70 years of the Otto-Suhr-Institute : University of the state citizens

Over in Berlin boomed, the candy bomber, in the Opera Don Carlos was announced, and the weather is rain promised report. 15. January 1949, a Saturday, was, at the time of the Blockade. On the day before the Ernst Reuter of the municipal Assembly of the Western sectors had been elected mayor. And now he had an appointment in the Cecilie hall, in the school at the Nikolsburger Platz: the opening ceremony of the German University for politics.

The British city commander spoke, Reuter said, furthermore, Otto Suhr, head of the city Council and Director of the new University, as well as the later Federal President Theodor Heuss. Heuss was in the 1920 founded predecessor-University of policy in a managerial Position. Now, at the founding, he urged that "the breath of the world had to pass through the gates of the University."

"The breath of the world". through the University

the breath of The world quite banal wafted through the still unglazed window of the still-unheated classroom in the Ricarda-Huch-Schule (today: Sophie-Charlotte-oberschule), where the teaching began operating During the day children learned, and in the evening studied adults. The Wind in Heuss's sense, but also as a counter-wind from East-Berlin. The decision on the establishment of the DHfP was controversial. He was quite a symbol aware – in the 18. In March 1948, on the 100. The anniversary of the uprising of the Democrats of 1848.

But the SED was: "The scientific socialism, whose birth was the March revolution a hundred years ago had to be taught at the universities on an equal footing by a special social science faculty", quoted the "New Germany" from the debate. And the University – which at that time was the University of unter den Linden. The new faculty should arise. Now there were but students of this University, which responded in April 1948, to arrests, harassment, and growing ideological pressure with the call for a free University in West Berlin. This call was so loud that the Foundation of the Free University, already at the 4. December 1948 was celebrated, six weeks before the opening of the DHfP.

Why not the same in the FU?

Now the question is close, why Political science is not the same in the new FU has been integrated, why it needed to be a separate College. There were at least two reasons. One of them was lying in the tray, the other in the concept. Political science is compared with medicine, law, or philosophy is a young subject, even if it draws from ancient sources. However, the systematic analysis of a policy used in Germany on a wider scale only after the Second world war. The long-established universities fremdelten with the new and established reluctant to some chairs. The DHfP was, in this sense, the avant-garde in the ' 20s, and it was in 1949.

in Addition, the new University policy has been likened to the concept of the old: it is Not the classical academic, led from the baccalaureate through the lecture hall and exam to exam, was the mission statement, but a for all of the open education center of the state's citizens.

A citizen of the state school 1918

Friedrich Naumann had put up with his state public school, in 1918, the Foundation, of the splendid Industrial, Robert Bosch had it financed, Ernst Jäckh, and Theodor Heuss, at the time, both versatile academically educated journalists from Heilbronn – driven, according to Naumanns death, the Transformation of the 24. October 1920-opened University. Motivation is the insight that it lacked in Germany to a politically educated people, and appropriate leadership. The authoritarian state Wilhelmi of coinage had not brought forth this staff. At the latest after the November revolution the defect was obvious.

The new school – it was the seat of the former Bauakademie, opposite the castle should provide a remedy. Formal admission requirements as Abitur or aptitude test, it was not initially. Anyway, it was aimed primarily at people who were in the profession and wanted to make. The budding war photographer Robert Capa, cross hill, Postwar mayor Willy Kress man or Heinrich Blücher, and later husband of Hannah Arendt and Professor at Bard College, took advantage of this openness. In this respect, the DHfP had the character of an ambitious community College, however, in the long term. Soon tests were required, and diplomas. And so, an academic Department was established, to some extent, as the upper level. The quality of the teaching staff, a mix of theorists and practitioners from major and minor official, including the Gertrud Bäumer, Emil Dovifat, Ernst Fraenkel, Rudolf Hilferding, and Friedrich Meinecke, to had this development.

Later, however, the Germans insanity dribbled into what used to be Republican University. In 1933, the Democrats embossed carrier club was liquidated. The University fell into the clutches of Joseph Goebbels, before their remains were incorporated as Foreign faculty in the University. Some of the lecturers were already in exile or resistance. Members of the resistance there was, however, even in the same connected faculty: Harro Schulze-Boysen, and Mildred Harnack, Albrecht Haushofer.

70 years of Free University of Berlin - a chronicle in pictures more pictures show 1 out of 108Foto: Free University of Berlin/Universitätsarchiv21.02.2018 10:56WINTERSEMESTER 1948/49: students in front of the first main building of the Free University in the Boltzmann street 3.

in 1949, were...Back More then the new beginning. Suhr, who had been informed at the time of the precursor was investigated Motor of the project, (and found) support in the SPD, with the CDU and LDPD. Suhr was the first Director and remained so until 1955, until his election to the Governing mayor. He won emigrated to lecturers as Fraenkel, Jäckh, Paul Tillich and Franz Neumann for a commitment. It also provided better rooms: From the Ricarda-Huch-school, went into the house of the former Lignose-explosives works in the Albrecht-Achilles-Straße 65, then in the badensche Straße 51, where is today the home of the school of Economics and law. At the same time, Suhr drove the self-understanding of the political scientists to teaching and research, and their networking at the German Association for political science.

political science "integration of science"

Ernst Fraenkel raised the profile of the discipline as the "integration of science". Thus, the multi-perspective views of the policy – viewing from a sociological, legal, economic, historical, psychological aspects and with various methods – at the defining Element of the partition. This diversity corresponded to the pluralism of the DHfP: in addition to the social Democrats of different shading taught and learned, Liberal and Conservative.

the graduates include Harry Ristock, later a Senator (SPD), Karl-Hermann Flat, later Secretary-General (FDP), Fritz Ullrich Fack, later editor of the "FAZ". Also in the new DHfP, there was a development of the training offer to the regular study – again at the Insistence of the students, a Generation who stole the war, the youth and had no time to make just for the fun of it. So there was a tendency to a "full student", also because it has better food, got cards.

A successful Failure of the DHfP

But without a diploma or Promotion of the DHfP was missing the attractiveness. The students pay back. As failed – once again – the concept of a political scientific national University without entrance requirements, and without certificates of completion. But this time it failed to be successful, to a certain extent by rise: on the one Hand, the DHfP introduced a diploma course, on the other hand, an intensive cooperation with the FU, which ranged from the establishment of a joint research Institute for political science on the recognition of qualifications and the right to the Promotion began.

At the end of the Transfer of the school of policy, as an interfacultative Institute, with eleven teaching status in April 1959 chairs in the Free University – Germany's largest Institute in his field. It was named after the 1957 deceased first Director of the DHfP: Otto-Suhr-Institute.

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70 years of Free University of Berlin, "Thank you, FU!"

The author is a Journalist. He was from 1992 to 1996, the speaker of the FU. 2001 to 2016, he was in charge of the OSI Club, the Association of the OSI Alumni. To the 70-anniversary of the Otto-Suhr-Institute on Tuesday (15.1.) a celebration hour. The lecture of the political scientist Gerhard Göhler. From 16 to 16: 30 PM, Ihnestraße 22/lecture theatre G.