Friedrich Lütge (21 October 1901 – 25 August 1968) was a German economist,
social historian
Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to co ...
and
economic historian
Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of ...
.
He taught at the
Leipzig Graduate School of Management (HHL) and at the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (), 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 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...
between 1940 and 1947, then moving on to the
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...
where he taught till a few months before he died. Through his research work between 1949 and 1968 he exercised a great influence on the understanding of economic history in West Germany. Together with
Wilhelm Abel and
Günther Franz
Günther Franz (13 May 1902 – 22 July 1992) was a German historian who specialized predominantly in agricultural history and the history of the German Peasants' War. Together with economists Wilhelm Abel and Friedrich Lütge, Franz helped s ...
he contributed decisively to research into
agrarian history
Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin.
The development of agriculture ...
in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. He was instrumental in ensuring that social and economic history emerged as an alternative strand to the prism of
historical materialism
Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods.
Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...
that was mainstream in many German universities during this period. From this followed an insistence in his economic research that the subject needs to be studied not simply from a theoretical quasi-mathematical standpoint, but also empirically and in the context of broader historical considerations.
[Jörg Rode: Die Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1961–1998). Stuttgart 1998, p. 28]
Life and works
Provenance and early years
Friedrich Karl Lütge was born into a
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
family
[ at the start of the twentieth century at ]Wernigerode
Wernigerode () is a town in the Harz (district), district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Until 2007, it was the capital of the Wernigerode (district), district of Wernigerode. Its population was 32,181 in 2020.
Wernigerode is located southwes ...
, a midsized town located in the Harz Mountains
The Harz (), also called the Harz Mountains, is a Mittelgebirge, highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The nam ...
between Hanover
Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...
and Halle. He was the older of twin brothers. There were also two younger siblings. His father was a captain in the German merchant navy who was much involved with Kamerun
Kamerun was an African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon. Kamerun also included northern parts of Gabon and the Congo with western parts of the Central African Republic, southwestern ...
trade, but died in 1905. As a child Friedrich Lütge suffered from a spinal disease which confined him to bed for three years. On 23 September 1918, while still at school he found himself recruited into an infantry regiment
Infantry, or infantryman are a type of soldier who specialize in ground combat, typically fighting dismounted. Historically the term was used to describe foot soldiers, i.e. those who march and fight on foot. In modern usage, the term broadl ...
as a junior officer
Junior officer, company officer or company grade officer refers to the lowest operational commissioned officer category of ranks in a military or paramilitary organization, ranking above non-commissioned officers and below senior officers.
D ...
(''Fahnenjunker''), but by this time the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
was nearly over and he was never sent into the fighting of it. However, in February 1919 he found himself taken into the ''Freikorps
(, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European paramilitary volunteer units that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenaries or private military companies, rega ...
'' ("volunteer corps") of Adolf von Oven in Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, and he was involved in the putting down of the Spartacus uprising. It was only in 1921 that he passed his Abitur (school leaving exams) which opened the way to university-level education.
In 1921 Lütge enrolled at the University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...
where he studied economics (''Volkswirtschaft'') and history on a course directed by Georg von Below
Georg may refer to:
* ''Georg'' (film), 1997
*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname)
* , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker
* Spiders Georg, an Internet meme
See also
* George (disambiguation)
George may refer to:
...
. That was followed by a term at the University of Marburg
The Philipps University of Marburg () is a public research university located in Marburg, Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Prote ...
where he was taught by Albert Brackmann and Wilhelm Busch
Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch (14 April 1832 – 9 January 1908) was a German humorist, poet, illustrator, and painter. He published wildly innovative illustrated tales that remain influential to this day.
Busch drew on the tropes of f ...
. He concluded his student studies at the University of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...
where he was supervised for his doctorate by Franz Gutmann. Importantly for Lütge 's subsequent academic career, it was Gutmann who awakened his interest in agrarian history
Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin.
The development of agriculture ...
