(the science of society) in the German-speaking world.
The “social question” was the starting point for both the materialist social theory of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) and for the first steps toward a Gesellschaftswissenschaft
Footnote 1 These developments showed that “society” could no longer be thought of as a freely chosen association of independent individuals, but had to be conceived of as a structured entity largely determined by economic dynamics and increasingly “shaped by the political borders” (Nolte 2000, p. These processes and problems were: the transition from the feudal age to bourgeois society, industrialization and the drastic intensification of the division of labor, the emergence of social classes within a capitalist economic system, and the so-called social question ( soziale Frage) which resulted from the tensions between the social classes. This conceptual shift was provoked by social processes and problems similar to those which facilitated the emergence of sociology in England (initiated by Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)) and in France (initiated by Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) and Auguste Comte (1798–1857)). Around 1850, the idea arose to characterize “society” more broadly as the “social system constituted by human coexistence” (Nolte 2000, p. Until then, society had primarily been understood within the framework of contract theory (Thomas Hobbes, John Locke), that is, as something that has to be constructed. The beginning of sociological thinking in Germany can be traced back to the middle of the nineteenth century. It was in particular their empirical and methodological knowledge that was useful for the Nazis. But even though sociology cannot be identified as a discipline in the years 1933 to 1945, there were people who worked sociologically.
The Nazis had no interest in sociology as an independent science. National Socialism brought sociology as an institutionalized and well-established discipline to an end. In the interwar period, sociology became established as an academic discipline at universities. Journals and professional organizations were founded. At the turn of the century, the now well-known “founding fathers,” such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber, published their classical works.
Similar to France, in Germany the genesis of sociology is closely linked to the emergence of bourgeois society, industrialization, and the perception of a social and cultural crisis. In this chapter, the beginnings of sociology in Germany up until 1945 are presented.
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