Hans Freyer

Hans Freyer(31 July 1887 – 18 January 1969) was a Germansociologistandphilosopherof theconservative revolutionarymovement.^[1]

Life

Freyer began studyingtheology,national economics,historyandphilosophyat theUniversity of Greifswaldin 1907, with the aim of becoming aLutherantheologian. A year later he moved toLeipzig,where he initially took the same courses, but then gave up the theological parts. He gained his doctorate in 1911. His early works on thephilosophy of lifehad an influence on the Germanyouth movement.In 1920 he qualified as a university lecturer, and in 1922 he became a professor at the university ofKiel.

In 1925, moving on to theUniversity of Leipzig,Freyer founded the university'ssociologydepartment. He led the department until 1948. In Leipzig, he developed a branch of sociology with a strongly historical basis, theLeipzig School.Sympathizing with the Hitlerite movement, he forcedFerdinand Tönnies,an outspoken enemy of it, and then president of theDeutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie,out of office in 1933.

Also in 1933 Freyer signed theVow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State.Nevertheless, being Tönnies' successor he abstained from making theGesellschafta Nazi tool by stopping all activities from 1934 onwards. From 1938 to 1944 Freyer was the head of the German Institute for Culture inBudapest.Together withWalter Frankhe established a racist and anti-semiticvölkischhistoriography.^[2]

Freyer wasProtestantand married Käthe Lübeck; they had four children together.

After theSecond World War,Freyer's position in Leipzig, now in theSoviet occupation zone,became untenable, and in 1948 he took up a position inWiesbadenat theBrockhauspublishing company. He took up lecturing again for only another three years, from 1953 to 1955, at theUniversity of Münsterand for a short time in 1954 inAnkarawhere he helped set up an institute for sociology. He was no longer able to establish himself as a full professor at a German university, but taught as an emeritus from 1953 to 1963 at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. As early as 1951 he was at the instigation of the incumbent chairman Leopold von Wiesere-admitted to the German Society for Sociology. Freyer was a member of the scientific advisory board of the Institute for Space Research.

Freyer received a pension as a retired131er.Many of his publications date from this period. He made a big impact in the 1950s with his workThe Theory of the Present Era,in which he developed a form of conservatism adaptable to the industrial age.

Works

Freyer's philosophical work was influenced byHegel,Wilhelm Dilthey,Friedrich NietzscheandOswald Spengler.

Weimar Republic: Philosophy of Life and Conservative Revolution

In 1918 his early workAntaeus - Foundation of an Ethics of Conscious Lifecame out, followed in 1923 byPrometheus - Ideas on the Philosophy of Culture.He gradually turned to the so-called young conservatives. He developed a hierarchically structured elitist social model. Individual freedom should be put aside in favor of collective concepts such as the leadership state and the people's community. He dealt with culture criticism in his works u. a. with advancing mechanization and developed the "Theory of Secondary Systems".

In 1926, inDer Staat,Freyer described the interrelated dimensions of history, which in his view repeat in a circular fashion: faith, style and state. In some respects, his theory was based on Ferdinand Tönnies 'Community and Society,which he did not quote in his works. In contrast to Tönnies, he described the last and highest stage, the ideal hierarchically structured state, as an ideal community with a “Fuhrer” at the top. The most important quality of this state consisted in being able to combine all the forces of the community into one unit. This ideology corresponded to the movement of the Conservative Revolution and National Socialism.

InDer Staat(1926), Freyer identified three stages of history which repeated themselves in a cycle:Glaube, StilandStaat(belief, style, the state). These were partly, although not openly, based onFerdinand Tönnies'Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft(community and society), which he did not quote in his works. In contrast to Tönnies, he described the last and highest stage, the ideal hierarchically structured state, as an ideal community with a “Fuhrer" at the top. The most important quality of this state consisted in being able to combine all the forces of the community into one unit. This ideology corresponded to the movement between Conservative Revolution and National Socialism. The last stage,Staat,was the ideal state for society: "the essential quality of the state [...] was its ability to forge living humanity with all its forces into a unity.

In 1929 Freyer wroteSoziologie als Wirklichkeitswissenschaft(Sociology as a "Science of Reality" ) (usingMax Weber's term). This looked into the origins of sociology, saying that it came from thephilosophy of history;that it had emerged from people's attempts to understand the connections between the past and the present. In Freyer's view, sociology was needed as a science to understand why changes in society had happened and, based on these findings, to help transform society.

Freyer's 1931 articleDie Revolution von Rechtsstudied freedom, saying that people should be free only if they were part of a common will and that individual freedom should be limited for the sake of the community. The "revolution" is a matter for the "toughest" and "strongest" people of all political tendencies.

National Socialism: Radical Intellectual Connections

During the National Socialist era, further treatises appeared, some of which were close to the Nazi ideology and were not later published again. In the post-war period, Freyer was widely criticized in academia^{[by whom?]}alongside his pupil Arnold Gehlen as well as Ernst Jünger and Martin Heidegger as a spiritual forerunner and supporter of National Socialism.

