Robert Liefmann

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Robert Liefmann (born February 4, 1874 in Hamburg ; died March 20, 1941 in Morlaàs ) was a German economist and professor of economics at the University of Freiburg .

Life

Robert Liefmann was born as the son of the wealthy Jewish businessman Semmy Liefmann and his wife Auguste Juliane. He studied economics and law in Freiburg, Berlin, Munich and Brussels . At the suggestion of Max Weber , he did his doctorate on business associations and cartel law and , after studying in England in 1900 , completed his habilitation with Magnus Biermer in Giessen. In 1904 he became an associate professor in Freiburg im Breisgau and was appointed full professor of economics there. In 1907 he went on an extensive study trip through the USA . The main focus of Liefmann's work was research into economic forms of organization as well as the connections between economics and psychology . In addition to corporate forms in the narrower sense, his institutional economic interests primarily concerned cartels and trusts . Even before the First World War , Liefmann was regarded not only in Germany but also abroad as a luminary in the field of cartel law. In 1913 he attracted public attention through his controversy with Wilhelm Merton about the role of the metal company and its subsidiary, the metal bank , in the international metal trade.

During the First World War Liefmann served as a balloon pilot in the Vosges for a few months before he was suspended from university service. In the early twenties he developed myasthenia , which meant that he was temporarily dependent on a wheelchair.

In 1933, his teaching position at the girls' school and its admission to the health insurance fund was withdrawn as part of the first National Socialist measures. He was also expelled from the university. Although the parents had joined the Evangelical faith and Robert, like his sisters, had been baptized Evangelicals, they were considered full Jews . Despite the circumstances, the family did not want to leave their homeland, and Robert Liefmann even set aside a large amount in his will as a foundation for the University of Freiburg, which was intended to promote the further development of his theory of business theory.

On October 22, 1940, he and his sisters Else and Martha were deported with all Jews from Baden and Palatinate to the Camp de Gurs camp in southern France at the foot of the Pyrenees . There they lived separately from one another under the most primitive conditions. With the help and mediation of the secretary of the World Council of Churches in Geneva , Adolf Freudenberg , who was married to Elsa Liefmann, a cousin of the siblings, they were granted vacation leave in February 1941. Robert Liefmann, however, was doomed to die and died a few days later in Morlaàs, 50 km away . It is also tragic that a little later he could have emigrated through the University of New York . So only the sisters could leave or flee to relatives in Switzerland .

In Germany, the family's property was confiscated, the property sold and the house at Goethestrasse 33 was expropriated by the German Reich. The building was used by the Gestapo until the end of the war . Then it was confiscated by the French occupying forces, served their military police as a base and then fell to the state of Baden-Württemberg , which set up a police station there from 1949 to 2000. Today the Liefmann House is used as a guest house by the University of Freiburg. In memory of those humiliated by the National Socialists, Marlis Meckel reconstructed their lives in 2006 and had stumbling blocks set up as memories . The first stumbling block was for Robert Liefmann in front of his former home, Goethestrasse 33. The inscription reads:

Stumbling block for Robert Liefmann
Here lived
Prof. Dr. Robert Liefmann
Born in 1874
Deported in 1940
Gurs
Death on March 20th, 1941 in Morlaàs

Fonts

  • The employers' associations (conventions, cartels). Its essence and its meaning, Freiburg 1897.
  • Investment and finance companies. A study on modern capitalism and the effects system, Jena 1913, 2nd edition.
  • The international organization of the Frankfurt metal trade, in: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 1 (1913), pp. 108–122.
  • Geld und Gold, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1916 (digitized edition at: urn : nbn: de: s2w-11859 )
  • The increase in money in the world war and the elimination of its consequences: an investigation into the problems of the transition economy ", Stuttgart and Berlin, 1918 (digitized edition under: urn : nbn: de: s2w-11845 )
  • Cartels and trusts, in: Wirtschaftskunde, Vol. 1, H. 5, Leipzig 1924.
  • Cartels, corporations and trusts, Stuttgart 1927.
  • Cartels, Concerns and Trusts, Ontario 2001 [London 1932].

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The small encyclopedia , Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich, 1950, volume 2, page 52
  2. ^ Liefmann / Merton controversy (p. 227 ff.)
personal data
SURNAME Liefmann, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economist, professor of economics and victims of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1941
Place of death Morlaàs