The Leipzig school was a branch of sociology developed by a group of academics led by philosopher and sociologist Hans Freyer at the University of Leipzig, Germany in the 1930s.
Freyer saw National Socialism as an opportunity for him; many of his followers were politically active Nazis. They included Arnold Gehlen, Gunter Ipsen, Heinz Maus, Karl Heinz Pfeffer, and Helmut Schelsky.
The National Socialist German Workers Party did not allow any competing ideologies to develop in universities; however, some of the Leipzig School group remained at the university until 1945. Their numbers declined as some emigrated (Günther) or made a career in the Third Reich (Gehlen, Ipsen, Pfeffer), and before the war ended, Freyer himself left to take up a teaching position at the University of Budapest.
Famous quotes containing the word school:
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than as a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
—Henry David David (1817–1862)