. His doctoral dissertation concerned "The Liberation of the Peasantry in the County of Wernigerode" (''Die Bauernbefreiung in der Grafschaft Wernigerode'').[ He was obliged to work his way through his university years in order to support himself and his widowed mother.]
Unusually, on 1 December 1928 Friedrich Lütge was awarded a second doctorate. This time his dissertation concerned the history of the book trade in Jena, including the impact of the invention of printing. The work was supervised by Georg Menz. While working on this doctorate he was also employed in Jena
Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
as a private researcher by the economist-statistician Ludwig Elster
Ludwig Elster (26 March 1856 – 30 December 1935) was a Prussian economist and university lecturer. He also worked, between 1897 and 1916, as a senior officer in the :de:Preußisches Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medizinalangeleg ...
. Projects on which he worked with Elster included the fourth edition of the ''Wörterbuch der Volkswirtschaftslehre'' ("Lexicon of Applied Economics") and the '' Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik'' ("Yearbooks of National Economy and Statistics"). He also authored a celebratory booklet in respect of the fiftieth anniversary of the Gustav Fischer Verlag (publishing house): research for this commission supported and influenced the doctorate on which he was working at the same time. In 1929 he obtained a permanent position with Fischer
Fischer is a German occupational surname, meaning fisherman. The name Fischer is the fourth most common German surname. The English version is Fisher.
People with the surname A
* Abraham Fischer (1850–1913) South African public official
* ...
as a literary editor and academic researcher. At Fischer he was entrusted with producing a number of works, mostly concerned with Applied economics (Volkswirtschaft) and Economic History
Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the Applied economics ...
It was also in 1929 that Friedrich Lütge married Eva Buchfink, a daughter of General Ernst Buchfinck. The marriage produced one recorded son and two daughters.[
]
Jena in the 1930s
During the early 1930s he pursued his career with the publisher in parallel with his academic researches, publishing several essays on social policy and agricultural history. In 1934 he published a significant piece of work in which he pointed out that in central Germany as early as the early modern period
The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...
a form of landlordship and tenancy existed which was based not on service obligation, but simply the handing over of produce. That contrasted with he versions of manorialism
Manorialism, also known as seigneurialism, the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "Land tenure, tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features incl ...
that was normal in the northern and southern parts of Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
.[ He followed this up in 1937 with a broadened study of the German agrarian economy, taking his research back to the middle ages and, in particular, to the ]Carolingian era
The Carolingian Empire (800–887) was a Frankish-dominated empire in Western and Central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombard ...
. This meant that there had been fundamental regional variations in land tenure arrangements in Germany far earlier than had hitherto been believed. That same year he saw to the posthumous publication of the "Outline of the History of the German Rural Economy in the Middle Ages" (''Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft des Mittelalters in ihren Grundzügen'') by his former tutor, Georg von Below, using manuscripts that von Below had left behind when he died ten years earlier.
1933 was the year of the National Socialist take-over. It was also the year in which Lütge joined the German National People's Party
The German National People's Party (, DNVP) was a national-conservative and German monarchy, monarchist political party in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the Nazi Party, it was the major nationalist party in Weimar German ...
(''Deutschnationale Volkspartei'', DNVP), though this party had dissolved itself by the end of that year. He also had close connections with the anti-government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church (, ) was a movement within German Protestantism in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all of the Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German Evangelical Church. See dro ...
. He would later insist that his various longstanding memberships of associations connected with the army, notably ''Der Stahlhelm
''Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten'' (German: 'The Steel Helmet, League of Front-Line Soldiers'), commonly known as ''Der Stahlhelm'' ('The Steel Helmet') or ''Stahlhelm BdF'' ('D.S. BdF'), was a Revanchism, revanchist Veteran, ex-servi ...
