Wolfgang Harich
Encyclopedia
Wolfgang Harich was a philosopher
and journalist
in East Germany.
A deserter
from the German army in World War II
and a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
, Harich became a professor
of philosophy at Humboldt University in 1949. He was arrested in 1956 and sentenced to eight years in prison for the "establishment of a conspiratorial
counterrevolutionary group." He was released in 1964 and rehabilitated in 1990. In 1994 he joined the Party of Democratic Socialism.
His grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof III der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde (Cemetery No. III of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church
and New Church
) in Berlin-Kreuzberg
, south of Hallesches Tor
.
, East Prussia
, on December 9, 1923, into an upper-class literary educated family. His father was writer Walter Harich and his mother was Anne-Lise Wyneken, who was the daughter of the editor in chief of the Königsberg Allegemeine Zeitung.
Harich became known as one of the stronger voices in post war debates at a very young age in Germany. He had ruthless beliefs in uniting the war torn Germany. He studied philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin
and, upon graduation, became professor of philosophy and taught at the same university. His strong voice eventually led him to be sentenced to imprisonment for ten years for conspiring. Although he only served eight years Harich was forced to be in solitary confinement for more than seven of those eight years, which took a large toll on his mental health, giving him severe depression and dizziness. He immigrated to Austria
in 1979, moved to West Germany
in 1980, and returned to the Besseres Deutschland or "Better Germany" in 1981. Although he had a heart attack in July 1960, he fought through it and recovered to continue his life until March 15, 1995, when he died at the age of 71.
and Eduard Spranger
, graduating in 1951. He began giving lectures in 1949 on Marxist Philosophy, and in 1952 he became the University’s Professor of Philosophy. Before his final studies at Humboldt, he had entered the Kammer Der Kunst Schaffenden, Department of Creative Artists, in June 1945 as Paul Wegener’s personal assistant. This experience gave him the ability to become considered as one of Berlin’s best theater critics.
(KPD), the Communist Party of Germany, then later joined Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands
(SED), the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which later became later the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic
(GDR), in 1946.
As a twenty-year-old, Harich was drafted into the Wehrmacht
, but left and joined an anti-Nazi group in 1944. He was a Stalinist until the early 1950s; he wrote in a memoir of recalling "crying an ocean of tears over Stalin’s death." Yet, after the removal of the Stalinists, he moved on to wanting a neutralized and united, democratic socialist Germany
. His beliefs and principles were driven by self-transformation, and he was mostly interested in Marxist philosophy
. Harich was looking for a "third way" between Stalinism
and Capitalism
, he wanted a "humanistic socialism" in a reunified Germany. He established and engaged his friends, opponents, and social democrats in controversy in West Germany
to argue that the DDR should make reforms to motivate the reunion of Germany. His sweeping reform proposals represented the only Party attempt at the internal restructure of the DDR before it collapsed. He pushed for free elections, the admission of legal opposition groups, and the dissolution of the Stasi
, the secret police of General Erich Mielke
, leading others to often look at his ideas as Utopian, but was granted the title of "most brilliant head in the SED." Agreeing with Block and Lukacs, Harich criticized Stalinism and believed to renew Marxism
from a humanist
and naturalist
point of view.
Harich produced a manifesto and presented his ideas in October–November 1956 to G. M. Pushkin, the soviet ambassador and to Walter Ulbricht
, the East German Dictator, himself. This presentation and his notorious loose tongue led him to being convicted of "counterrevolutionary plotting," indicted with "formation of an enemy group" on behalf of the West German SPD, and branded a "revisionist." He was arrested on November 29, 1956 and indicted in March 1957 where he remained in jail until he was released in December 1964. Harich referred to his years in jail as his Rufmord, or reputation-murderer, and felt guiltless because all he did was "just talk." He actually thanked the Stasi for their vigilance in arresting him for without their attention, he would not have been given ten years in jail, instead he would be looking at the noose. This quote of Harich was recorded at his hearing,
He had later testified against a former friend Walter Janka, head of Aufbau Publishing Company, creating a new "text book" characterized enemy. "Janka vs. Harich: the worldly older man vs. the young genius, the practical man vs. the classically educated intellectual, the tough working-class war hero vs. the bourgeois academic utopian." Janka refused to ever meet Harich again after the trial, insisting that Harich’s false testimony landed him three years in Bautzen
, the most horrific jail for political criminals.
After being released from jail, Harich was allowed to resume his previous literary work and became an editor of Akademie Verlag
in Berlin in 1965, even though it took 33 years for the court to pronounce him "rehabilitated" in April 1990. Having spent most of his time in jail in solitary confinement, Harich emerged in 1964 as a hard-line Stalinist and enthusiastic critic of all modernist experimentation, even labeling Friedrich Nietzsche
as a "Nazi worshiper." and insisting that his legacy was nothing but "a giant trash bin." Harich focused on more environmental political problems in the 1970s. In 1975 he undertook a impractical campaign for a state communisms in the service of environmental protection, in hopes of making some change. Also, after the Wende (change) in Germany
in 1989, he came the chairman of the Alternative Enquete Komission (AEK) which conducted research on the history of the German Domestic Republic, and aligned himself with the self-proclaimed Mikhail Gorbachev
reform communists after 1990.
scholar, writing two books dealing with Paul’s epistemology and poetic vision, which are arguably his finest scholarship. In 1946, he worked for the newspaper of the soviet occupation regime, Tagliche Rundshau; and he was also a journalist for the French-licensed daily Der Kurier. He had become editor-in-chief of the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie
with Arthur Baumgarten, Ernst Bloch
, and Karl Schroter in 1953. In the same year, Harich also received the prestigious Heinrich Mann Prize
for editing and journalism, conferred by the DDR Academy of Fine Arts. In somewhat accordance with his arrest, Der Spiegel
wrote its cover story to Harich in 1956, stating that West German intellectuals regarded him highly and saying, "despite his youth, probably the only DDR intellectual capable of calling into question the current foundation of the communistic state, the doctrine of ice-hard Stalinism." They even called him "an intellectual phenomenon" and "a pure intellect on two feet." In the 1970s, Harich published Communism without Growth: Babeuf and the Club of Rome with Rowohlt Verlag, which argued that a neo-Stalinist state with dictatorial authority to enforce environmental standards could avert an ecological catastrophe.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
in East Germany.
A deserter
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
from the German army in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
, Harich became a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of philosophy at Humboldt University in 1949. He was arrested in 1956 and sentenced to eight years in prison for the "establishment of a conspiratorial
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
counterrevolutionary group." He was released in 1964 and rehabilitated in 1990. In 1994 he joined the Party of Democratic Socialism.
His grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof III der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde (Cemetery No. III of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church
Jerusalem's Church
Jerusalem's Church is one of the churches of the Evangelical Congregation in the Friedrichstadt , a member of the Protestant umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. The present church building is located in Berlin, borough Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, in...
and New Church
Deutscher Dom
Deutscher Dom is the colloquial naming for the New Church located in Berlin on the Gendarmenmarkt across from Französischer Dom . Its parish comprised the northern part of the then new quarter of Friedrichstadt, which until then belonged to the parish of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church...
) in Berlin-Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin...
, south of Hallesches Tor
Hallesches Tor (Berlin U-Bahn)
The underground station Hallesches Tor is part of the Berlin U-Bahn network at the intersection of the east-west bound U1 and the north-south bound U6 in the Kreuzberg district.-Overview:...
.
Life
Wolfgang Harich was born in KönigsbergKönigsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
, East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, on December 9, 1923, into an upper-class literary educated family. His father was writer Walter Harich and his mother was Anne-Lise Wyneken, who was the daughter of the editor in chief of the Königsberg Allegemeine Zeitung.
Harich became known as one of the stronger voices in post war debates at a very young age in Germany. He had ruthless beliefs in uniting the war torn Germany. He studied philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
and, upon graduation, became professor of philosophy and taught at the same university. His strong voice eventually led him to be sentenced to imprisonment for ten years for conspiring. Although he only served eight years Harich was forced to be in solitary confinement for more than seven of those eight years, which took a large toll on his mental health, giving him severe depression and dizziness. He immigrated to Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
in 1979, moved to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
in 1980, and returned to the Besseres Deutschland or "Better Germany" in 1981. Although he had a heart attack in July 1960, he fought through it and recovered to continue his life until March 15, 1995, when he died at the age of 71.
