such as the Technical University of Dresden on the establishment of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism .

Bracher was non-party, but maintained good contacts in all federal governments .

Bracher-Conze controversy

In 1957, a critical review by the historian Werner Conze of Bracher's habilitation thesis triggered the so-called Bracher-Conze controversy . Conze threw Bracher in the historical journal ago, the presidential cabinet of Heinrich Brüning misguided as the end of the Weimar Republic and thus as a way into the totalitarian Nazi state interpreted to have.

Chairman of scientific associations

Bracher was from 1962 to 1968 chairman of the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties . From 1965 to 1967 he was chairman of the German Association for Political Science (DVPW). From 1980 to 1988 he chaired the scientific advisory board of the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. In 1983 he was one of the founding members of the German Society for Political Science (DGfP).

editor

Bracher was the founder and from 1960 to 1969 co-editor of the political science journal Politische Vierteljahresschrift and from 1978 to 2008 he was part of the editorial team of the quarterly journals for contemporary history . He was editor of the academic journals Deutsche Rundschau , Neue Politische Literatur , Zeitschrift für Politik and Journal of Contemporary History .

Memberships

He was a member:

• of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• the American Philosophical Society
• the British Academy
• of the German Academy for Language and Poetry
• the Historical Commission of Berlin
• the Commission on the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties
• of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts
• of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
• of the PEN Center Germany
• since 1992 member of the order Pour le mérite for science and arts .

honors and awards

• 1973: Premio Acqui Storia
• 1980: European Bentinck Prize
• 1982: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1987: Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1993: Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
• 1994: Ernst Robert Curtius Prize for essay writing and the Medal of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg
• 1997: Large Cross of Merit with star and shoulder ribbon

He has been awarded several honorary doctorates :

• Dr. hum. lett. hc (Florida State)
• Dr. iur. hc (Graz)
• Dr. rer. pole. hc (FU Berlin)
• Dr. hc (Institut d'études politiques de Paris).

student

132 students received their doctorate from him, including:

Dieter Aderhold Ulrich von Alemann Wilfried von Bredow Ulrich Dübber Peter Eickenboom Stephan Eisel Erhard Forndran Markus Gestier Michael Th. Greven

Hans-Dieter Heumann Hubertus Hoffmann Rudolf van Hüllen Peter Huettenberger Michael J. Inacker Thomas Jansen Kurt Klotzbach Hans-Helmuth Knütter Christoph Konrad

Ludger Kühnhardt Margarita Mathiopoulos (doctoral degree later withdrawn) Friedhelm Mennekes Susanne Miller Thomas Mirow Patrik von zur Mühlen Werner Müller Karlheinz Niclauss

Friedbert Pflüger Günter Reichert Hans Karl Rupp Theo Schiller Wulf Schönbohm Hans-Ulrich Seidt Hildegard Stausberg Hans Vorländer Norbert Wiggershaus .

In addition, he supervised twelve post-doctoral candidates a. a .:

Wolfgang Bergsdorf Erhard Forndran Manfred Funke

Peter Huettenberger Hans-Adolf Jacobsen Karl Kaiser

Paul Kevenhörster Hans-Helmuth Knütter

Ludger Kühnhardt Karlheinz Niclauss

Observers spoke of a “Bonn” or “Bracher school”; Bracher rejected this assignment because of his pluralistic and integrative approach. In addition, it was never his intention to build a school.

family

Bracher was married to Dorothee, born in 1951. Schleicher (* 1928), a daughter of Rüdiger Schleicher (1895–1945) and Ursula, b. Bonhoeffer (1902–1983), and niece of Dietrich Bonhoeffer .

