Peter Brückner

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Peter Brückner (born May 13, 1922 in Dresden , † April 10, 1982 in Nice ) was a German critical social psychologist and university professor . Because of his political commitment, he became a symbol of the New Left in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1970s .

Life

Peter Brückner's mother was an English Jew and concert singer. Under pressure from the National Socialist regime, she and her two older sons from their first marriage emigrated to England. Peter Brückner found out late that he was a "half-Jew" according to the Nuremberg race laws . However, he managed to keep this fact secret. When his graduate class was urged to join the NSDAP , he - who at that time had already joined the communist underground - was even accepted as a party member.

Peter Brückner lived in the boarding school of the Zwickau State High School until he graduated from high school in 1941 . In the last years of school he made contacts with opponents of Hitler and became politicized. After finishing school, he was drafted into a state rifle battalion stationed in Vienna. From there he supported prisoners of war and deserters together with Austrian communists until the end of the Second World War.

He studied psychology a . a. with the Gestalt and individual psychologist Wolfgang Metzger and received his doctorate in 1957 on the Rorschach process . At first he worked in the socio-educational field.

With his second wife Erika Brückner (1927–2002) he founded the first educational counseling center in the Federal Republic. They had four children. Later, from 1965 to 1974, with Hermann Lehmann and Edith Lehmann, they ran the Working Group for Social and Economic Research (ASW), an institute for market research in Heidelberg with a focus on qualitative product and image analyzes. In Heidelberg, Peter Brückner came into contact with Alexander Mitscherlich . He then trained as a psychoanalyst. Finally he got in touch with the Berlin and Frankfurt SDS .

In 1967 he got a chair for psychology in Hanover. Through his commitment to the interests of the student movement, he became - alongside Klaus Holzkamp in West Berlin - the most popular, radical left-wing psychology professor. In 1968 Brückner became a co-founder of the Club Voltaire in Hanover.

After he had advocated the preservation of the socialist patient collective founded by Wolfgang Huber as an appraiser , he was accused of supporting the RAF in 1972 , and he was suspended from duty for two semesters. Nevertheless, he continued to give lectures for his students in cafes and other non-university venues; he published u. a. Original articles in the political-satirical magazine Der Metzger . In 1977 he became part of the so-called “ Mescalero Affair ”: Because of the co-editing and documentation of the “Buback Obituary”, which he wanted to see read in the interests of a developed freedom of the press, he was suspended again. A series of legal proceedings followed. In 1978 Michel Foucault traveled to Hanover to demonstrate against professional bans and for his rehabilitation. In 1981 all disciplinary measures were lifted.

His third marriage was to Barbara Sichtermann , and they had a son, the filmmaker Simon Brückner (* 1978). In 1982 Peter Brückner died of heart failure in Nice.

The documentary Aus dem Abseits , in which Simon Brückner traces the biography of his father, was released in December 2015 .

Work

In his work Brückner dealt with existential ontology , the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, the political situation in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s and the relationship between the individual, the state and history. In his book Ulrike Marie Meinhof and the German Conditions , he tried to explain the phenomenon of the left urban guerrilla from the historical situation in the Federal Republic and thus rejected individual and criminal psychological approaches. For this publication he was attacked by both the conservatives and the RAF, which tried to prevent the book from appearing.

Fonts

  • Conflict and fate of conflict. An introduction to the history analysis of Rorschach protocols. Huber, Bern / Stuttgart 1963, DNB 450647250 .
  • Freedom, equality, security. From the contradictions of prosperity. 1966.
  • with Johannes Agnoli : The Transformation of Democracy . Voltaire-Verlag, Berlin 1967.
  • Student love. Facts and analysis. Konkret Buchverlag, Hamburg 1974.
  • with B. Sichtermann: violence and solidarity. 1974.
  • Sigmund Freud's private reading. 1975.
  • Ulrike Marie Meinhof and the German situation. 1976.
  • The Mescalero Affair: A Lesson in Enlightenment and Political Culture. Internationalismus Buchladen und Verlagsgesellschaft, Hanover 1977, reprinted several times, most recently Anares, Gießen 2002.
  • Try to explain the Federal Republic to us and others. Wagenbach, Berlin 1978.
  • About violence: six essays on the role of violence in the emergence and destruction of social systems. 1979, ISBN 978-3-8031-3502-5 .
  • The offside as a safe place. 1980.
  • Violence and solidarity. On the murder of Ulrich Schmücker by comrades. Documents and analyzes. 1982, ISBN 978-3-8031-1059-6 .
  • Destruction of obedience. Essays on political psychology. 1983, ISBN 3-8031-3516-8 .
  • From irreconcilable peace. 1984, ISBN 978-3-8031-3522-3 .
  • with Alfred Krovoza: enemies of the state. Internal declaration of enemy in the FRG. Foreword by Michel Foucault . Red Book 1972; Wagenbach , Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-8031-1040-8 .
  • Psychology and history. Lectures at Club Voltaire 1980/81. 1989, ISBN 978-3-8031-2407-4 .
  • Social psychology of capitalism 1974. Psychosozial-Verlag, Gießen / Argument, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-89806-260-0 (Psychosocial) / ISBN 3-88619-328-4 (Argument).
  • Disobedience as a virtue. Moral courage, prejudice, followers. Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-2585-9 .

literature

Movie

  • From the sidelines . Documentary, Germany, 2015, 112 min., Script: Simon Brückner, Sebastian Winkels, director: Simon Brückner, production: credo: film, release date: December 3, 2015, first broadcast: August 29, 2016 on 3sat .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Mayer : Contemporaries. Memory and interpretation. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-518-40963-8 , p. 71; see also Hans Mayer: Self-Liberation in the Normalized World. In: Die Zeit , No. 48, November 23, 1984.
  2. ^ A b Karl Ulrich Mayer : In memoriam Erika Brückner (09.09.1927 - 07.07.2002). ( Memento from January 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). In: Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology (KZfSS), 2002 (54), 615–617.
  3. ^ Klaus Mlynek : Student Protests. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , pp. 611f.
  4. ^ Stephan Lohr: Brückner in the right: acquittal, second class? In: Die Zeit , October 17, 1975.
  5. ↑ Barbara Sichtermann : I remember ... The spoon under the stairs. ( Memento from October 10, 2017 in the web archive archive.today ). In: Die Zeit , April 1, 1999.
  6. ^ Rudolf Worschech: Critique of Aus dem Abseits. In: epd Film , November 26, 2015.
  7. ↑ Christoph Jünke : My father, the icon. In the cinema: The documentary »Aus dem Abseits« portrays the left-wing thinker Peter Brückner. ( Memento from December 6, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ). In: Neues Deutschland , December 4, 2015.
  8. ↑ The book The Transformation of Democracy each contains a large essay by the two authors, Brückner's contribution is entitled "The Transformation of Democratic Consciousness".
personal data
SURNAME Brückner, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social psychologist, university professor and author
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1982
Place of death Nice