'', afforded him a measure of independence in his interactions with the National Socialist state. When ''Der Stahlhelm'' was forcibly merged into the party's own Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary organisation, Lütge was one of many who responded by resigning from ''Der Stahlhelm''. Unlike many of the scholars who preserved their university careers through the Hitler years, Lütge never found it necessary to join The Party itself. Nevertheless, he did join the party's "People's Welfare" (''Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt'', NSV) organisation in 1934. In 1937 he joined the party's "Teachers' League" (''Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund'', NSDDB). And in 1944 he added the '' Altherrenbund'' ("Old Men's League"), a party organisation for university academics, to his portfolio of memberships.
In January 1936 he received his habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
degree from the University of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...
, which opened the way to a university teaching career in respect of Applied economics (Volkswirtschaft) and Economic history
Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the Applied economics ...
.[ Because of the amount of relevant research work that he had already undertaken he was awarded the habilitation without any requirement to write a habilitation-dissertation. The faculty deemed the two dissertations he had already completed in respect of his doctorates sufficient. Receipt of his teaching permit (''venia legendi'') was delayed till the next year due to differences with government authorities. There is speculation that he only received it at all because of his longstanding personal friendship with the nationally respected economist Jens Jessen who at this stage was still a committed party member (though he would later be executed by hanging). In 1937 Lütge began working as a teacher in his disciplines at the ]Jena University
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The university was established in 1558 and is c ...
Law and Economics faculties.[
]
Leipzig in the 1940s
In 1940 Lütge was offered and accepted a junior professorship in economics (''Volkswirtschaft''), with a particular focus on settlement and housing at the ''Handelshochschule Leipzig'' (HHL; "Commercial Academy") – as it was known at that time, in Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
.[ He had already been taking a quasi-scientific approach to the housing issues which was at the time innovative. His specialities included housing-market pricing and statistics. In 1940, the year of his appointment, he was in a position to publish a systematic introduction to settlement and housing,][ which was republished in 1949.] it can be seen as the first comprehensive academic monograph on the subject. He was conscripted into the army
An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...
in August 1941, but was released on health grounds in May 1943 after being assessed as unsuitable for service on account of a spinal condition. He returned to the Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
and was promoted to a full professorship.[ Jointly with Erich Preiser he took on responsibility for the annual production of the '' Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik'' ("Yearbooks of National Economy and Statistics").][ The compendium was banned in 1944 but returned, still produced by Lütge and Preise, in 1949.]
War ended in May 1945 and the western two thirds of what had been Germany was divided into four military occupation zones. Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
had been liberated from National Socialism in April 1945 by the US army
An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...
, but a different division of Germany had already been agreed between the leaders
Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations.
"Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the c ...
of the victorious powers whereby Leipzig should be administered as part of the Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet occupation zone in Germany ( or , ; ) was an area of Germany that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a communist area, established as a result of the Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republ ...
. The American military commanders agreed that Friedrich Lütge, as a "non-party comrade" and a member of the anti-Nazi Confessing church should be appointed post-war rector of the ''Handelshochschule Leipzig''. There were additional curatorial responsibilities. When the American troops withdrew from Leipzig in July 1945 the Soviet commanders who moved in were content to confirm his appointment.[ In 1946 the academy was merged into the ]University
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences and Lütge, now on the Leipzig university payroll, was appointed dean.
Lütge was no fan of Communism
Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
. He characterised the Communist Party and the National Socialist Party as "warring brothers from the same root" (''"feindliche Brüder des gleichen Stammes"'')[Markus Wustmann: ''Die Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät in Leipzig 1947–1951''. In: Ulrich von Hehl (editor-compiler): ''Sachsens Landesuniversität in Monarchie, Republik und Diktatur.'' Beiträge zur Geschichte der Universität Leipzig vom Kaiserreich bis zur Auflösung des Landes Sachsen 1952, Leipzig 2005, , pp. 289–306] He therefore did what he could to resist state mandated appointments of party-line goal oriented Marxist professors to his faculty. That led to accusations that he was trying to block denazification and to protect Nazis. The university nominated him to take over as dean of their new social sciences faculty but the Soviet Zone administration for popular education (''Deutsche Verwaltung für Volksbildung'') then rejected the appointment because of his political stance.[ Before his position could become any more difficult, in September 1946 Lütge accepted a chair in political economics at the ]Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...
