Kurt Albert Gerlach (22 August 1886,

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

– 19 October 1922,

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

) was a German professor and sociologist.

Life

Gerlach was the son of the chemist and later director of the Continental AG Albert Gerlach and his wife Martha Friedmann. He had studied at the university of

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...

under Ferdinand Tönnies and received his doctorate in 1911 with a work on the role of Denmark in global economy. He then studied at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

. In 1911 and 1912 he went to England and studied at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

(LSE) and became a member of the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fa ...

. In 1913 he

habilitated Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in Leipzig with a treaty on protective measures for female factory workers in England. The lecture was on

syndicalism Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of prod ...

. He joined the institute for world economy and sea-trade in Kiel, directed by Bernhard Harms. From 1919 on, Gerlach taught economy at the

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

Polytechnic. In 1922, Gerlach was accepted as the future director of the Frankfurt

Institute for Social Research The Institute for Social Research (german: Institut für Sozialforschung, IfS) is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory. Currently a pa ...

(Institut für Sozialforschung) in Frankfurt by the Prussian ministry of education and he taught economy and sociology at

Frankfurt University Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...

. He had already designed the agenda of the institute, but because of his untimely death from

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...

in 1922,

Carl Grünberg Carl Grünberg (10 February 1861 – 2 February 1940) was a German Marxist philosopher of law and history. Biography Born in Focșani, Romania, into a Jewish- Bessarabia German family, Grünberg studied law in Strasbourg and worked as an advo ...

became the founding director in his stead, followed by

Max Horkheimer Max Horkheimer (; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist who was famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the Frankfurt School of social research. Horkheimer addressed authoritarianism, militari ...

in 1930. Gerlach had been close to adherents of a moderate socialism from above, coupled with social reforms (Kathedersozialisten), but became a member of the

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been t ...

in November 1914 and changed to the more radical

USPD The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was establis ...

in the autumn of 1919. Later on, he sympathised with Anarcho-Syndicalism and became a Marxist. He divorced his wife Christine Gerlach so that she could marry in May 1921 her dashing lover and former pupil of Kurt Albert Gerlach,

Richard Sorge Richard Sorge (russian: Рихард Густавович Зорге, Rikhard Gustavovich Zorge; 4 October 1895 – 7 November 1944) was a German-Azerbaijani journalist and Soviet military intelligence officer who was active before and during Wo ...

. Her marriage to Sorge only lasted a few years.

Works

* Dänemarks Stellung in der Weltwirtschaft. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Handelsbezichung en zu Deutschland,Englannnd und Skandinavien. Schriften des Instituts für Seeverkehr und Weltwirtschaft an der Universität Kiel 3 (Jena 1911). * Die Bedeutung des Arbeiterinnenschutzes. Habilitationsschrift. Leipzig Theorie und Praxis des Syndikalismus (München/Leipzig 1913). * Syndikalismus in England. Der Staatsbürger, 4, 1, 1913. * Die Frau und das Genossenschaftswesen (Jena 1918). * Allgemeine Gutachten IV. In:

Ignaz Jastrow Ignaz Jastrow (13 September 1856, Nakel - 2 May 1937, Berlin) was a German economist and historian. Biography He was educated at the universities of Breslau, Berlin, and Göttingen. He became a university docent at Berlin in 1885 and was Leopo ...

(ed.), Die Reform der staatswissenschaftlichen Studien. Fünfzig Gutachten. (München/Leipzig, Verein für Sozialpolitik 1920), 75-95.

References

* Rolf Wiggershaus, ''The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance'' (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (MIT Press 1995), . *

Walter Selke Walter Selke (born 1947) is a German retired professor for Theoretical Physics at the RWTH Aachen. After having received his doctoral degree at the Leibniz University Hannover, followed by postdoctoral positions at the Saarland University, Corn ...

and Christian Heppner, ''Der Continental-Direktor und Kautschuk-Pionier Albert Gerlach'' (Wehrhahn (Hannover) 76, p.141 ff, 2022) {{DEFAULTSORT:Gerlach, Kurt Albert 1886 births 1922 deaths Alumni of the London School of Economics German Marxists German sociologists Marxist writers Leipzig University alumni German male writers