Matthew Klein
Matthäus Klein (born December 18, 1911 in Bettingen , † February 2, 1988 in East Berlin ) was a German philosopher and Vice President of Urania .
life and work
The son of a farmer attended high school in Wertheim , where he graduated from high school in 1931. He then studied Protestant theology in Greifswald , Heidelberg and Erlangen . After he began his service as a pastor, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, where he served as a sergeant. In 1941 he was taken prisoner by the Soviets and in 1943 became a co-founder and member of the National Committee for Free Germany , in which he was involved as a member of the working group for church issues and was a member of the editorial team of the station “Free Germany” . Because of his propaganda missions at the front, he was sentenced to death by the Reich Court Martial in absentia for high treason .
After the war he joined the KPD and helped set up the Berlin radio station , where he became the head of the personnel department. In 1947 he became a teacher of philosophy at the party college "Karl Marx" at the SED Central Committee and from 1950 was a lecturer in social sciences at the University of Jena . His main areas of research were the history of Marxist philosophy , personality theory , ethics and humanism . In 1977 Klein retired.
From 1951 to 1962 he was a professor at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED and its deputy head. From 1962 to 1973 he was deputy director of the Central Institute for Philosophy of the German Academy of Sciences .
From 1956 to 1960 he was also editor-in-chief of the German magazine for philosophy . He was also a member of the editorial board of the theoretical SED magazine Einheit . In 1961, Klein received his doctorate degree with a dissertation on the role of social awareness. phil. PhD. He was a co-founder of Urania and its longtime vice-president.
Klein's urn is buried at the central cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde in the cemetery for the victims and persecuted of the Nazi regime .
Honors
- Honorary doctorate from the University of Jena in 1977
- Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold (1965)
- Gold Medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit (1981)
- Karl Marx Order (1986)
Fonts (selection)
- with Günter Heyden , Alfred Kosing (ed.): Philosophy of crime. Against the ideology of German militarism ; Joint work of the Philosophy Chair at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED, VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 1959.
- with Manfred Buhr : October Revolution. Basic concerns of humanity: humanism, human rights, peace, Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1967.
- with Götz Redlow: Why a scientific worldview ?, Dietz-Verlag Berlin 1973.
- On the history of Marxist-Leninist philosophy in Germany. Part 1: From its beginnings to the Great October Socialist Revolution, 2 half-volumes Dietz-Verlag Berlin 1969; Part 2: On the history of Marxist-Leninist philosophy in the GDR, Dietz-Verlag Berlin 1979.
literature
- Peter Erler : Klein, Matthäus . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Matthäus Klein in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Klein, Matthew |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German philosopher and Vice President of Urania |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 18, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bettingen (Wertheim) |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 2nd, 1988 |
| Place of death | Berlin (East) |