Marburg School (Political Science)

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The so-called Marburg School was one of the most influential schools in German political science alongside the Cologne School and Freiburg School . It stands out from others through an explicit reference to the ideas and theories in the series of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . For several decades, the focus was on Wolfgang Abendroth , around whom a group of students had been established since the 1950s.

The Marburg School of Political Science should not be confused with the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism , which was important after the First World War . Because the term “Marburg School” was occasionally used polemically, the term Abendroth School is sometimes preferred - for example by Frank Deppe .

Origin and Effect

The Marburg School was clearly shaped by the Marxist political scientist and legal scholar Wolfgang Abendroth . He was appointed to the Philipps University of Marburg in 1950 and was the only representative of political science until 1967, alongside the long-time lecturer Adolf Grabowsky (who had no right to award doctorates). His own political experiences in the labor movement and in the resistance against National Socialism shaped Abendroth's choice of topics for teaching and research.

The main focus of work and research of the institute in the 1950s was primarily concerned with politics, rule and society in the National Socialist “Third Reich” , but also dealing with the young democracy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Accordingly, seminars on the political sociology of institutions such as parties and associations were offered in the courses. A second focus at this time was initially on election studies and historical party research. At the same time, work began on developing a third field of work that shaped the image of political science in Marburg for many years: the intensive examination of the history of the German labor movement. The representations that emerged from this are considered "left-opposing counter-representations to the dominant social-democratic historiography". The working style of the Marburg School was not very theory-heavy. Instead, the focus was on detail and descriptiveness. The aim was to develop a critical political science in the form of a political sociology.

In the 1970s, the research interest shifted - also as a result of the DKP -near interests of Frank Deppe, for example - in the direction of class theory , worker consciousness and fascism theory . Within political science, the Marburg School was known and perceived as the "radical socialist [...] school".

In the 1960s, political science in Marburg with the social sciences department around Abendroth developed into one of the centers of the student movement. In 1968, Abendroth, together with Kurt Lenk, published an introduction to the subject created by young scientists in Marburg and widely used by political science students at the time. In the 1970s, the department moved to the center of university-political disputes as well as scientific, party and trade union policy debates. Members of the left and right political spectrum expressed some violent criticism and ascribed an orthodox-Marxist position to the Marburg political scientists around Abendroth. With reference to the department, you also spoke of a “party college” or “red cadre forge”. In addition to Abendroth, the two sociologists Heinz Maus and Werner Hofmann shaped the development of the Marburg School.

It was characteristic of the Marburg School that its best-known representatives in Marburg political science spent their entire academic career, from working as a student assistant to becoming a professor. Examples include Frank Deppe, Georg Fülberth , Reinhard Kühnl and Peter Römer . This type of internal recruitment of young people developed in the 1960s and was of considerable relevance for the further development of the institute. Deppe, Fülberth, Kühnl and Römer were appointed to corresponding university teaching positions at the institute in the 1970s. Dieter Boris received the professorship for sociology in 1972.

Representatives of the Marburg School viewed the Frankfurt School , which became important in the course of the student movement, from a distance. Nevertheless habilitated to Jürgen Habermas 1961 at Abendroth after Max Horkheimer had rejected the habilitation.

Since 1960, Abendroth has published its own publication platform, the Marburg Treatises on Political Science . This replaced the series of publications published by the Institute for Scientific Policy since 1955 . In 1977, Marburger Abhandlungen were again replaced by the publishing house for workers' movement and social science.

Individual studies on the Marburg School warn against generalizing the development of this group of scientists too much. Instead, the different phases of school development should be taken into account. In his description of the Marburg School, Lothar Peter suggests three basic phases. The first runs from 1951 to the mid-1960s and covers the period of its creation and consolidation. From 1966 to 1972 the phase of the creation of a scientific community, shaped by Abendroth, Hofmann and Maus, followed, at the end of which was the retirement of Abendroth. The third phase, from the retirement of the first generation to the early 2000s, was characterized by a continuity in relation to Marxist thought.

After the generation around Fülberth (2004) and Deppe (2006) retired, the Marxist tradition at Marburg University was pushed back. In the end, Deppe's professorship was not filled. His former assistant Hans-Jürgen Bieling was a junior professor in Marburg from 2002 to 2008. Former pupils and students of the Marburg School mainly work at various universities in German-speaking countries, work in the trade union sector and in the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung or are active in party politics.

Topics that only played a marginal role were ecology and feminism . There was close cooperation with the Institute for Marxist Studies and Research in Frankfurt am Main . Reinhard Kühnl's work on fascism became more popular and well known. Frank Deppe became influential beyond the university in the left wing of IG Metall . Fülberth was active locally for the German Communist Party and is formative with journalistic publications.

Well-known students of Abendroth

Axel Azzola , Friedrich-Martin Balzer , Joachim Bergmann , Hans Manfred Bock , Dieter Boris , Karl-Heinz Braun , Eberhard Dähne , Frank Deppe , Hans-Ulrich Deppe , Helga Deppe-Wolfinger, Hanno Drechsler , Christoph Ehmann , Hans Eichel , Georg Fülberth , Hans W. Geißendörfer , Karl Heinz Götze , Rüdiger Griepenburg , Jürgen Harrer , Wolfgang Hecker , Eike Hennig , Wulf D. Hund , Olaf Ihlau , Egbert Jahn , Christof Kievenheim , Kurt Kliem , Arno Klönne , Reinhard Kühnl , Erich Laaser , André Leisewitz , Kurt Lenk , Werner Link , Gert Meyer , Arnhelm Neusüss , Ermenhild Neusüß-Hunkel , Siegfried Pausewang , Lothar Peter , Klaus Pickshaus , Rainer Rilling , Peter Römer , Johannes Ernst Seiffert , Vera Rüdiger , Rolf Schmiederer , Ursula Schmiederer , Eberhard Schmidt , Kurt Steinhaus , Helmut Thielen , Karl Hermann Tjaden , Margarete Tjaden-Steinhauer , Rolf Vellay

literature

  • Wilhelm Bleek : History of Political Science in Germany . Munich 2001.
  • Wolfgang Hecker , Joachim Klein, Hans Karl Rupp (Hrsg.): Politics and science. 50 years of political science in Marburg , Lit Verlag, Münster 2003
  • Christoph Hüttig, Lutz Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" in the context of West German political science 1951–1975 . In: Wilhelm Bleek, Hans J. Lietzmann (ed.): Schools of German political science . Opladen 1999, pp. 293-318.
  • Lothar Peter : Marx to the university. The "Marburg School". History, problems, actors . Cologne 2014.
  • Lothar Peter: Criticism of Capitalism and Socialist Engagement. The Marburg School of Social Sciences (1951 to the beginning of the 2000s) , in: Joachim Fischer , Stephan Moebius (Ed.): Sociological schools of thought in the Federal Republic of Germany , Wiesbaden 2019, pp. 39–123.
  • Gregor Kritidis, From Cooperation to Confrontation. Wolfgang Abendroth and Peter von Oertzen . On the structure and genesis of the "Marburger" and "Hannoversche" schools. In: Thomas Kroll / Tilman Reitz (eds.), Intellectuals in the Federal Republic of Germany. Göttingen 2013. pp. 185–199.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 310.
  2. ↑ Interview with Frank Deppe
  3. ↑ Abendroth saw the long-standing awarding of the teaching post to the nationally conservative Grabowsky as a desired compensation for his political positions by the philosophical faculty. See: Wolfgang Abendroth - A life in the labor movement. Conversations. Recorded and edited. by Barbara Dietrich and Joachim Perels . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1976, p. 215.
  4. ^ Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany ; P. 341.
  5. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 297.
  6. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 298.
  7. ↑ See: Hüttig, Raphael: The “Marburger Schule (n)” ; P. 298f.
  8. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 313.
  9. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 308f.
  10. ^ Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany ; P. 341.
  11. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 293.
  12. ↑ References in Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburger Schule (n)" ; P. 293.
  13. ↑ Lothar Peter : Marx to the university. The "Marburg School". History, problems, actors . Cologne 2014, p. 13f.
  14. ^ Bleek: History of Political Science in Germany ; P. 343.
  15. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 300.
  16. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 300.
  17. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 302.
  18. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 295.
  19. ^ Lothar Peter: Marx to the university ; P. 171.
  20. ^ Hüttig, Raphael: The "Marburg School (s)" ; P. 294.
  21. ↑ Günter Platzdasch: Abendroth between Gramsci, Seminarmarxismus and Lindenstrasse - dissonances at the family meeting of the Marburg political science 2001 http://www.linksnet.de/de/artikel/25100
  22. ^ Lothar Peter: Marx to the university ; P. 19.
  23. ^ Ingar Solty : Introduction , in: Lothar Peter: Marx on Campus. A Short History of the Marburg School , Brill, Leiden 2019, pp. 1–20, here p. 17.
  24. ^ Ingar Solty: Introduction , pp. 18-19.
  25. ^ Ingar Solty: Introduction , pp. 14-15.
  26. ^ Ingar Solty: Introduction , p. 16.
  27. ^ Ingar Solty: Introduction , p. 17.