{{Short description|German political scientist (1922–2014)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Iring Fetscher | image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing brackets --> | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1922|03|04|df=yes}} | birth_place = {{nowrap|Marbach am Neckar, Germany}} | death_date = {{death date and age|2014|07|19|1922|03|04|df=yes}} | death_place = Dresden, Germany | political_party = {{ubl | Nazi Party ({{circa|1940}} – ?) | Social Democratic Party of Germany (1946–?)}} | spouse = Elisabeth Fetscher | partner = <!-- (unmarried long-term partner) --> | awards = | module = {{Infobox academic | child = yes | alma_mater = {{ubl | University of Paris | University of Tübingen}} | thesis_title = Hegels Lehre vom Menschen | thesis_year = 1950 | school_tradition = {{hlist | Frankfurt School | Marxist humanism}} | doctoral_advisor = Eduard Spranger | academic_advisors = Lucien Goldmann | influences = {{flatlist| * Jean Hyppolite{{sfn|Anderson|1998|p=11}} * Alexandre Kojève{{sfn|Anderson|1998|p=11}} * György Lukács{{sfn|Anderson|1998|p=2}} }} | discipline = Political science | sub_discipline = | workplaces = Goethe University Frankfurt | doctoral_students = Moishe Postone | notable_students = | main_interests = | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influenced = <!--must be referenced from a third-party source--> }} | module2 = {{Infobox military person | embed = yes | branch = Wehrmacht | branch_label = Service | service_years = 1940–1945 | service_years_label = | rank = Officer aspirant | service_number = | unit = 4th Army | commands = | battles = World War II | battles_label = | awards = }} | signature = | signature_alt = }} '''Iring Fetscher''' (1922–2014) was a German political scientist and researcher on Hegel and Marxism.<ref name="Clarissa2011">{{cite book|author=Clarissa|title=Clarissas Krambude: Autoren erzählen von ihren Pseudonymen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lTed5oRQOMMC&pg=PA89|year=2011|publisher=novum publishing gmbh|isbn=978-3-99003-914-4|page=89|language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/ein-humanist-1.18347243|title=Zum Tod des Politikwissenschafters Iring Fetscher: Humanist in der Nachkriegszeit - Feuilleton Nachrichten - NZZ.ch|accessdate=21 July 2014|language=de}}</ref>
== Biography == Fetscher was born on 4 March 1922 at Marbach am Neckar as the son of social hygienist {{ill|Rainer Fetscher|de}} and Claire ''née'' Müller, and was brought up in Dresden. He attended a ''Volksschule'' there from 1928 to 1932, took his ''Abitur'' at the {{ill|König-Georg-Gymnasium|de}}, and graduated from an interpreter school (''Dolmetscherschule'') during the World War II in 1940. He applied to join the Nazi Party in May 1940 and was admitted in September of the same year. When the archival record of his membership emerged in 2011, he denied having joined the party of his own initiative.<ref name="CJG">{{cite news |last=Göpfert |first=Claus-Jürgen |title=Braune Vergangenheit, später Schock |work=Frankfurter Rundschau |date=10 June 2011 |accessdate=12 May 2026 |url=https://www.fr.de/frankfurt/braune-vergangenheit-spaeter-schock-a-911002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140729012142/http://www.fr-online.de/frankfurt/braune-vergangenheit-spaeter-schock,1472798,8542718,view,asFitMl.html |archive-date=29 July 2014 |url-status=live |lang=de}}</ref>
Later in 1940, he enlisted as a officer candidate in a field artillery regiment of the Wehrmacht in Altenburg.<ref name="CJG" /><ref name="UF">{{cite web |title=Iring Fetscher |website=Goethe University Frankfurt |accessdate=12 May 2026 |url=https://wiki.studiumdigitale.uni-frankfurt.de/SOZFRA/index.php/Kategorie:Iring_Fetscher |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260511225550/https://wiki.studiumdigitale.uni-frankfurt.de/SOZFRA/index.php/Kategorie:Iring_Fetscher |archive-date=11 May 2026 |url-status=live |lang=de}}</ref> Except for occupation duty breaks in Belgium and the Netherlands,{{sfn|Anderson|1998|p=12}}<ref name="UF" /> he fought as an ''Unteroffizier'' in the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union for the rest of the war,<ref name="UF" /><ref name="WDR">{{cite web |last=von Saldern |first=Ingrid |title=Erlebte Geschichten mit Iring Fetscher |website=Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln |date=12 February 2006 |accessdate=12 May 2026 |url=https://www1.wdr.de/radio/wdr5/sendungen/erlebtegeschichten/iringfetscher100.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170602160018/https://www1.wdr.de/radio/wdr5/sendungen/erlebtegeschichten/iringfetscher100.html |archive-date=2 June 2017 |url-status=live |lang=de}}</ref> including with the 4th Army in the Heiligenbeil Pocket during the Red Army's East Prussian offensive until the end of March 1945.<ref name="unterg">{{cite news |last=Fetscher |first=Iring |title=Der Untergang einer Stadt |work=Frankfurter Rundschau |accessdate=11 May 2026 |url=https://www.fr.de/politik/untergang-einer-stadt-11731584.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260511215838/https://www.fr.de/politik/untergang-einer-stadt-11731584.html |archive-date=11 May 2026 |url-status=live |lang=de}}</ref> In late April 1945, he was evacuated from the Vistula Spit on the steamer ''{{ill|TS ''Ubena''|lt=Ubena|de|Ubena (Schiff)}}'' of the Hamburg–Africa Line to Copenhagen.<ref name="unterg" /> Held as a British prisoner-of-war, he attempted to enlist as a soldier in British Asia.<ref name="WDR" /> Following his release, he made his way to Braunschweig and reached Dresden in December 1945.<ref name="unterg" />
After the Second World War he initially studied medicine, then philosophy, German studies, French and history<ref name="UF" /> at the University of Tübingen, with a stay in Paris in 1948–1949, where by his own account he met Lucien Goldmann and became influenced by the French Hegel scholars Jean Hyppolite, Alexandre Kojève, Gaston Fessard and Jean Wahl.{{sfn|Anderson|1998|pp=11, 13–14}} In September 1947, he converted to Catholicism in the Beuron Archabbey. He received a doctorate from Tübingen in 1950 under the supervision of Eduard Spranger.<ref name="Clarissa2011"/>{{sfn|Anderson|1998|p=11}} He belatedly published his thesis ''{{Lang|de|Hegels Lehre vom Menschen}}'' in 1970.<ref>{{cite book|author=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|title=The Berlin Phenomenology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vy7SkjvmfLMC&pg=PR90|date=31 May 1981|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-90-277-1205-9|page=xc}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Hartmut Lehmann|author2=Otto Gerhard Oexle|title=Erinnerungstücke: Wege in die Vergangenheit: Rudolf Vierhaus zum 75. Geburtstag gewidmet|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RIxJFgduygoC&pg=PA279|date=1 January 1997|publisher=Böhlau Verlag Wien|isbn=978-3-205-98824-3|page=279}}</ref> In 1950, he joined the Evangelical Study Group's Commission on Marxism launched in Heidelberg by {{ill|Erwin Metzke|de}} on behalf of the World Council of Churches.{{sfn|Anderson|1998|pp=11–12}} He achieved habilitation in 1959 with a dissertation on the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.<ref>{{cite book|author=Michael Schlott|title=Wirkungen und Wertungen: Adolph Freiherr Knigge im Urteil der Nachwelt (1796–1994): eine Dokumentensammlung|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xnXARjxWY6AC&pg=PA233|date=1 January 1998|publisher=Wallstein Verlag|isbn=978-3-89244-287-5|page=233}}</ref>
Fetscher taught political science at Tübingen from 1960 to 1963.<ref name="UF" /> From 1963 to 1988, he was a professor of political science and social philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt. He is identified with the "second generation" of the Frankfurt School, along with Jürgen Habermas, and Alfred Schmidt.<ref>{{cite book|author=Tom Rockmore|title=In Kant's Wake: Philosophy in the Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wdFloHsp_e0C&pg=PA68|date=15 April 2008|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4051-5231-0|page=68}}</ref> Leszek Kołakowski, while taking Fetscher to be a distinguished historian of Marxism with a critical but positive attitude, did not see him as of the Frankfurt School more than notionally.<ref name="Kołakowski1978">{{cite book|author=Leszek Kołakowski|author-link=Leszek Kołakowski|title=Main Currents of Marxism. Vol. 3: The breakdown|year=1978|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-824570-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/maincurrentsofma00kola/page/394 394 and 494]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/maincurrentsofma00kola/page/394}}</ref>
In 1976, he published his own version of ''The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats'' by the Brothers Grimm, {{Lang|de|Die Geiß und die sieben Wölflein}} ('''The Goat and the Seven Young Wolves''<nowiki/>'), as part of the children's book ''Update on Rumpelstiltskin and other Fairy Tales by 43 Authors'' compiled by Hans-Joachim Gelberg, illustrated by Willi Glasauer, and published by Beltz & Gelberg.<ref>Iring Fetscher: ''Die Geiß und die sieben Wölflein.'' In: Hans-Joachim Gelberg (ed.): ''Neues vom Rumpelstilzchen und andere Haus-Märchen von 43 Autoren.'' Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1976, S. 13–16.</ref> In 1993, Fetscher was honored with induction into the French ''Ordre des Palmes académiques''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.muk.uni-frankfurt.de/51457594/228|title=Goethe-Universität trauert um Iring Fetscher|accessdate=21 July 2014|language=de|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150710202252/http://www.muk.uni-frankfurt.de/51457594/228|archive-date=10 July 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> Fetscher died on 19 July 2014.{{Cn|date=November 2023}}
==Major works== * ''Von Marx zur Sowjetideologie''. Wiesbaden 1956. (22 editions until 1987.) * ''Rousseaus politische Philosophie. Zur Geschichte des demokratischen Freiheitsbegriffs''. Neuwied, Berlin 1960. * ''Der Marxismus. Seine Geschichte in Dokumenten'', 3 vols., München 1963–1965. * ''Marx and Marxism''. New York: Herder & Herder, 1971. (Translation of ''Karl Marx und der Marxismus'', 1967.) * ''Die Geiß und die sieben Wölflein'' (''The Goat and the Seven Young Wolves'') in ''Update on Rumpelstiltskin and other Fairy Tales by 43 Authors'', compiled by Hans-Joachim Gelberg, illustrated by Willi Glasauer, published by Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1976. * ''Neugier und Furcht. Versuch, mein Leben zu verstehen.'' Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1995, {{ISBN|3-455-11079-7}}. (Autobiography)
==See also== * Goethe Plaque of the City of Frankfurt
==References== {{reflist}}
== Bibliography == * {{citation |last=Anderson |first=Kevin |author-link=Kevin B. Anderson |title=On Marx, Hegel, and Critical Theory in Postwar Germany: A Conversation with Iring Fetscher |journal=Studies in East European Thought |volume=50 |year=1998 |pp=1–18 |doi=10.1023/A:1008626805846 |issn=1573-0948 |jstor=20099661 |s2cid=141508542 |url=https://kevin-anderson.com/wp-content/uploads/anderson-article-Fetscher.pdf}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fetscher, Iring}} Category:1922 births Category:2014 deaths Category:German political scientists Category:German sociologists Category:Academic staff of Goethe University Frankfurt Category:Academic staff of the University of Tübingen Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques Category:Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg Category:German male writers Category:German expatriates in France Category:German Army soldiers of World War II Category:German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United Kingdom Category:Nazi Party members Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Lutheranism