Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T21:28:45.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Between the Charybdis of Capitalism and the Scylla of Communism: The Emigration of German Social Scientists, 1933-1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Irving Louis Horowitz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I would like to examine two aspects of German scholarly emigration to the Western democracies, especially the United States and Great Britain. I do not necessarily seek to offer a full explanation of this complex historical and ideological issue, but rather an analysis that attempts to avoid the maze of sociological generalizing that has grown up around the politically inspired migration of scholars.

Let me state quite frankly that I am neither a devotee of the history of ideas approach nor an apologist for any particular group of exiles or their ideology. Rather, I seek to understand the common denominators, or better, the root elements that recently led René König (1984) to locate the source of the German sociological exodus in the virulent nationalism of the 1920s, and to argue that the fusion of conservative and radical elements in post-1933 rational socialism was a culmination rather than a cause of social scientific breakdown. As Otto Neurath put this plight: “We are like sailors who must rebuild their ships on the open sea without benefit of a dock, or an opportunity to select the best replacement parts” (Blum, 1985).

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1987 , pp. 113 - 138
Copyright
copyright © Social Science History Association 1987 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Conference on “Deutschsprachige sozialwissenschaftliche Emigration 1933-1945 und ihre Wirkung.” Held at the Universitat Konstanz, in Konstanz, Germany.

