Wilhelm Hennis
Wilhelm Hennis ( born February 18, 1923 in Hildesheim, † November 10, 2012 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German political scientist.
Life
His family emigrated to Venezuela in 1933, but returned in 1938 to return to Germany. Hennis made in 1942 in Dresden, graduated from high school. His military service, he graduated as a naval officer. After the end of World War II, he studied at the Georg- August-Universität Göttingen Law. Hennis was awarded his doctorate on 28 February 1952, the local law and political Sciences with a thesis on the sovereignty. He also belonged to this period of the founders of Gottingen SDS. The student Rudolf Smend then studied for a year in the United States and then worked as a research associate of the SPD Bundestag Adolf Arndt. In 1953, Hennis assistant to Carlo Schmid at the Institute for Political Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.
Hennis habilitated in 1960 in political science with a nearly 100 -page treatise on Aristotle's understanding of politics of "good government ". He then worked as a lecturer in Frankfurt and took in the same year a professorship at the College of Education at Hanover. In 1962, he was appointed from there as Professor of Political Science in addition to Siegfried Landshut at the University of Hamburg. From there he went in 1967 to the University of Freiburg, where he held the chair of Political Theory until his retirement in 1988.
In 1969 he became a member of the CDU. Previously, he had been for years a member of the SPD.
In 1970 he was a founding member of the Bund freedom of science.
In 1987 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and 2003 the Reuchlin Prize of the City of Pforzheim. On 14 July 2009 he received the Dr. rer. pol. Honorary at the University of Hamburg. The laudation was Christine Country Fried. In the same year he the Theodor Eschenburg price DVPW was awarded.
Hennis research concentrated on governance in the modern state. He produced important studies of Max Weber. The focus was on the decryption of Weber's social theory. His demanding and outspoken, the defense of democracy obligor, rather a normative concept of science, which he has represented in numerous publications, often ran into conflict with prevailing concentrated on empirical methodology approaches in political science.
Writings (selection )
- Policy and practical philosophy: writings on political theory, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1977 ( at the same time post-doctoral writing at the University of Frankfurt / Main, 1959/60 ) ISBN 3-12-910880-7, second edition 1981.
- Max Weber's question: studies on the biography of the work, Mohr -Verlag Tübingen, 1987, ISBN 3-16-345150-0.
- Born new studies to the biography of the work, Mohr -Verlag Tübingen 1996, ISBN 3-16-146543-1 kart, ISBN 3-16-146544- X: Max Weber's Science of Man.
- Policy as a practical science: essays on political theory and government studies, Piper Verlag, Munich 1968 ( English edition: Politics as a practical science, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, New York / USA 2009, ISBN 978-0-230-00728-4 Pp ).
- On the way to the party-state: essays from four decades, Reclam, Stuttgart 1998 ( series: Loeb Classical Library No. 9724 ) ISBN 3- 15-009724 -X.