and relocated to the US occupation zone (after May 1949 part of West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
) to take up his new position.[ The Munich job also came with directorship of the Economic History Seminar that had been created at the university by Jakob Strieder back in the 1920s.][
]
Postwar Munich
Friedrich Lütge took up his teaching chair at Munich in 1946 or 1947.[ The next year his colleague Hans Proesler, Munich's Professor of Economic History, left to take up a new position in Nuremberg and Lütge took on his former colleague's discipline, now in charge of both the Applied economics (Volkswirtschaft) Institute and that of the university Institute for Economic History.] Meanwhile, in the Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet occupation zone in Germany ( or , ; ) was an area of Germany that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a communist area, established as a result of the Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republ ...
(relaunched in October 1949 as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic / East Germany)) Lütge's 1940 book ''Kriegsprobleme der Wohnungswirtschaft'' ("War Problems of Settlement and Housing") was consigned to the official list of books to be weeded out (''Liste der auszusondernden Literatur'').
Alongside his duties at the university he also taught at the Technical University of Munich
The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences.
Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...
and at the city's then separate University for Politics Munich (''Hochschule für Politik München''). That was the context in which his 1948 book ''Einführung in die Lehre vom Gelde'' ("Introduction to the Doctrine of Money") appeared. He had already, while still at Leipzig, highlighted the unique nature of historical landlord and tenant relationships in Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
, and in 1949 he published the resulting study under the title ''Die bayerische Grundherrschaft – Untersuchungen über die Agrarverfassung Altbayerns im 16.–18. Jahrhundert'' ("Bavarian Manorialism – Investigations into the agrarian constitutional structures in old Bavaria from sixteenth to eighteenth centuries"). In addition to these agrarian historical themes, Lütge's postwar research scope covered trade and commerce, notably in protestant Nuremberg.
He also re-evaluated conventional Periodization , definitions of western historical periods through the prisms of economic and agrarian history, both in writing and in lectures, which gave rise to lively discussions between experts. In 1949 Deutscher Historikertag , German Historians' Day took place at Munich and Lütge took the opportunity to set out his thesis that the Black Death which reached Europe between 1346 and 1350, and the ensuing changes in economic and political power balances that ensued as a result of depopulation, made 1350 a much more plausible starting point for "Early modern period , Modern history" than 1500 which then (as now) was widely – often unquestioningly – identified as the starting point for the modern era in European history. The next year he set out the contention in greater detail in the newly redesigned and relaunched '' Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik'' ("Yearbooks of National Economy and Statistics"). He challenged another historians' shibboleth in 1958 when he argued that the decades directly preceding the Thirty Years' War had not been a period of slow decline, marked by a succession of poor harvests in Europe, as widely believed, but that it was only the outbreak of hostilities in 1618 that put an end to several decades of dynamic economic development.
:de:Wohnungswirtschaft, ''Wohnungswirtschaft'' ("settlement and housing") was a topic that continued to interest him during his Munich years. Lütge was a member of an "Expert Advisory Committee" to the :de:Bundesbauministerium, West German Ministry for Housing Development, and in 1949 published a new edition of his introduction to settlement and housing. Then in 1957 he authored a further contribution titled ''Die Wohnungs- und Siedlungswirtschaft in der Konjunktur'' ("Housing and urban development and the economic cycle").[Friedrich Lütge: ''Die Wohnungs- und Siedlungswirtschaft in der Konjunktur.'' R. Müller, Köln-Braunsfeld 1957.]