References

Abel, T. (1965) Systematic Sociology in Germany: A Critical Analysis of Some Attempts to Establish Sociology as an Independent Science. New York: Octagon Books (a reprint of the 1929 edition).Google Scholar
Adler, M. (1978) Wandlung der Arbeiterklasse? (orig. 1933), in Bottomore, T. (ed.) Austro-Marxism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 217–252.Google Scholar
Adorno, T. (1969) “Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America,” in Fleming, D. and Bailyn, B. (eds.) The Intellectual Migration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 338–370.Google Scholar
Arato, A. (1978) “Introduction,” in Arato, A. and Gebhard, E. (eds.) The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. New York: Urizen Books.Google Scholar
Arendt, H. (1966) The Origins of Totalitarianism (new edition). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Bahr, E. (1984) “The Failure of Critical Theory,” in Marcus, J. and Tar, Z. (eds.) Foundations of the Frankfurt School of Social Research. New Brunswick and London: Transaction: 311–321.Google Scholar
Barth, H. (1976) Truth and Ideology (orig. published as Wahrheit and Ideologie, 1945). Berkeley and London: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, O. (1978) Zwischen Zwei Weltkriegen? (orig. 1936), in Bottomore, T. (ed.) Austro-Marxism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Becker, H. and Boskoff, A. (1957) in Modern Sociological Theory. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston: 660–665.Google Scholar
Bendix, R. (1956) Work and Authority in Industry. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Bendix, R. (1985) From Berlin to Berkeley: On German-Jewish Identity. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. (1978) Reflections. Demetz, P. (ed.) New York and London: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. (1986) Moscow Diary (orig. 1927). Smith, G. (ed.) Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Berghahn, M. (1984) German-Jewish Refugees in England: The Ambiguities of Assimilation. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Blum, M. E. (1985) The Austro-Marxists: 1890-1918. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Bottomore, T. [ed.] (1978) Austro-Marxism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bottomore, T. (1984) The Frankfurt School. Chichester and New York: Ellis Horwood/Tavistock Publication.Google Scholar
Brym, R. J. (1980) Intellectuals and Politics. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Buber, M. (1973) On Zion: The History of an Idea. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Buber, M. (1979) “The Jew in the World,” in Hertzberg, A. (ed.) The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis. New York: Antheneum: 450–453.Google Scholar
Cohen, H. (1971) Reason and Hope. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Cohen, H. (1972) Religion of Reason. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Coser, L. A. (1984) “Interview with Bernard Rosenberg,” in Powell, W. W. and Robbins, R. (eds.) Conflict and Consensus. New York: The Free Press/Macmillan: 27–52.Google Scholar
Elliott, J.E. (1982) “New Introduction to J. A. Schumpeter,” in The Theory of Economic Development. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971) Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House.Google Scholar
Frei, A. G. (1984) Rotes Wien: Austromarxismus und Arbeiterkultur, Sozialdemokratische Wohnungs und Kommunalpolitik, 1919-1934. Berlin: DVK-Verlag.Google Scholar
Freyer, H. (1934) Theorie des objektiven Geistes: Eine Einleitung in die Kulturphilosophie (3rd edition). Leipzig.Google Scholar
Freyer, H. (1936) Die politische Insel: Eine Geschichte der Utopien von Platon bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W. (1953) Character and Social Structure: The Psychology of Social Institutions. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Glatzer, N. (1953) Franz Rosenzweig: Life and Thought. New York.Google Scholar
Goldschmidt, D. (1983) “Trans-Atlantic Influences: History of Mutual Interactions between American and German Education,” in Between Elite and Mass Education: Education in the Federal Republic of Germany. Albany: State University of New York Press: 1–65.Google Scholar
Horkeimer, M. (1978) “The End of Reason” (orig. 1941). Studies in Philosophy and Social Sciences Vol. IX.Google Scholar
Horowitz, I. L. (1974) “Liquidation or Liberation: The Jewish Question as Liberal Catharsis,” in Israeli Ecstasies/Jewish Agonies. New York: Oxford University Press: 192–204.Google Scholar
Horowitz, I. L. (1984) “Revolution, Retribution, and Redemption,” in Winners and Losers: Social and Political Polarities in America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press: 177–191.Google Scholar
Hughes, H. S. (1961) “Franz Neumann: Between Marxism and Liberal Democracy,” in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960.Google Scholar
Jaffa, H. V. (1965) Equality and Liberty. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jay, M. (1973) The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frank school and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Jay, M. (1980) “The Jews and the Frankfurt School,” New German Critique Winter: 137–140.Google Scholar
Jay, M. (1981) Dialektische Phantasie: Die Geschichte der Frankfurter Schule und des Instituts fur Sozialforschung, 1923-1950. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.Google Scholar
Jay, M. (1986) “The Jews and the Frankfurt School,” in Rabinbach, A. and Zipes, J. (eds.) Germans and Jews Since the Holocaust. New York and London: Holmes & Meier: 287–301.Google Scholar
Johnson, P. (1984) “Marxism vs. the Jews.” Commentary 77 (April): 28–34.Google Scholar
Kehr, E. (1977) Economic Interest, Militarism, and Foreign Policy. Berkeley and London: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kirchheimer, O. (1978) “Changes in the Structure of Political Compromise,” in Arato, A. and Gebhardt, E. (eds.) The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. New York: Urizen Books: 49–70.Google Scholar
Klausner, S. Z. (1982) The Jews and Modern Capitalism. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books: cii-cv.Google Scholar
König, R. (1984) “Über das vermeintliche Ende der deutschen Soziologie article von der Machtergreifung,” in Kölner, Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 36: 1–42.Google Scholar
Laqueur, W. (1971) Out of the Ruins of Europe. New York: The Library Press.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1961) “Notes on the History of Quantification in Sociology: Trends, Sources and Problems,” in Woolf, H. (ed.) Quantification: A History of the Meaning of Measurement in the Natural and Social Sciences. Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co.: 147–203.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1969) “An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir” in Fleming, D. and Bailyn, B. (eds.) The Intellectual Migration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 270–337.Google Scholar
Löwenthal, L. (1984a) Literature and Mass Culture (Vol. I: Communication in Sociology). New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Löwenthal, L. (1984b) Judaica, Vorträge, Briefe. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Lukacs, J. (1984) “Two-Faced Germany.” The American Spectator 17 (July).Google Scholar
Marcuse, H. (1941) Reason and Revolution; Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marcuse, H. (1957) Soviet Marxism. New York: Vintage Books/Random House.Google Scholar
Marcuse, H. (1958) Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Marcuse, H. (1978) “Some Social Implications of Modern Technology” (orig. 1941), in Arato, A. and Gebhardt, E. (eds.) The Essential Frankfort School Reader. NY: Urizen Books.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl (1980) “On the Jewish Problem” (orig. 1844), in Mendes-Flohr, P. R. and Reinharz, J. (eds.) The Jew in the Modern World.Google Scholar
Morgenthau, H. (1948) Politics Among Nations (first edition). New York: A. A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Morgenthau, H. (1951) In Defense of the National Interest. New York: A. A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Morgenthau, H. (1984) “Interview by Bernard Johnson,” and “Fragment of an Intellectual Autobiography,” in Thompson, K. and Myers, R. J. (eds.) Truth and Tragedy. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books: 1–17, 33–386.Google Scholar
Mosse, G. L. (1980) Masses and Man: Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality. New York: Howard Fertig Publishers.Google Scholar
Neuman, F. (1942) Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nisbet, R. A. (1968) Tradition and Revolt. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Nisbet, R. A. (1975) Twilight of Authority. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pachter, H. (1975) The Fall and Rise of Europe: A Political, Social, and Cultural History of the Twentieth Century. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, F. (1920) Hegel und der Staat (two volumes). München and Berlin.Google Scholar
Schmitt, C. (1976) The Concept of the Political (Der Begriff des Politischen). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. A. (1954) History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. A. (1982) The Theory of Economic Development. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Sollner, A. (1984) Emigrantenblocke-Westdeutschland im Urteil von Franz Neumann und Otto Kirchheimer (mimeographed).Google Scholar
Solzhenitsyn, A. (1975–1978) The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (three volumes). New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Sombart, W. (1937) A New Social Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sombart, W. (1982) The Jews and Modern Capitalism. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Strauss, L. (1959) What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Sombart, W. (1976) Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 67: 732–749.Google Scholar
Ulmen, G. L. (1978) The Science of Society: Toward an Understanding of the Life and Work of Karl August Wittfogel. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.Google Scholar
Von Treitschkie, H. (1980) “A Word about our Jewry” (orig. 1879), in The Jew in the Modern World.Google Scholar
Walter, E. V. (1969) Terror and Resistance: A Study of Political Violence: New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wittfogel, K. A. (1926) Das erwachende China: Ein Abriss der Geschichte des gegenwartigen Problem Chinas. Vienna: Agis Velag.Google Scholar
Wittfogel, K. A. (1957) Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar