25 Facts About Gerhard Weisser

Gerhard Weisser was a social scientist, university teacher, Social Democrat and expert policy advisor.

Gerhard Weisser was one of the founding fathers of the Godesberg Program which in 1959 relaunched the political centre-left in West Germany.

Gerhard Weisser was born shortly before the end of the nineteenth century in Lissa, a mid-sized town in the Prussian Province of Posen.

Gerhard Weisser's father, Rudolf Weisser, was a district court official.

Gerhard Weisser attended the "Humanist Gymnasium" in Magdeburg, passing his School final exams in 1917.

Gerhard Weisser was released back into civilian life on 4 January 1919.

Gerhard Weisser now moved into Gottingen where he studied social and economic sciences.

Gerhard Weisser worked intensively on philosophical aspects, initially coming under the influence of the Neo-Kantians surrounding the charismatic Leonard Nelson, with whom by the end of his time at Gottingen, Weisser would break decisively, reflecting both philosophical and personal differences between the two of them.

Gerhard Weisser received high marks from his doctorate in 1923 for work on the theme of "Economic Policy as Science".

In 1923 Weisser took a post as a research assistant with the city council in Magdeburg.

Gerhard Weisser was quickly promoted, becoming a deputy head of the city housing department.

Gerhard Weisser was promoted again in 1927 when he became the Financial Director for the Municipal Executive.

Gerhard Weisser had known his wife Gerda, who was the daughter of a highly decorated military officer, since their time together in the Wandervogel youth organisation.

Gerhard Weisser was relieved of his office under the provisions of Paragraph 4 in the new Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service during 1933, after the Nazis took power and converted the German state into a one-party dictatorship.

Gerhard Weisser's qualification was not accompanied by a teaching permit.

War ended in May 1945 and Gerhard Weisser immediately took on the leadership of the regional finance end economics ministry in what was then the state of Braunschweig, most of which had ended up in the British occupation zone.

Directly after the war Gerhard Weisser gave particular focus to monetary and currency matters.

Gerhard Weisser was invited to participate in the meetings of the SPD economic policy committee, chaired by Herbert Kriedemann.

The committee worked rapidly, and within it Gerhard Weisser played a leading role in producing what became the detailed party manifesto proposal, presented at Hanover to the crisis wracked first postwar SPD party conference in May 1946.

In 1950 Gerhard Weisser finally accepted an academic post, becoming Professor for Social Policy and Communal Methods at Cologne.

Gerhard Weisser retired in 1966 and went back to Gottingen, where he taught as an honorary professor.

For Gerhard Weisser, Social policy was a very broad concept, and he himself often preferred the term Society Policy, which he elaborated as the "expression of a system of practical Society Policy".

Gerhard Weisser insisted that free democratic socialism was an attainable "third way" between communism and capitalism.

Ever since his student days Gerhard Weisser took a close interest in questions involving knowledge theory and inductive reasoning, primarily of a normative nature.

Gerhard Weisser was much influenced by Jakob Friedrich Fries and his post-Kantian philosophy.