Karl Seiler (sociologist)

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Karl Seiler (born March 26, 1896 in Feucht , † November 24, 1978 in Erlangen ) was a German educator and sociologist. Seiler is counted among a number of sociologists who also practiced empirical sociology during the National Socialist dictatorship . After 1945 Seiler worked as a teacher at the University of Erlangen .

Karl Seiler - a member of the war volunteer and frontline fighters generation

Seiler came from a pastor's family. He graduated from high school in 1914 and took part in the First World War as a war volunteer . After his release from captivity, Seiler joined the Freikorps Oberland in the Weimar Republic . He also participated in the development of the federal Oberland in his Franconian homeland. Seiler became the leader of an Oberland company and took part in a railway blast in the French-occupied area on the Cologne-Trier railway line .

Studies and professional training

In 1920 Seiler began studying economics and philosophy at the University of Munich and also attended lectures in sociology . For financial reasons he joined in 1921 in the teacher training college Schwabach and was a substitute teacher, later Volksschul- and main teacher. From 1926 on, Seiler studied pedagogy, ancient history and philosophy in Erlangen; he received his doctorate in 1929 with the thesis' The pedagogical system of Wolfgang Ratke . From 1928, Seiler worked at the Bavarian State Statistical Office and in the Statistical Office of the city of Würzburg .

Career in National Socialism

In 1933 Seiler became a member of various Nazi organizations. He joined the Nazi teachers' association and the SA ; and he submitted an application for admission to the NSDAP , which was initially rejected (joining in 1937; in the same year he became NSDAP block leader ). Seiler was trained as a guest teacher for labor camps.

In April 1935, Seiler received his habilitation at the University of Erlangen with the study “The State of Education of Charlemagne ”. Since the same year he has been a lecturer for pedagogy and lecturer for spatial research at the University of Erlangen. Since then he has also been involved in the NSD lecturers' association . In 1934 led Seiler on behalf of Reichsnährstands together with the sociologist Karl Heinz Pfeffer an investigation on the situation of farm workers and farm hands through. Several years of empirical work on ' Die Landflucht in Franken ', which he undertook for the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung together with his assistant at the time, Walter Hildebrandt , followed from 1935 onwards. For these investigations alone, Seiler received a total of over 11,000 Reichsmarks in research funds up to 1938. Together with the sociologist Max Rumpf , Seiler also led the Fränkische Landesforschung und Volkslebenskunde "(from 1938 until the winter semester 1944/45). From November 1938, Seiler was initially a deputy chair for psychology and pedagogy at the Nuremberg Commercial College. From May 1939, as a result of the Significance of the above-mentioned studies on agricultural workers and 'rural exodus' a new chair for sociology was established for Karl Seiler . In the winter semester of 1939/40, Seiler's course catalog included the topics "Leadership", "Sociology" and "Working Group for Modern Settlement Issues" For the sociology historian Carsten Klingemann, the establishment of the chair is a typical example of the “ interdependence of extra-university professionalization and academic institutionalization ” in sociology.

For the XIV. International Sociological Congress in Bucharest (1939) Karl Seiler was planned as a participant of the German delegation (headed by Gunther Ipsen ). However, the sociology congress was canceled. Seiler's planned lecture (“ Rural Exodus and Urbanization ”) then appeared in the book published by the Romanian sociologist Dimitrie Gusti : “Work of the XIV. International Sociological Congress Bucuresti” (1940). Seiler did military service between September 1939 and September 1940.

Seiler also headed the university study group for spatial research at the Hindenburg University in Nuremberg .

When "at the beginning of 1941 the opportunity arose to get the chair for psychology and pedagogy, Seiler renounced the chair for sociology that had been created for him". In 1941, Seiler was briefly planned as an employee of the Munich Research Association for Population Science and Population Policy, from which the population statistician Friedrich Burgdörfer wanted to develop a "Reich Institute for Population Science and Population Policy ". However, Seiler stayed in Nuremberg. For his part, Seiler founded the “ Working Group for Sociological Issues - Forms of Community ” and planned to set up a scientific research institute in the field of education, which was to emerge as part of the NSDAP High School (see also Alfred Baeumler ). From April 1942, Seiler headed the " Research Center for Teaching, Educational Teaching and Psychology " of the NSDAP High School.

