Reconstruction and Consolidation of Sociology in West Germany from 1945 to 1967
Authors: Moebius Stephan 
Published: July 2021

This chapter will focus on the two decades after 1945, the period of the “post-war society” (1945–1967), which in the historical sciences is also characterized as a period of boom (keywords: “Wirtschaftswunder” (“economic miracle”), expansion of the welfare state, expansion of the educational sector, certainty about the future) and which comes to an end in the 1970s. Germany was undergoing a profound process of change: socio-structural changes in an advanced industrial society, structural changes in the family and a retreat into the private sphere, new opportunities in the areas of consumption and leisure due to the “Wirtschaftswunder,” urbanization and changes in communities, “Western Integration” (“Westbindung”), the ban on the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) in 1956, remilitarization, the development of the mass media and mass motorization, and the repression of the Nazi past were central social and sociological issues. At the same time, fascist tendencies were still virulent during the 1950s and 1960s. After 1945, sociology had to be rebuilt. Journals were refounded or newly founded, the German Sociological Association was restored and sociology was re-established as a teaching subject. Different “schools” and regional centers of sociology emerged. The so-called Cologne School centered around René König, the Frankfurt School around Adorno and Horkheimer, and the circle around Helmut Schelsky should be mentioned in particular; but also, Wolfgang Abendroth, Werner Hofmann, and Heinz Maus (Marburg School), Otto Stammer (Berlin), Arnold Bergstraesser (Freiburg i.Br.), and Helmuth Plessner (Göttingen). Despite their theoretical and political differences, up until the 1950s, they all had in common the decisive will for political and social enlightenment regarding the post-war situation. Furthermore, the particular importance that empirical social research and non-university research institutions had for the further development of sociology after 1945 is worth mentioning.

At the end of the 1950s, field-specific dynamics gained momentum. The different “schools” and groups tried to secure and expand their position in the sociological field and their divergent research profiles became increasingly visible. The so-called civil war in sociology drove the actors further apart. Additionally, disciplinary struggles and camp-building processes during the first 20 years of West German sociology revolved around the debate on role theory and the dispute over positivism. By the end of the 1950s, an institutional and generational change can be observed. The so-called post-war generation, which included Ralf Dahrendorf, Jürgen Habermas, Niklas Luhmann, Erwin K. Scheuch, Heinrich Popitz, Hans Paul Bahrdt, M. Rainer Lepsius, and Renate Mayntz, assumed central positions in organizations, editorial boards of journals, and universities. While the early “schools” and circles (König, Schelsky, Adorno, and Horkheimer) initially focused on the sociology of the family and empirical research, the following generation concentrated foremost on industrial sociology, but also on topics of social structure and social stratification as well as on social mobility.