Sociology in the GDR

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A sociology in the GDR did not emerge until the early 1960s. Before that, sociology had been rejected as a “bourgeois alternative” to historical materialism and scientific socialism . The sociology that then emerged in the GDR was characterized by its restriction to special sociologies and empirical social research and the renunciation of comprehensive theoretical drafts. Until 1990, there was no specialist society for GDR sociologists, nor was there a sociological journal.

development

In the first post-war years, the occupying power of the Soviet occupation zone restructured the university social sciences. The academic staff was specifically recruited from emigrants, displaced persons and intellectuals with communist views. These included the sociologists Alfred Meusel , Heinz Maus (as assistant to Ernst Niekisch at Humboldt University ) and Julius Lips . Initially, however, Hans Freyer also stayed at the University of Leipzig . With the second university reform in the GDR , which was now founded , a subject of social science in the sense of historical materialism was introduced in 1950/51 . As a bourgeois science, sociology no longer had a place in the Marxist-Leninist system of science.

It was only after the ideological openings in the states of the Eastern Bloc, which were associated with the 20th party congress of the CPSU (1956), that the need emerged from Soviet social scientists to create empirically oriented social research that could be called sociology . Robert Wilhelm Schulz and Herbert Franz Wolf initiated a sociological seminar at Leipzig University as early as 1957 . In 1961, the “Sociology and Society” research community and a “Sociological Commission” of the Humboldt University were formed in Berlin . In 1964, the Merseburg meeting led by Günter Bohring was the first GDR-wide gathering of sociologists. Also in 1964, following a resolution by the SED Politburo, the Scientific Council for Sociological Research in the GDR was founded, whose management was in permanent personal union with the Chair of Sociology (also established in 1964) at the SED Institute for Social Sciences . This raised an authoritarian claim to leadership and a constant right to make decisions in all questions of sociological research and teaching.

The largest sociological institute in the GDR had been the Central Institute for Youth Research (ZIJ) in Leipzig since 1966 . Kurt Braunreuther and his colleagues from the Department of Sociology in the Institute of Economics at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR also achieved international fame with their work on industrial sociology , especially fluctuation research . Günther Rudolph , the only Tönnies researcher in the GDR, was also active in the area around Braunreuther .

From 1965 in Berlin and from 1967 in Leipzig, sociology could be taken as an additional postgraduate course in the GDR ; a major was only possible from 1971. In 1975, diploma courses were set up in Berlin, Leipzig and at the University of Halle . By 1989 around 600 graduates had graduated. The GDR Sociology organized five large congresses organized by the Scientific Council for Sociological Research . DDR representatives participated since 1966 in meetings of the International Sociological Association (ISA) in part, the formation sociologist Artur Meier was at the 10th World Congress of Sociology 1982 in Mexico in the ISA execution Committee and at the 11th World Congress 1986 in New Delhi to the ISA -Vice President elected.

It was not until 1990 that an independent Society for Sociology (GfS) was established; Hansgünter Meyer became its chairman , and in 1992 it dissolved into the German Society for Sociology (DGS). The GfS only founded its own specialist journal after reunification, the Berlin Journal for Sociology . The magazine survived the GfS and is now one of the leading sociological specialist bodies in Germany.

See also

literature

  • Kurt Braunreuther : Questions of Marxist Sociology (Part II). Economy and history in German bourgeois sociology , Berlin 1964.
  • Peter Christian Ludz (Ed.): Sociology and Marxism in the German Democratic Republic , 2 volumes, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1972.
  • Dieter Voigt and K. Heinemann: Sociology in the GDR . Sports Science 6.3 (1976): 329-332.
  • Jürgen Kuczynski : Efforts towards Sociology , Berlin 1986,
  • Frank Ettrich : Sociology in the GDR auxiliary science between ideological delegitimization and partial professionalization . Berliner Journal für Soziologie 2.3 (1992): 4.
  • Hansgünter Meyer : Sociology in the GDR: experiences with an eroded discipline . WZB-Mitteilungen 65 (1994): 27-31.
  • Hansgünter Meyer: Sociology and sociological research in the GDR . In: Bernhard Schäfers (Ed.), Sociology in Germany. Development, institutionalization and professional fields, theoretical controversies . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1995, pp. 35-49.
  • Frank Ettrich: GDR sociology: après la lutte. Sociology and Sociologists in Transition . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1997. 263–304.
  • Vera Sparschuh and Ute Koch: Socialism and Sociology. The founding generation of GDR sociology. Attempt at contouring . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1997, ISBN 3-8100-1857-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the situation of sociology in the GDR and in the process of the unification of the two German states. A declaration by the board of the Society for Sociology in the GDR from July 1990 , Zeitschrift für Soziologie , Vol. 19, Issue 6, 1990, pp. 474–478, here p. 475, online version ( Memento of the original from January 30th 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), accessed January 30, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zfs-online.org
  2. ↑ 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. 2nd Edition. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2014, p. 172.
  3. ↑ 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. 2nd Edition. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2014, p. 174.
  4. ↑ The presentation is based on Hansgünter Meyer , Sociology and Sociological Research in the GDR . In: Bernhard Schäfers (Ed.), Sociology in Germany. Development, institutionalization and professional fields, theoretical controversies . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1995, pp. 35-49.
  5. ↑ Sebastian Klauke, Günther Rudolph - Life and Work: A Sketch . In: Tönnies-Forum , Volume 26, 3/2017, pp. 66–70, here p. 68; Rudolph was born in 1967 with the dissertation The Philosophical-Sociological Basic Positions by Ferdinand Tönnies 1855-1936. A contribution to the history and criticism of bourgeois sociology .
  6. ↑ Vera Sparschuh and Ute Koch: Socialism and Sociology. The founding generation of GDR sociology. Attempt at contouring . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1997, p. 285 f.