Fonts (selection)

• Decline and Progress in Thinking of the Early Roman Empire. Studies on the sense of time and historical awareness of the century after Augustus (= studies on politics and administration. Vol. 21). Böhlau, Vienna et al. 1987, ISBN 3-205-08909-X .
• as ed. together with Annedore Leber in collaboration with Willy Brandt : The conscience stands up. 64 life pictures from the German resistance 1933–1945. Mosaik, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1954, OCLC 604645729 ; also udT: Conscience decides. Areas of German resistance from 1933–1945 in pictures of life. Mosaic, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1957; v. Hase & Koehler, Mainz 1984, OCLC 498174645 , ISBN 3-775-81064-1 (in connection with the Forschungsgemeinschaft 20. Juli e.V. ).
• The fall of the Weimar Republic. Studies on German politics 1930–33 . Berlin 1955; also udT: The dissolution of the Weimar Republic. A study on the problem of the decline in power in democracy (= writings of the Institute for Political Science , Volume 4). With an introduction by Hans Herzfeld . Ring-Verlag, Stuttgart 1955 (at the same time: Habilitation thesis FU Berlin, Philosophical Faculty, 1955 [typewriter], DNB 480093156 ), last new edition as Droste-Taschenbücher Geschichte , Droste, Düsseldorf 1984, ISBN 3-7700-0908-8 .
• National Socialist seizure of power and Reich Concordat. An expert opinion on the question of the historical connection and the political connection between the Reich Concordat and the National Socialist Revolution. Hessian state government, Wiesbaden 1956.
• with Wolfgang Sauer and Gerhard Schulz : The National Socialist seizure of power. Studies on the establishment of the totalitarian system of rule in Germany in 1933/34. West German publishing house, Cologne 1960.
• as ed. with Hans-Peter Schwarz : Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history . Oldenbourg, Munich 1960 ff.
• Germany between democracy and dictatorship. Contributions to recent politics and history. Scherz, Bern / Munich 1964.
• Adolf Hitler (= Archive of World History. ) Scherz, Bern et al. 1964.
• The German dictatorship. Origin, structure, consequences of National Socialism. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1969; Ullstein paperback edition, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-548-26501-4 .
• The German dilemma. Paths of suffering of political emancipation. Piper, Munich 1971, ISBN 3-492-01923-4 .
• with Jürgen Brockstedt: The Crisis of Europe 1917–1975 (= Propylaen history of Europe. Volume 6), Propylaen, Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-549-05796-2 .
• Controversies of contemporary history about fascism, totalitarianism, democracy. Piper, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-492-00442-3 .
• History and violence. On politics in the 20th century. Severin and Siedler, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-88680-024-5 .
• Time of ideologies. A History of Political Thought in the 20th Century. DVA, Stuttgart 1982; expanded new edition 1984, ISBN 3-421-06114-9 .
• als (Ed.): National Socialist Dictatorship 1933–1945. A balance sheet. Droste, Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-7700-0630-5 .
• The totalitarian experience. Piper, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-492-03066-1 .
• The turning point in history. DVA, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-421-06550-0 .
• History as experience. Reflections on the 20th Century. DVA, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-421-05444-4 .

Editions

• with others: History of the Federal Republic of Germany. 5 volumes, DVA, Stuttgart 1981 ff.
• German special route. Myth or Reality? Munich 1982.
• with Manfred Funke , Hans-Adolf Jacobsen : National Socialist dictatorship 1933–1945. A balance sheet. Düsseldorf 1983 (= Bonn writings on politics and contemporary history. Volume 21).
• with Manfred Funke, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: The Weimar Republic 1918–1933. Politics, economy, society. Düsseldorf 1987 (= Bonn writings on politics and contemporary history. Volume 22).
• with Manfred Funke, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: Germany 1933–1945. New Studies on National Socialist Rule. Düsseldorf 1992 (= Bonn writings on politics and contemporary history. Volume 23).
• with Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Volker Kronenberg , Oliver Spatz: Politics, History and Culture. Science in responsibility for the res publica. Festschrift for Manfred Funke on his 70th birthday. Bouvier, Bonn 2009.

