Sigmund Neumann

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Sigmund Neumann (born May 1, 1904 in Leipzig , † October 22, 1962 in Middletown , Connecticut ) was a German political scientist and sociologist .

Life

Sigmund Neumann was born to the Jewish couple Jakob Neumann and Anne Lifschitz. He studied history, economics and social sciences at the universities in Heidelberg , Grenoble and Leipzig . With his work on "The stages of Prussian conservatism", which went back to an idea by Alfred Weber , he received his doctorate in 1927 under Hans Freyer in Leipzig . In 1930 he married Anne Kuritzkes (1904–1954); the marriage resulted in a daughter.

Afterwards Neumann went to the German University of Politics in Berlin . There he initially took over the management of the newspaper clippings archive and from the winter semester 1929/30 also teaching assignments. In 1930 he moved to the Volkshochschule Berlin and became its director. From 1931 he was editor of the series "Sociological Contemporary Issues" together with Albert Salomon and Alfred von Martin . After the handover of power to the National Socialists , he first emigrated to London , where he worked at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the London School of Economics . In 1934 he went to the USA and took on a teaching position for sociology at Wesleyan University and from 1944 the chair for social sciences. From 1943 to 1945 he was an employee of the Office of Strategic Services. He has also taught as a visiting professor at Yale , Harvard , Columbia University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor .

In 1949 he returned to Germany, albeit not permanently, and gave lasting support to the rebuilding of political science, which he, like the American occupation authorities, understood as democratic science, which in his opinion - emigrants like Eric Voegelin , who first interpreted it as “regulatory science ” , saw it differently - great importance should be attached to the field of political education. His teaching locations as visiting professor were the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the Free University of Berlin . Both universities awarded Neumann an honorary doctorate . After initially accompanying the development of West German political science for the American military government from 1949 onwards, he took on a mediating role for the American Ford Foundation in the supervision of projects, such as the construction of a building for the new German School of Politics (from which the Otto- Suhr Institute ) at the Free University of Berlin.

Neumann was considered extremely popular with colleagues and students, in contrast to other emigrants such as Ernst Fraenkel , who, as in earlier times, attached great importance to keeping a distance from the next generation of academics. Neumann was in contact with numerous scientists and politicians of his time who, like him, had fled after the National Socialist seizure of power due to their origins or political persecution and later (temporarily) returned to Germany: Hannah Arendt , Waldemar Gurian , Theodor Heuss , Karl Loewenstein , Alfred von Martin , Albert von Salomon.

Already badly marked by his cancer, he came to Germany for the last time in May 1962, where he opened the lecture series “Democracy in the changing world” at the Free University of Berlin. His promising lecture was entitled “The Democratic Decalogue. State-shaping in social change ”and became his democratic-theoretical legacy, which carried more than just the basic features of a modern theory of pluralism, which were commonly associated with other names in this early period.

Awards

  • 1949: Honorary doctorate from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich
  • 1960: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 1962: Honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin

estate

In September 2007 the German National Library acquired his estate from his daughter , who lives in the USA.

Fonts (selection)

  • The stages of Prussian conservatism. A contribution to the image of the state and society of Germany in the 19th century. 1930.
  • The German parties. Nature and change after the war. 1932.
  • Permanent revolution. The Total State in a World at War. 1942.
  • Future in Perspective. 1946.
  • Germany: Promise and Perils. 1950.
  • European political systems. 1953.
  • Modern Political Parties. Approaches to Comparative Politics. 1956.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anne Kuritzkes Neumann in the database of Find a Grave . Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  2. ↑ Michael Kunze: A forgotten teacher of democracy. Sigmund Neumann on the international civil war. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . October 24, 2012, p. N 4.
  3. ^ Hans Maier , Peter J. Opitz: Eric Voegelin - Wanderer between the continents. (PDF) Munich 2000, pp. 27–28.
  4. ^ Simone Ladwig-Winters: Ernst Fraenkel. A political life. Frankfurt am Main / New York 2009, p. 278.
  5. ↑ Sigmund Neumann: The democratic decalogue. State shaping in social change. In: Richard Löwenthal (Hrsg.): The democracy in the change of society. Berlin 1963, pp. 11-28; the American version: the other: The Democratic Decalogue. Changes in Society and Their Impact on the State. In: Henry W. Ehrmann (Ed.): Democracy in a Changing Society. New York 1964, pp. 3-23.
  6. ^ Peter Lösche: Sigmund Neumann. In: Hans-Ulrich Wehler (ed.): German historians. Volume VII, Göttingen 1980, pp. 82-100.
  7. ^ Alfons Söllner: Sigmund Neumanns "Permanent Revolution". A forgotten classic of comparative dictatorship research. In: ders. Ua (Ed.): Totalitarismus. A history of ideas from the 20th century. Berlin 1997, pp. 53-73.
  8. ^ Michael Kunze: Second Thirty Years' War - international civil war / world civil war. Sigmund Neumann's contribution to a conceptual historical controversy. In: Frank Shell et al. (Ed.): Intellectual emigration. On the topicality of a historical phenomenon. Wiesbaden 2012, pp. 127–154.
personal data
SURNAME Neumann, Sigmund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1962
Place of death Middletown , Connecticut