Freyer is considered a convinced National Socialist, which is particularly evident in his workPallas Athene. Ethics of the political people(Jena, 1935). There he writes that conscience must become political and thereby anti-individualistic and anti-universalistic. Such a political conscience is prepared for and willing to use violence; political virtue is tied to the people, while their ethos lies in the destruction of the enemy. The leader who refers radically to this plan embodies the will of the people, which must be shaped through race, discipline, education, violence and coercion. Such a people, which constitutes itself in war, remains politically in war at all hours; to ascend, it must tear itself apart and sacrifice.

After the end of the Second World War, the following writings by Freyer were included in the list of literature to be discarded in the Soviet occupation zone:Revolution from the Right(Diederichs, Jena 1931),The Political Semester. A proposal for university reform(Diederichs, Jena 1933),The historical self-awareness of the 20th century(Keller, Leipzig 1937), in the GDR additionallyThe State(Rechfelden, Leipzig 1925) andPallas Athene(Diederichs, Jena 1935).

Adenauer Era: Theory of Industrial Society

In his post-war writings there is no fundamental break with earlier works. As before, he belonged to the representatives of an extremely conservative current and had some influence on thinking in the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany.

In 1955, Freyer developed his theory of industrial society with the historical-philosophical and sociological treatiseTheory of the Present Age.In it, Freyer describes all social systems before industrialization as grown "primary systems", while the industrial age is described as a "secondary system" consciously produced by humans. In particular, he is concerned with the rapid development of industrial society in the 20th century, characterized by the expansion of technology, the displacement of small companies by large ones and the concentration of human masses in metropolitan areas. According to Freyer, state and society are less and less separated; science gains central importance.

He describes the "industrial system" that emerged from the Industrial Revolution around 1800 as a fundamental epochal change in human relations. He compares this turning point in world history with man's transition to sedentariness.

Freyer draws the conclusion that earlier descriptions of industrial society are currently (1955) no longer applicable and that new key concepts must be formulated. He criticizes the historical "illusion of progress" in Marxism, which assumes that the new human being will be created automatically. On the other hand, he considers alienation to be the normal human condition in industrial society. He also opposes "modern chiliasm". He sees the kingdom of God as a future secularized “paradise of civilization”. Although he rejects all historical optimism, he approves of cultural criticismPhilosophers of history, who conjure up an ongoing "crisis myth" and want to condemn and limit technical development, do not agree. Rather, he assumes that technical progress is an important part of the industrial age. Freyer refers to the balance between "technology negation" and "technology glorification".

As a way forward in the industrial age, he emphasizes the value of conservative thinking and acting for the present (1955). Freyer sees the combination of progress and perseverance as the "secret" of history. Accordingly, the forces of mankind grow out of tradition. The representatives of the Conservative Revolution and the conservative reformers acted accordingly. However, recourse to tradition should not refer to “primitive instincts” or “primeval things”, but to the “unused” forces that can be mobilized “without falsification” from the “deep layers” of human heritage are based, which become active under the conditions of modern times and thus show their ability to change. His aim was to combine conservatism with a "modern" theory of industrial society. These views had great influence in the Adenauer era.

List of works

Antäus. Grundlegung einer Ethik des bewußten Lebens,1918
Die Bewertung der Wirtschaft im philosophischen Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts,1921
Prometheus. Ideen zur Philosophie der Kultur,1923
Theorie des objektiven Geistes. Eine Einleitung in die Kulturphilosophie ", 1923
Der Staat,1925
Soziologie als Wirklichkeitswissenschaft. Logische Grundlegung des Systems der Soziologie,1930
Einleitung in die Soziologie,1931
Die Revolution von rechts,1931
Herrschaft und Planung. Zwei Grundbegriffe der politischen Ethik,1933
Das Politische Semester,1933
Pallas Athene. Ethik des politischen Volkes,1935
Über Fichtes Machiavelli-Aufsatz,1936
Die politische Insel. Eine Geschichte der Utopien von Platon bis zur Gegenwart,1936
Vom geschichtlichen Selbstbewußtsein des 20. Jahrhunderts,1937
Gesellschaft und Geschichte,1937
Machiavelli,1938
Weltgeschichte Europas,2 Bände, 1948
Theorie des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters,1955
Schwelle der Zeiten. Beiträge zur Soziologie der Kultur,1965
Entwicklungstendenzen und Probleme der modernen Industriegesellschaft,in: Industriegesellschaft in Ost und West, Mainz
Herrschaft, Planung und Technik. Aufsätze zur Soziologie,published and introduced by Elfriede Üner, 1987

References

^Sieferle, Rolf Peter (1995).Die konservative Revolution: Fünf biographische Skizzen (Paul Lensch, Werner Sombart, Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger, Hans Freyer)(in German). Fischer Taschenbuch. p. 196.ISBN 978-3-596-12817-4.
^The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 4: 1800-1945by Stuart Macintyre, D. Daniel R. Woolf, Andrew Feldherr, 2011, p. 178.

External links

FROM HISTORICAL STRUCTURES TO TEMPORAL LAYERS: HANS FREYER AND CONCEPTUAL HISTORY

[1] Sieferle, Rolf Peter (1995).Die konservative Revolution: Fünf biographische Skizzen (Paul Lensch, Werner Sombart, Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger, Hans Freyer)(in German). Fischer Taschenbuch. p. 196.ISBN 978-3-596-12817-4.

[2] The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 4: 1800-1945by Stuart Macintyre, D. Daniel R. Woolf, Andrew Feldherr, 2011, p. 178.

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