literature

• Patrick Bahners : The teacher of the Bonn Republic . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 21, 2016, No. 221, p. 11.
• Frank Decker , Klaus Borchard , Horst Möller , Hans-Peter Schwarz , Joachim Fest : Karl Dietrich Bracher on his 80th birthday (= Bonn academic speeches. Volume 86). Bouvier, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-416-03032-X .
• Manfred Funke, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen , Hans-Helmuth Knütter and Hans-Peter Schwarz (eds.): Democracy and dictatorship. Spirit and shape of political rule in Germany and Europe. Festschrift for Karl Dietrich Bracher. Droste, Düsseldorf 1987, ISBN 3-7700-0730-1 ; again Federal Center for Political Education , Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-923423-72-1 (only in the Droste edition: complete Bracher bibliography pp. 614–635).
• Dominik Geppert : Obituary for Karl Dietrich Bracher at the meeting of the class for the humanities on February 8, 2017. In: Yearbook North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences (2017), pp. 129-131 ( online )
• Eckhard Jesse : Democracy versus dictatorship. Karl Dietrich Bracher's "Contemporary History Controversies" . In: INDES - Journal for Politics and Society 3 (2014) 4, pp. 153–158 doi : 10.13109 / inde.2014.3.4.153 .
• Eckhard Jesse: Karl Dietrich Bracher (born 1922). In: Eckhard Jesse, Sebastian Liebold (Hrsg.): German political scientists - work and effect. From Abendroth to Zellentin. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2014, ISBN 978-3-8329-7647-7 , pp. 143–158.
• Horst Möller : Karl Dietrich Bracher in memory. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 65 (2017), pp. 103–113.
• Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science (= Nomos university publications, history. Volume 19). Nomos, Baden-Baden 2008, ISBN 978-3-8329-3740-9 (also: Dissertation, University of Bonn, 2008, under the title: The foundation of Bonn's political science ).
• Hans-Peter Schwarz : Karl Dietrich Bracher (1922-2016). In: Historical magazine. 304 (2017), pp. 398-404.
• Grete Walter-Klingenstein : Karl Dietrich Bracher. In: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Almanach 2016, 166th volume, Vienna 2017, pp. 367–371.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Dietrich Bracher in the catalog of the German National Library
• Articles by and about Karl Dietrich Bracher in the quarterly books for contemporary history
• Works by and about Karl Dietrich Bracher  in the German Digital Library
• Karl Dietrich Bracher , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 06/2007 from February 10, 2007, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Short biography and reviews of works by Karl Dietrich Bracher at perlentaucher.de
• Karl Dietrich Bracher's curriculum vitae at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
• Karl Dietrich Bracher at the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts
• Andreas Wirsching : The historian of the Germans. On the death of Karl Dietrich Bracher. In: Die Zeit , September 29, 2016.
• Ludger Kühnhardt : Who knows the story. Obituary Karl Dietrich Bracher. In: FAZ.net , September 21, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Dietrich Bracher's obituary notice . In: FAZ , September 23, 2016.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science. Baden-Baden 2008, p. 99.
3. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 100.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 102.
5. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 103.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 106.
7. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 108.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 111.
9. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 113.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 114.
11. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 208.
12. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 209 f.
13. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 334.
14. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 117 ff. And p. 122 ff.
15. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 209 and p. 214.
16. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 216.
17. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, pp. 211-213; The history of the Institute for Political Science and Sociology ( Memento from December 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), University of Bonn, accessed on January 22, 2014.
18. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 262.
19. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 270 ff.
20. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 192 ff.
21. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 259.
22. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 257.
23. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 260.
24. ↑ ^{a b} Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 258.
25. ↑ Horst Möller: Karl Dietrich Bracher in memory. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 65 (2017), pp. 103–113, here: p. 103.
26. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 261.
27. ^ Members , website of the PEN Center Germany, accessed on April 18, 2013.
28. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 . 
29. ↑ ^{a b} Eckhard Jesse : Democracy versus dictatorship. Karl Dietrich Bracher's "Contemporary History Controversies" . In: INDES - Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft 3 (2014) 4, pp. 153–158, here: p. 158 doi : 10.13109 / inde.2014.3.4.153 .
30. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 375 ff.
31. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 248.
32. ↑ Ulrike Quadbeck: Karl Dietrich Bracher and the beginnings of Bonn political science . Baden-Baden 2008, p. 344.