In 1960 he received an invitation, which in the end he turned down, to take a professorship in Economic History at the University of Cologne.[ This triggered a negotiation with Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, his own university in Munich which led to a re-assignment of teaching responsibilities that corresponded more closely with the reality of what was already happening. At the same time his "Seminar for Economic History" was extended in scope and elevated in status, becoming the university "Institute for Social and Economic History".][
In 1967 he published in a single volume a synthesis from his various regional studies concerning German :de:Agrarverfassung , agrarian societal structures from the Early Middle Ages till the '':de:Bauernbefreiung, Bauernbefreiung'' (liberation of the peasantry) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This appeared as Volume 3 of the ''Deutsche Agrargeschichte'' ("German Agrarian History") series produced by ]Günther Franz
Günther Franz (13 May 1902 – 22 July 1992) was a German historian who specialized predominantly in agricultural history and the history of the German Peasants' War. Together with economists Wilhelm Abel and Friedrich Lütge, Franz helped s ...
(which would eventually extend to 40 volumes). Back in 1952 he had already published ''Deutsche Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte'' ("German Social and Economic History") which provides a multi-faceted overview of his entire research scope, and a widely used textbook which in some ways represents his most important contribution to historiography. New reworked editions appeared in 1960 and 1966.
In 1967/68 Friedrich Lütge succeeded in obtaining funding for a second teaching chair in Economic and Social History at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich. :de:Wolfgang Zorn , Wolfgang Zorn was invited to fill it. Friedrich Lütge himself was by this point seriously ill.[ He died on 25 August 1968. He was succeeded at Munich by Knut Borchardt.][
]
Memberships and celebration
From 1955 Friedrich Lütge was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich. In addition, in 1966 he became a corresponding member of the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium. At the Munich academy he initiated the establishment of a commission for social and economic history, the committee of which he then chaired. On 18 February 1961 the ''Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte'' (GSWG; "Society for Social and Economic History") was founded. Lütge was key to its creation. Till his death he served as its first chairman. Since 2005 the GSWG has awarded a Friedrich Lütge Prize every two years "for outstanding dissertations on Social and Economic History". Lütge also headed up the Economic History committee of the Verein für Socialpolitik, German Economic Association (''Verein für Socialpolitik'') between 1958 and 1962.
Producer-editor / Publisher
In 1943 Lütge teamed up with Günther Franz
Günther Franz (13 May 1902 – 22 July 1992) was a German historian who specialized predominantly in agricultural history and the history of the German Peasants' War. Together with economists Wilhelm Abel and Friedrich Lütge, Franz helped s ...
to launch the ''Quellen und Forschungen zur Agrargeschichte'' ("Sources and Research in Agrarian History") series at :de:Gustav Fischer Verlag , Gustav Fischer Verlag. The times were not propitious, but after the war, joined by Wilhelm Abel, they made a success of the initiative.[ At the same publishing house Lütge launched another series, ''Forschungen zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte'' "Researches into Social and Economic History") in 1959.
Additionally, from the last part of 1943, together with Erich Preiser he became co-producer of the annual '' Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik'' ("Yearbooks of National Economy and Statistics"), on which he had previously worked under the direction of :de:Ludwig Elster , Ludwig Elster, securing the publication's future through a difficult period.][ After Preiser died in August 1967, Lütge became sole producer of it, but his illness forced him out in May 1968.][ He seriously considered renaming the ''Jahrbücher'' as ''Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Wirtschaftsgeschichte'' ("Yearbooks of National Economy and Economic History") in order more accurately to reflect the interdisciplinary approach taken under his stewardship, but that name change never happened.][ In 1953 he also became one of the co-producers of the '':de:Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie, Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie'' ("Journal for Agrarian History and Sociology").]
References
{{Authority control
1901 births
1968 deaths
People from Wernigerode
20th-century German economists
Economic historians
Social historians
Academic staff of the University of Jena
Academic staff of Leipzig University
Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
German National People's Party politicians
Sturmabteilung personnel
Literary editors