Wolfgang Schumann (historian)

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Wolfgang Schumann (born November 27, 1925 in Magdeburg ; † March 10, 1991 ) was a German historian . During his studies he made a public profile as a representative of Marxist-Leninist historiography and worked at the Institute for Social Science at the Central Committee of the SED in Berlin, significantly on the publication and edition project Germany in the Second World War (1974–1985), a major historiographical project of the GDR - Historiography.

Life

In 1943 Schumann had to interrupt his attendance at a high school to do Reich labor service and then until 1945 as a soldier in the Second World War . After the war ended, he retrained as a bricklayer in 1945 . In 1946 he passed his journeyman's examination and joined the SED in April of the same year . From 1946 to 1947 he worked as an assistant at the University of Construction in Weimar . He then attended the preparatory college in Weimar until 1948 and passed his school leaving examination in 1948 . In 1949 he studied at the College of Construction, where he was also secretary of the SED party organization.

In 1950 Schumann began studying history, philosophy and political economy at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena . In 1952 and 1953 he also worked as an assistant at the history seminar. After taking the faculty examination in 1953, Schumann was a research assistant, lecturer and secretary of the SED party organization at the Historical Institute. In May 1957 he did his doctorate under Max Steinmetz and Irmgard Höß on "The November Revolution 1918 in Upper Silesia". From 1958 to 1961 he was responsible for teaching at the FSU Jena and in May 1961 at the Institute for Social Sciences in Berlin.

In July 1961 , Schumann completed his habilitation on "The participation of the Zeiss Group in the preparation and implementation of the Second World War" with Elisabeth Giersiepen and Dieter Fricke . In 1962 he joined the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , of which he was a member until 1990, and became a lecturer and deputy head of the chair for the history of the labor movement at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED in East Berlin. From 1963 to 1964 he was deputy director of the institute. In September 1966 he received a professorship there with a teaching position for the history of the German labor movement and in 1967 moved to the Institute for History of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin as head of department . Until 1988 he was head of the “1917 to 1945” science department. In 1966 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver and in 1985 the GDR National Prize , 2nd class [collective]. Until 1985 he was a member of the Comité International d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale . In 1988 he was retired due to illness.

plant

Schumann appeared publicly in 1952 when he criticized an article by historian Irmtraud Höß on the history of the University of Jena , which had attested Ernst Abbe's work as a social reformist , saying that this had already pointed beyond the capitalist constitution of society at that time. Schumann, on the other hand, referred to the Marxist-Leninist position on the problem of “capitalist society and private ownership of the means of production”. In line with the revolutionary theory , he denied that exploitation relationships could be broken through through social reforms. Schumann's position of dividing Abbe into the inventor to be treated positively and the social reformer to be exposed as a worker enemy was also reflected in the official GDR discourse at the national level. According to Monika Gibas , Schumann's early division of the site of remembrance Ernst Abbe congenially anticipated the discussion on the politics of remembrance about “heritage and tradition” decreed by Walter Ulbricht in 1960. Tobias Kaiser points out that Schumann is not one of Karl Griewank's students from Jena , as Kurt Pätzold suggested in 1991. Schumann 's ideological thesis, supervised by Felix-Heinrich Gentzen , had Griewank not been able to accept because of its topic.

At the beginning of 1960, the ZK -Apparat Schumann was one of the "most capable and clearest young cadres". In 1962 a collective of authors developed a history of the Carl Zeiss works under his leadership . At the Central Institute for History, Schumann was involved in the six-volume project Germany in World War II (1974–1985), which was accompanied by the edition of various volumes of documents on German occupation policy. The characteristics of the National Socialist occupation policy are explained in this project primarily with regard to monopoly capitalist interests.

