Paul Hermberg (economist)

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Paul Gustav August Hermberg , since 1918 Ritter von Hermberg (born March 16, 1888 in Münsterdorf , † January 24, 1969 in Berkeley ) was a German social and economic scientist.

Life

He was the son of Pastor Franz Hermberg and his wife Elisabeth, née Götsche. After completing the humanistic grammar school in Glückstadt , Hermberg studied history and philosophy for a few semesters, initially in Munich and from 1909 in Kiel economics and statistics . There he received his doctorate on July 5, 1913. He then worked as a private lecturer and as an assistant at the World Economic Institute.

From October 1912 Hermberg had done his one-year service with the 10th Field Artillery Regiment of the Bavarian Army and was then released from the reserve . With the outbreak of the First World War he was drafted and was first used with the 3rd battery of his regiment in the border battles and the Battle of Lorraine . As a lieutenant in the reserve , he was transferred to the 9th Field Artillery Regiment at the end of the year , with whom he was engaged in position battles on the western front . From mid-October 1916 to the beginning of 1917 Hermberg was assigned to the Deputy General Staff in Berlin. In the summer of 1917 he returned to his regiment at the front and was transferred to the Reserve Field Artillery Regiment 9 in February 1918. As leader of the 3rd battery and first lieutenant in the reserve since March 13, 1918 , he succeeded in destroying a British machine gun base at the crossing of the Lys in the battle of Armentières by means of an attack of his own accord without losses . This enabled German troops to continue their attack efforts. For this achievement Hermberg was on April 11, 1918 by King Ludwig III. entrusted with the Knight's Cross of the Military Max Joseph Order . With the award, the elevation to the personal nobility was connected and he was allowed to call himself Ritter von Hermberg after his entry in the nobility register .

After the end of the war, in which he sustained three wounds, Hermberg returned to his homeland, where he was released from military service on April 12, 1919 after being demobilized .

In 1919 he joined the SPD. In 1924 he moved to the University of Leipzig , which in 1925 appointed him extraordinary professor for social and economic statistics. In 1929 the University of Jena appointed him full professor. At his own request, Paul Hermberg had himself retired after the National Socialists took office.

In 1936 Hermberg emigrated to Colombia, where he worked for the government. In 1940 he came to the USA and was employed as a state-employed economist in the development of the Marshall Plan . In 1946 he returned to Germany as an employee of the Department of Commerce and Industry of the American Military Administration. From 1956 Hermberg worked first as a lecturer , then as an honorary professor at the Free University of Berlin and spent his old age in California.

Hermberg was married to Annemarie, née Cobbin, on August 25, 1923. They had four children together.

Scientific work

Paul Hermberg received his doctorate in 1913 on fluctuations in the population development of his place of birth under Ferdinand Tönnies and became one of the first assistants at the "Royal Institute for World Economy and Sea Trade", which later became the Institute for World Economy . As Adolph Löwe's predecessor , he built up the independent institute's department for statistics, while the focus of his research shifted more and more towards the statistically secure recording of business-related information for the systematic processing of wage, price and production developments. In addition to his academic teaching activities, Hermberg headed the Leipzig Office for Public Education from 1924 as successor to Hermann Heller .

As a counterbalance to the power of business leaders , Hermberg called for strong union power . In the last years of the Weimar Republic, Hermberg worked in the left-wing socialist group that had formed around the magazine Klassenkampf , founded by Paul Levi . He developed an economic model that was more oriented towards a planned economy and dealt primarily with the distribution organization as well as with the crucial question for him whether inflation, mass unemployment and the resulting hardship could be prevented by a planned economy.

Works (selection)

  • The population of the parish of Münsterdorf. A description of their development with special consideration of the births , dissertation Kiel 1913.
  • The fight for the world market. Trade statistics material , Fischer, Jena 1920.
  • The economy and the unions. Lecture. Publishing company of the General German Trade Union Federation. Berlin 1925.
  • Economic balance sheets. Trade, payment and economic balances as a measure of economic income statement, Leipzig 1927.
  • (as ed.): Workers' education and adult education center in the industrial city. Experiences from the public education work of the city of Leipzig, Neuer Breslauer Verlag, Breslau 1932.
  • Planned economy. Publishing company of the General German Trade Union Federation. Berlin 1933.,
  • The Revival of German Economy and the American Impact. In: The American Review. 2, 1963. pp. 146-166.

literature

  • Klemens Wittebur: The German Sociology in Exile. 1933-1945. Dissertation. 1989. Lit, Münster, Hamburg 1991, p. 62.
  • Rudolf von Kramer, Otto von Waldenfels: VIRTUTI PRO PATRIA. The Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order. Acts of War and Book of Honor 1914-1918. Self-published by the Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order. Munich 1966. p. 319f.
  • Siegfried Mielke (Ed.) With the collaboration of Marion Goers, Stefan Heinz , Matthias Oden, Sebastian Bödecker: Unique - Lecturers, students and representatives of the German University of Politics (1920-1933) in the resistance against National Socialism. Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86732-032-0 , p. 55 (short biography).
  • Claus-Dieter Krohn: Hermberg, Paul. In: Harald Hagemann , Claus-Dieter Krohn (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of the German-speaking economic emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Adler – Lehmann. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11284-X , pp. 253-255.
  • Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 494

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Detlef Siegfried : The radical milieu. Kiel November Revolution, Social Science and Left-Wing Radicalism 1917–1922. Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, p. 57f.
  2. ↑ Klemens Wittebur: The German Sociology in Exile 1933-1945. A biographical cartography. 1991, p. 62.
  3. ^ Diethelm Prowe: Cosmopolitan city in crises. Berlin 1949–1958. Berlin 1973, p. 75.
  4. ^ Josef Olbrich, Horst Siebert: History of Adult Education in Germany 2001 Opladen p. 226
  5. ^ Ernst-Viktor Rengstorff: Left opposition in the Weimar SPD. The "class struggle group" 1928–1931. 2nd Edition. Hanover 1978, p. 21ff.
  6. ^ Walter Euchner , Helga Grebing and others: History of social ideas in Germany. Socialism - Catholic social teaching - Protestant social ethics. A manual. Wiesbaden 2005, p. 338ff.
personal data
SURNAME Hermberg, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hermberg, Paul Gustav August (maiden name); Hermberg, Paul Ritter von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social and economic scientist
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Munsterdorf
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1969
Place of death Berkeley