Education
Harich studied philosophy at Humboldt University in East Berlin with Nicolai HartmannNicolai Hartmann
-Biography:Hartmann was born of German descent in Riga, which was then the capital of the Russian province of Livonia, and which is now in Latvia. He studied Medicine at the University of Tartu , then Philosophy in St. Petersburg and at the University of Marburg in Germany, where he took his Ph.D....
and Eduard Spranger
Eduard Spranger
Eduard Spranger was a German philosopher and psychologist.A student of Wilhelm Dilthey, Spranger was born in Berlin and died in Tübingen....
, graduating in 1951. He began giving lectures in 1949 on Marxist Philosophy, and in 1952 he became the University’s Professor of Philosophy. Before his final studies at Humboldt, he had entered the Kammer Der Kunst Schaffenden, Department of Creative Artists, in June 1945 as Paul Wegener’s personal assistant. This experience gave him the ability to become considered as one of Berlin’s best theater critics.
Political views
Harich was a Marxist, Stalinist, a convinced communist, and an environmentalist. He joined Kommunistische Partei DeutschlandsCommunist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD), the Communist Party of Germany, then later joined Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(SED), the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which later became later the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
(GDR), in 1946.
As a twenty-year-old, Harich was drafted into the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
, but left and joined an anti-Nazi group in 1944. He was a Stalinist until the early 1950s; he wrote in a memoir of recalling "crying an ocean of tears over Stalin’s death." Yet, after the removal of the Stalinists, he moved on to wanting a neutralized and united, democratic socialist Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. His beliefs and principles were driven by self-transformation, and he was mostly interested in Marxist philosophy
Marxist philosophy
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms that cover work in philosophy that is strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory or that is written by Marxists...
. Harich was looking for a "third way" between Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
and Capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, he wanted a "humanistic socialism" in a reunified Germany. He established and engaged his friends, opponents, and social democrats in controversy in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
to argue that the DDR should make reforms to motivate the reunion of Germany. His sweeping reform proposals represented the only Party attempt at the internal restructure of the DDR before it collapsed. He pushed for free elections, the admission of legal opposition groups, and the dissolution of the Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, the secret police of General Erich Mielke
Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist politician and Minister of State Security—and as such head of the Stasi —of the German Democratic Republic between 1957 and 1989. Mielke spent more than a decade as an operative of the NKVD during the rule of Joseph Stalin...
, leading others to often look at his ideas as Utopian, but was granted the title of "most brilliant head in the SED." Agreeing with Block and Lukacs, Harich criticized Stalinism and believed to renew Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
from a humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
and naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
point of view.
Harich produced a manifesto and presented his ideas in October–November 1956 to G. M. Pushkin, the soviet ambassador and to Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
, the East German Dictator, himself. This presentation and his notorious loose tongue led him to being convicted of "counterrevolutionary plotting," indicted with "formation of an enemy group" on behalf of the West German SPD, and branded a "revisionist." He was arrested on November 29, 1956 and indicted in March 1957 where he remained in jail until he was released in December 1964. Harich referred to his years in jail as his Rufmord, or reputation-murderer, and felt guiltless because all he did was "just talk." He actually thanked the Stasi for their vigilance in arresting him for without their attention, he would not have been given ten years in jail, instead he would be looking at the noose. This quote of Harich was recorded at his hearing,
He had later testified against a former friend Walter Janka, head of Aufbau Publishing Company, creating a new "text book" characterized enemy. "Janka vs. Harich: the worldly older man vs. the young genius, the practical man vs. the classically educated intellectual, the tough working-class war hero vs. the bourgeois academic utopian." Janka refused to ever meet Harich again after the trial, insisting that Harich’s false testimony landed him three years in Bautzen
Bautzen
Bautzen is a hill-top town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and administrative centre of the eponymous district. It is located on the Spree River. As of 2008, its population is 41,161...