Publications

  • The participation of the Zeiss Group in the preparation and implementation of the Second World War. [Sn], Jena 1961.
  • Upper Silesia, 1918/19. From the common struggle of German and Polish workers. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1961.
  • (Ed.): Carl Zeiss, Jena - then and now. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1962.
  • The Zeiss Group's war program. A contribution to the problem of state monopoly capitalism and the fascist policy of the "new order" of Europe and East Asia during the Second World War. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 11, No. 4 (1963), pp. 704–728.
  • and Gerhard Lozek : The fascist occupation policy as reflected in the historiography of the two German states. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 12, No. 2 (1964), pp. 213-230.
  • with Dietrich Eichholtz and Dorothea Fensch (Hrsg.): Anatomie des Krieges. New documents on the role of German monopoly capital in the preparation and implementation of the Second World War. VEB, German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1969.
  • with Wolfgang Ruge (Ed.): Documents on German History 1942-1945. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1971.
  • The fascist "new order" of Europe according to the plans of German monopoly capital. Programs of the metal industry, metal ore and coal mining in 1940. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 19, No. 2 (1971), pp. 224–241.
  • Post-war planning by the Reichsgruppe Industrie in autumn 1944. A documentation. In: Yearbook for Economic History. No. 3 (1972), pp. 259-296.
  • and Gerhart Hass (ed.): Anatomy of Aggression. New documents on the war aims of fascist German imperialism in World War II. German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1972.
  • The failure of a customs and currency union between fascist Germany and Denmark. In: Yearbook for History. 9, 1973, pp. 515-566.
  • (Ed.): Reach for Southeast Europe. New documents on the policy of German imperialism and militarism towards Southeast Europe in World War II. German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1973.
  • with Gerhart Hass and Karl Drechsler : Germany in World War II. Akademie-Verlag / Pahl-Rugenstein, Berlin / Cologne 1975–85, ISBN 9783760905730 .
  • Concept for the "reorganization" of the world. The war aims of fascist German imperialism in World War II. Dietz, Berlin 1977.
  • The economic survival strategy of German imperialism in the final phase of the Second World War. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 27, No. 6 (1979), pp. 499-513.
  • Political Aspects of the Post-War Planning of Fascist German Imperialism in the Final Phase of the Second World War. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 27, No. 5 (1979), pp. 395-408.
  • with Helma Kaden (ed.): The fascist occupation policy in Austria and Czechoslovakia (1938-1945). Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3760912117 .
  • with Werner Röhr (ed.): The fascist occupation policy in Poland (1939-1945). Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1989.
  • with Ludwig Nestler and Werner Röhr: Europe under the swastika. The occupation policy of German fascism (1938-1945). 8 vols., Pahl-Rugenstein / Hüthig publishing group / German publishing house of the sciences, Cologne / Berlin 1990–96, ISBN 9783760912110 .
  • with Werner Röhr (Ed.): Occupation and collaboration. (1938-1945). Contributions to the concepts and practice of collaboration in German occupation policy. Hüthig, Berlin, Heidelberg 1994, ISBN 3822624926 .

literature

  • Lothar Mertens : Lexicon of the GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monika Gibas : The Abbe image in the culture of remembrance and the maintenance of tradition at the Jena University. In: Uwe Hossfeld, Tobias Kaiser, Heinz Mestrup (Eds.): University in Socialism. Studies on the history of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (1945–1990). Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-34505-1 , pp. 1059f.
  2. ↑ Monika Gibas: The Abbe image in the culture of remembrance and the maintenance of tradition at the Jena University. Uwe Hossfeld, Tobias Kaiser, Heinz Mestrup (Eds.): University in Socialism. Studies on the history of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (1945–1990). Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-34505-1 , pp. 1060f.
  3. ↑ Monika Gibas: The Abbe image in the culture of remembrance and the maintenance of tradition at the Jena University. Uwe Hossfeld, Tobias Kaiser, Heinz Mestrup (Eds.): University in Socialism. Studies on the history of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (1945–1990). Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-34505-1 , pp. 1061f.
  4. ^ Tobias Kaiser: Karl Griewank (1900-1953). A German historian in the "age of extremes" . Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-08653-0 , p. 421.
  5. ^ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Legitimation of a new state. Party workers on the historical front. History in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961. Links, Berlin 1997, ISBN 978-3861531302 , p. 325.
personal data
SURNAME Schumann, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1991