Helmut Schelsky

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Helmut Schelsky (14 October 1912 – 24 February 1984), was a German

sociologist, the most influential in post-World War II
Germany, well into the 1970s.

Biography

Schelsky was born in

University of Leipzig by Hans Freyer (the "Leipzig School"). Having earned his doctorate in 1935 (thesis [tr.]: The theory of community in the 1796 natural law by Fichte), in 1939 he qualified as a lecturer ("Habilitation") with a thesis on the political thought of Thomas Hobbes at the University of Königsberg. He was called up in 1941, so did not take up his first chair of Sociology at the (then German) Reichsuniversität Straßburg
in 1944.

After the fall of the

Hamburg University, and in 1960 he went to the University of Münster. There he headed what was then the biggest West German centre for social research, in Dortmund
.

In 1970, Schelsky accepted the position of a professor of sociology at the newly founded

Sociology of Law
.

He died in Münster in 1984.

Schelsky and German sociology

The "

Theodor Adorno, Rudolf Heberle, and Lewis A. Coser). Freyer's ambitions failed miserably, the Nazi power elite monopolizing ideology
, but helped the talented student Schelsky in his first career steps.

After the

Industrial Sociology, on the sociology of education, and on the sociology of the university system. In Dortmund, he made the Social Research Centre (″Sozialforschungsstelle″) a West German focus of empirical and theoretical studies, being especially gifted in finding and attracting first class social scientists, e.g. Dieter Claessens, Niklas Luhmann
, and many more.

It helped that Schelsky was an outspoken liberal professor, without any ambition to create adherents. He helped another 17 sociologists qualify as lecturers (outnumbering in this any other professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences) and anticipated the boom in sociological chairs at German universities. Manning them, he was professionally even more successful than the outstanding remigrants René König (Cologne) and Otto Stammer (Berlin) - the Frankfurt School starting to be of influence only after 1968.

Schelsky was able to design Bielefeld University as an innovative institution of the highest academic quality, both in research and in thought. But the fact that his own university had moved away from his ideas hit him hard. His later books, criticizing ideological sociology (very much acclaimed now by conservative analysts) and on the sociology of law (quite influential in the Schools of Law) kept up his reputation as an outstanding thinker, but fell out of grace with younger sociologists. Moreover, his fascinating analyses, being of highest practical value, went out of date for the same reason; only by 2000 did new sociologists start to read him again.

Selected bibliography

  1. Theorie der Gemeinschaft nach Fichtes "Naturrecht" von 1796, 1935
  2. Christliche Metaphysik und das Schicksal des modernen Bewusstseins, together with G. Günther, 1936
  3. Thomas Hobbes. Eine politische Lehre, 1941
  4. Das Freiheitswollen der Völker und die Idee des Planstaats, 1946
  5. Zur Stabilität von Institutionen ([tr.] On the stability of institutions, 1952)
  6. Wandlungen der deutschen Familie in der Gegenwart ( [tr.] Changes in present-day German families, 1953, 4th ed. 1960)
  7. Soziologie der Sexualität ([tr.] Sociology of sexuality, 1955, 21st ed. 1977)
  8. Die sozialen Folgen der Automatisierung ([tr.] The social outcomes of automation, 1957)
  9. Die skeptische Generation, (a sociology of youth, 1957) 1975
  10. Schule und Erziehung in der industriellen Gesellschaft ([tr.] School and education in the industrial society, 1957, 5th ed. 1965)
  11. Ortsbestimmung der deutschen Soziologie, 1959
  12. Der Mensch in der wissenschaftlichen Zivilisation, 1961
  13. Einsamkeit und Freiheit. Die deutsche Universität und ihre Reformen, (1963) 1973
  14. Die Arbeit tun die anderen. Klassenkampf und Priesterherrschaft der Intellektuellen (1975) ²1977
  15. Die Soziologen und das Recht, 1980

References

  • Wolfgang Lipp, "Schelsky, Helmut", in: Wilhelm Bernsdorf/Horst Knospe (eds.), Internationales Soziologenlexikon, vol. 2, Enke, Stuttgart ²1984, p. 747–751.
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