, the most horrific jail for political criminals.
After being released from jail, Harich was allowed to resume his previous literary work and became an editor of Akademie Verlag
Akademie Verlag
Akademie Verlag is a German scientific and academic publishing company, originally founded in 1946 in the Soviet-occupied Eastern part of divided Berlin to facilitate the publication of works by and for the German Academy of Sciences Berlin....
in Berlin in 1965, even though it took 33 years for the court to pronounce him "rehabilitated" in April 1990. Having spent most of his time in jail in solitary confinement, Harich emerged in 1964 as a hard-line Stalinist and enthusiastic critic of all modernist experimentation, even labeling Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
as a "Nazi worshiper." and insisting that his legacy was nothing but "a giant trash bin." Harich focused on more environmental political problems in the 1970s. In 1975 he undertook a impractical campaign for a state communisms in the service of environmental protection, in hopes of making some change. Also, after the Wende (change) in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1989, he came the chairman of the Alternative Enquete Komission (AEK) which conducted research on the history of the German Domestic Republic, and aligned himself with the self-proclaimed Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
reform communists after 1990.
Literary work
Harich became accomplished and created a name for himself at a very young age. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Jean PaulJean Paul
Jean Paul , born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, was a German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories.-Life and work:...
scholar, writing two books dealing with Paul’s epistemology and poetic vision, which are arguably his finest scholarship. In 1946, he worked for the newspaper of the soviet occupation regime, Tagliche Rundshau; and he was also a journalist for the French-licensed daily Der Kurier. He had become editor-in-chief of the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie
The Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie is a philosophy journal that publishes in German....
with Arthur Baumgarten, Ernst Bloch
Ernst Bloch
Ernst Bloch was a German Marxist philosopher.Bloch was influenced by both Hegel and Marx and, as he always confessed, by novelist Karl May. He was also interested in music and art . He established friendships with Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Theodor W. Adorno...
, and Karl Schroter in 1953. In the same year, Harich also received the prestigious Heinrich Mann Prize
Heinrich Mann Prize
The Heinrich Mann Prize is a literary award given annually by the Berlin Academy of Art . The prize given for works with socially critical aspects in a character that would honor Heinrich Mann...
for editing and journalism, conferred by the DDR Academy of Fine Arts. In somewhat accordance with his arrest, Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
wrote its cover story to Harich in 1956, stating that West German intellectuals regarded him highly and saying, "despite his youth, probably the only DDR intellectual capable of calling into question the current foundation of the communistic state, the doctrine of ice-hard Stalinism." They even called him "an intellectual phenomenon" and "a pure intellect on two feet." In the 1970s, Harich published Communism without Growth: Babeuf and the Club of Rome with Rowohlt Verlag, which argued that a neo-Stalinist state with dictatorial authority to enforce environmental standards could avert an ecological catastrophe.
Publications
- Rudolf Haym und sein Herderbuch. Beiträge zur kritischen Aneignung des literaturwissenschaftlichen Erbes. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1955
- Jean Pauls Kritik des philosophischen Egoismus. Belegt durch Texte und Briefstellen Jean Pauls im Anhang. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1968
- Zur Kritik der revolutionären Ungeduld. Eine Abrechnung mit dem alten und dem neuen Anarchismus. Basel: Edition Etcetera, 1971
- Jean Pauls Revolutionsdichtung. Versuch einer neuen Deutung seiner heroischen Romane. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1974
- Kommunismus ohne Wachstum? Babeuf und der »Club of Rome«. Sechs Interviews mit Freimut Duve und Briefe an ihn. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1975
- Keine Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit. Zur nationalkommunistischen Opposition 1956 in der DDR. Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1993
- Nietzsche und seine Brüder. Schwedt: Kiro, 1994
- Ahnenpass. Versuch einer Autobiographie. Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 1999
- Nicolai Hartmann. Leben, Werk, Wirkung. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2000
- Nicolai Hartmann — Größe und Grenzen. Versuch einer marxistischen Selbstverständigung. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2004