Wilhelm Vleugels

Wilhelm Vleugels (born October 17, 1893 in Saarburg , † March 19, 1942 in Bonn ) was a German economist and sociologist. In his sociological work he devoted himself almost exclusively to the phenomenon of the crowd .

Career

Veugels in 1921 at the University of Cologne Dr. rer. pole. obtained his doctorate and habilitation there in 1923. In 1928 he became an associate professor in Cologne and in the same year a full professor at the University of Königsberg . In 1934 he switched to the chair of sociology at the University of Bonn .

Vleugels' understanding of sociology was shaped by his Cologne teacher Leopold von Wiese , he developed his mass sociology from a critical examination of the “mass theorists” Gustave Le Bon , Scipio Sighele , Gabriel Tarde , Gerhard Colm and Theodor Geiger .

After the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists, Vleugels published mainly on economic topics.

Vleugels was a supporting member of the SS . In Königsberg he came into conflict with the National Socialists, to whom he was considered politically unreliable. His institute should be used in the sense of an active Poland policy, for which his reserved manner did not seem suitable. Due to increasing difficulties, he himself saw no more possibility of staying. These processes were the reason for his transfer to Bonn on the basis of the Professional Civil Service Act (cf. Höpfner, Die Universität Bonn im Third Reich, Bonn 1999, pp. 254 ff, 256). Despite the differences, Vleugels looked for common ground and believed he could find them in the idea of ​​the national community. In December 1937 he joined the NSDAP. However, the more the demon grew, the more it distanced itself from National Socialism. For a while he hoped that the system would collapse on itself because of its contradictions. When he saw that a humanization of violence was no longer to be expected, he said - already marked by his serious illness - that there was only “hope of help from outside or from above” to save Europe from total chaos save.

After the end of the Second World War, Vleugels' book The "Corridor" was placed on the list of literature to be segregated in English and French judgments in the Soviet occupation zone .

Sociology of the crowd

Vleugels distinguishes three categories of mass: the latent, the current and the historical mass. The concept of quantity is clearly distinguished from that of mass; For Vleugels, quantity is merely a number of completely disconnected people who are not to be viewed as a social entity. He differentiates the three terms as follows:

• The latent mass is based on shared feelings and sensations of people who feel disadvantaged and see themselves connected as fellow destinies. It does not appear to the outside world and is therefore ineffective.
• The current mass is that which is expressed in actions (demonstrations, rioting, rioting). It is disorganized and short-lived.
• The historical mass is the mass organized in organizations. For Vleugels, only this is politically effective in the long term.

Fonts (selection)

• Mass and leader , without location, without year of publication ( dissertation from 1921)
• The crowd: A contribution to the doctrine of social structures , Munich: Duncker & Humblot, 1930
• Economics as political economy and formal economic theory , Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1936
• On the current situation in German economics: A collection of essays on the current situation, legacy and current tasks of German economic theory , Jena: Fischer, 1939.

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Vleugels in the catalog of the German National Library

literature

• Erwin v. Beckerath, memorial words for Wilhelm Vleugels' scientific life's work in commemoration ceremony of the law and political science faculty of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn for Wilhelm Vleugels on May 6, 1942, p. 8 ff.
• Friedrich Lütge , Wilhelm Vleugels, in Schmoller's yearbook, 67th year 1943, p. 1 ff.
• Theodor Klauser (Ed.), Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Vleugels, in chronicle of the academic years 1939/40 to 1948/49 and report on the academic year 1948/49, year 64, new series year 53, Bonn without year, p. 39 f.
• Leopold v. Wiese, Vleugels, Wilhelm, in Concise Dictionary of Social Sciences, Stuttgart Tübingen Göttingen, Volume 11 1961, p. 327 f.
• M. Ernst Kamp / Friedrich H. Stamm, Wilhelm Vleugels, in 150 Years of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn 1818 - 1968, Bonn scholars, contributions to the history of science in Bonn, Staatswissenschaften, Bonn 1969, p. 67 ff.
• Hans-Paul Höpfner, The appointment of Wilhelm Vleugels, in The University of Bonn in the Third Reich, Academic Biographies under National Socialist Rule, Bonn 1999, p. 254 ff.
• Hans Winkmann: Vleugels, Wilhelm. In: Wilhelm Bernsdorf , H. Knospe (Ed.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon. Volume 1: Articles on sociologists who died by the end of 1969. 2nd revised edition. Enke, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-432-82652-4 , p. 471 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ According to Winkmann in the International Sociological Lexicon, p. 472.
2. ^ Carsten Klingemann : Sociology in the Third Reich . Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1996, p. 140, FN. 64.
3. ↑ Quoted after 150 years of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn 1818 - 1968, Bonn scholars, contributions to the history of science in Bonn, Kamp / Stamm Staatswissenschaften, Bonn 1969, pp. 67 ff, 73 f.
4. ^ War Lectures of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn am Rhein , Issue 5, Bonn University Printing Office 1940.
5. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of literature to be sorted out
6. ↑ See Winkmann in the International Sociological Dictionary, p. 472.