Theodor Geiger
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Theodor Julius Geiger (9 November 1891 in Munich, Germany - 16 June 1952 at sea between Canada and Denmark) was a German socialist lawyer and sociologist. He was Denmark's first professor of sociology, at the University of Århus.
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[edit] Life
Geiger grew up and went to school in Landshut, Bavaria, already showing an interest in Scandinavia from an early age. He studied law and political science, first at the University of Munich from 1910 - 1912, then at the University of Würzburg from 1912 - 1914.
In 1914 Geiger joined the army voluntarily; he served until 1918 and was injured. At the same time he wrote a dissertation on the supervision of criminals, Die Schutzaufsicht, supported by Friedrich Oetker. In 1918 he became a Doctor of Laws.
In 1920 Geiger became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the same year he also became an assistant at the Statistischer Reichsamt, the statistics office, in Munich, working in the department for trade statistics between 1924 and 1933. His home, however, was in Berlin, where he published the magazine Fremde Presse (Foreign Press), with news on the Reich ministry for the army from 1920 - 1929. At the same time he edited the information magazine of the newly-founded Berlin Volkshochschule (adult education centre) where he had begun to work as a teacher. In 1924 Geiger took over as the manager of the Volkshochschule.
Geiger joined the Brunswick University of Technology (Braunschweig) in 1924, progressing from being a visiting lecturer, to an associate professor, and finally becoming a full professor of sociology in 1929; this was the first professorship of the department for cultural studies. Geiger's work is still kept at the "Theodor Geiger Archive" at the university. He worked there until 1933, when, due to his anti-Nazi beliefs, he had to emigrate to Denmark; here he lived until 1943, even taking on Danish nationality.
In Denmark Geiger began by gaining a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation through the Instituttet for Historie og Samfundskonomie in Copenhagen; later he gave lectures at the University of Copenhagen. From 1938 - 1940 he was professor of sociology at the University of Århus -- Denmark's first ever professor of sociology. When German troops entered the city in 1940 he was forced to leave, escaping to Odense where he lived with his parents-in-law for the next couple of years. In 1943 he fled once again to Sweden. Here he gave lectures at the Universities of Stockholm, Uppsala and Lund. When the war ended in 1945, Geiger immediately returned to Århus, taking up his position as professor of sociology once more. His first step was to found the university institute for research into societies, the first institute of its kind in Scandinavia.
From 1948 to 1952, Geiger published the series Nordiske Studier i Sociologie (Nordic Studies on Sociology) along with Torgny Torgnysson Segerstedt, Veli Verkko and Johan Vogt. In 1949 he was a co-founder of the International Sociological Association.
On 16 June 1952, Geiger died on the return trip from Canada to Denmark on board the "Waterman" ship.
[edit] Work
Geiger is considered the founder of the concept of social stratification, using the concept of stratification (introduced by Edward Ross) for the analysis of social structures.
According to this view, society is divided into an indefinite number of social levels or groups, defined according to attributes such as profession, education, upbringing, living standard, power, dress, religion, race, political opinion and organisation. This idea is closely connected to that of social mobility and the criteria for an industrial society.
At least in Germany, he is also seen as an important contributor to the sociology of law, by publishing, in 1947, his "Vorstudien zu einer Soziologie des Rechts" (preliminary studies for a sociology of law).
The Danish body of Geigers work is currently being translated (commented version) to German by Gert J. Fode of the University of Aarhus, edited by Prof. Klaus Rodax (University of Erfurt, Germany).
[edit] Publications
- Die Soziale Schichtung des Deutschen Volkes (Stuttgart, 1932)
- Vorstudien zu einer Soziologie des Rechts (Kopenhagen, 1947)
- Democracy Without Dogma (posthumous, 1964)
