Social research center at the University of Münster

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The social research center at the University of Münster in Dortmund e. V. was founded in 1946 and in the 1950s / 1960s it was the most brainy empirical-sociological research institution in the Federal Republic of Germany, including the one with the most women scientists. It owned the largest sociological library in Germany at the time. This was brought into the newly founded sociological faculty of Bielefeld University in 1969 with the library holdings . As a successor institution, the Dortmund Social Research Center resumed its work in 1972 .

New establishment with continuity to Nazi social research

The Research Center was founded due to the initiative of sociologists and working scientist Otto Neuloh and labor psychologists Ernest Bornemann , supported by the Catholic social economist Heinrich Weber (Weber was also the first director of the Research Center), industrial entrepreneurs and local politicians from the Ruhr, with industriesoziologischem focus as the core a first university in the Ruhr area targeted at that time . After 1960, under the directorate of Helmut Schelsky , she expanded her research activities to include other fields of sociology .

The Social Research Center took over entire databases from National Socialist institutions, for example the Research Center for Volkstum in the Ruhr Area , which served as the basis for further research. Despite the processing, the data remained tied to a National Socialist understanding of science. In terms of personnel, too, there was an obvious continuity; a large number of the employees came from the field of Nazi social research .

Former Employees

Numerous well-known sociologists worked here, some as assistants - so u. a .:

literature

  • Jens Adamski: Doctors of Social Life. The Dortmund Social Research Center 1946–1969. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89861-733-8 . (Review)
  • Klaus Dammann, Dominik Ghonghadze: Social Research Center and Sociology “at” and “in” the University of Münster from 1945 to 1969 . In: Cyclos. Yearbook for Theory and History of Sociology , Vol. 4 (2018), ISBN 978-3-658-20477-8 , pp. 51-100.

Web links

  • Finding aid (PDF file; 2.7 MB) on the holdings of the “Social Research Center at the University of Münster, Headquarters in Dortmund” in the archive of the Social Research Center Dortmund (sfs) (with a brief outline of the history). The holdings are in the Dortmund University Archives.

Coordinates: 51 ° 32 ′ 56.5 ″  N , 7 ° 27 ′ 51.9 ″  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Silke van Dyk , Alexandra Schauer: "... that official sociology has failed". On sociology under National Socialism, the history of its coming to terms and the role of the DGS. Essen: German Society for Sociology , 2010, p. 129.