Academic path after 1945

After the war, Karl Seiler was dismissed from university because of his political burdens. He became head of the Erlanger, then the Nuremberg teacher training institute . After a ruling chamber decision that was successful for him, he received a private lectureship in education at the University of Erlangen's University of Education (1949/1950). From autumn 1951 he worked again as a lecturer for philosophy and psychology at the teacher training institutes. From 1956 he headed the Institute for Teacher Training. In December 1958, Seiler became a full professor of education at the Nuremberg University of Education and head of the university. In 1963 Seiler retired.

Fonts (selection)

  • Wolfgang Ratke's educational system. Represented according to the handwritten sources in the context of European intellectual history . Erlangen: Palm & Enke 1931.
  • The educational state of Charlemagne. Facilities, basic ideas, final goals . Erlangen: Palm & Enke 1937.
  • Laws in the population development of villages near the city. In: Volksspiegel . Journal for German People's Science 4, pp. 216–222.
  • The servants question in Franconia. A contribution to the clarification of the German rural exodus problem . In: Spatial research and spatial planning, 2nd year. (1938), No. 6, pp. 238-241.
  • (with Walter Hildebrandt): The rural exodus in Franconia . Leipzig 1940 (Reports on spatial research and spatial planning, Volume III).
  • Francs . In: Konrad Meyer , Klaus Thiede (ed.): The rural labor constitution in the west and south of the empire. Contributions to the rural exodus. Joint work on behalf of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung. Heidelberg, Berlin, Magdeburg 1941, pp. 191-211.
  • The mental side of urbanization . 3. Contributions to the Metropolitan Collection . In: Archive for Population Science and Population Policy, 12th year (1942), Issue 3/4, pp. 129–154.
  • The work school: its psychological rationale . Nuremberg: Verlag Die Egge 1948.
  • (as editor) Nuremberg: 900 years of Nuremberg economy 1050–1950 . Kulmbach: Baumann 1950.
  • Complete teaching in the new school building . Stuttgart: Klett 1950 (Educational Library. Educational Series. 3).

See also

literature

  • The professors and lecturers of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen 1743–1960 / [Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg eV]. On behalf of the rector, ed. from the University Library Erlangen, part 3. Philosophical faculty, natural science faculty / edit. by Clemens Wachter with the participation of Astrid Ley and Josef Mayr. Erlangen 2009 (Erlanger research series; 13), ISBN 978-3-930357-96-3 .
  • Reinhard Wittenberg : Sociology in Nuremberg. The development of a scientific discipline in research and teaching from 1919–1989 . Regensburg 1992.
  • Carsten Klingemann : Sociology in the Third Reich . Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 1996.
  • Hansjörg Gutberger: People, Space and Social Structure. Social structure and social space research in the “Third Reich” . Münster u. a. 1996.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Klingemann 1996, 261.
  2. ↑ Klingemann 1996, 261.
  3. ↑ a b c Gutberger 1996, p. 524.
  4. ↑ Hansjörg Gutberger: Spatial Development, Population and social integration. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017, p. 420 .
  5. ↑ Klingemann 1996, p. 262.
  6. ↑ Wittenberg 1992, p. 175.
  7. ^ Carsten Klingemann: Sociology and Politics . Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2009, p. 178f. On this sociological approach: Ders .: Leibniz Research and the Prussian Academy of Sciences in the context of National Socialist science policy - a sociological model . In: Wenchao Li, Hartmut Rudolph (ed.): “Leibniz” in the time of National Socialism. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2013, pp. 27–31.
  8. ↑ In detail on the Bucharest Congress: Alexander Zinn: Hated or instrumentalized? Sociology in the Third Reich from the perspective of the Reich Ministry of Science . In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie , Vol. 21, Heft 5, 1992, pp. 347–365 (here: pp. 358ff.).
  9. ↑ Klingemann 1996, p. 262.
  10. ↑ Sonja Schnitzler: Sociology in National Socialism between science and politics . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2012, p. 230 .
  11. ^ According to the Federal Archives, Biographical Note Karl Seiler, Nachlass Stadtarchiv Nürnberg.
  12. ↑ Wittenberg 1992, p. 61.
personal data
SURNAME Seiler, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German educator and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Wet
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1978
Place of death gain