Reinhard Höhn
Reinhard Höhn | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1904[1] Gräfenthal, Thuringia, Germany[1] |
| Died | 2000 (aged 95–96)[1] |
| Political party | Nazi Party |
Reinhard Höhn (29 July 1904 – 14 May 2000) was a German jurist, historian, and a member of the Nazi Party. He developed the Harzburg Model of management, which exerted a strong influence on German management training until the 1980s.
Education and political career
[edit]Höhn was born 29 July 1904 in Gräfenthal, Germany. He went to school in Meiningen, had a doctorate in political science. He directed a group of young people from south Thuringia. He was an active militant nationalist joining in 1922 the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (German Nationalist Protection and Defiance Federation), an antisemitic Völkisch movement.[2][3]: 29 He agitated for Der Stahlhelm (The Steel Helmet), a German First World War veteran's organization existing from 1918 to 1935. He was arrested and spent a short while in prison. Between 1923 and 1932, Höhn was a member of Young German Order (German: Jungdeutscher Orden, shortened form: Jungdo) and was an important co-worker of Artur Mahraun. He joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in 1932 (this is considered "early" as 80% of intellectuals in the SD joined between 1934–38),[3]: 71 ultimately becoming a high-ranking officer in the SD and later the SS.[4]
He became professor of constitutional and administrative law at the Humboldt University of Berlin and chair of public law at the University of Jena from 1935–1945. During this time he was also director of the Institute for State Research. He was one of the architects of National Socialist theory (Nazism) in the Völkisch movement.[5]: 38–9
In 1937, Heinrich Himmler entrusted him with the organization of a festival of Nordicism to celebrate Henry the Fowler, founder of the first medieval German State.[3]: 58 During this time he published a debate about whether soldiers should swear an oath to the constitution or to the head of state (be that prince or Führer).[4]
Post-war
[edit]He disappeared from view at the end of World War II[5]: 73 and reappearing as a director for the Akademie für Führungskräfte der Wirtschaft Bad Harzburg (AFK), a business school[6] he founded in 1956 in Bad Harzburg (Lower Saxony).[5]: 73 There, he developed the Harzburg Model of management, which exerted a strong influence on German management training until the 1980s.[7]
In 1971, the journalist Bernt Engelmann writing in the newspaper Vorwärts published by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) brought his historic involvement with the Nazi government as an expert in economics and national-socialist politics to light. This caused public outcry and Helmut Schmidt (then Defense Minister) stopped his academy from advising the Bundeswehr after March 1972.[5]: 100
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Höhn, Reinhard". German National Library (in German). Retrieved 17 December 2025.
- ^ Kershaw, Ian (1998). Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris. Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0-713-99047-8.
- ^ a b c Ingrao, Christian (2013). Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine [Croire et Détruire]. Malden, MA, USA: Polity. ISBN 978-0745660264.
- ^ a b Taubert, Fritz (2020). "Verfassungseid ou Führereid pour les militaires ? Une polémique de deux historiens nationaux-socialistes, Reinhard Höhn et Ernst Rudolf Huber, concernant l'assermentation des soldats". Histoire@Politique. 40 2020 (40). doi:10.4000/histoirepolitique.895.
- ^ a b c d Chapoutot, Johann (2023). Free to Obey How the Nazis Invented Modern Management [Libres d'obéir 2020] (Translated by Steven Rendall ed.). New York: Europa Editions. ISBN 9781609458041.
- ^ Barrenscheen-Loster, Stina Rike (22 November 2023). "Vom angeborenen Talent zum geschulten mittleren Manager: Zwischen alten Vorstellungen von Führung und Zukunftserwartung". Neue Arbeitswelten, alte Führungsstile?: Das mittlere Management in westdeutschen Großunternehmen (1949–1989) (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. pp. 40–41. ISBN 9783593454627. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
Der Jurist Reinhard Höhn war der Gründer der AFK, in der seit 1956 vordergründig das mittlere Management in Führungsfragen weitergebildet wurde. Kern der AFK war die Delegation von Verantwortung. [...] Mit einem dezidiert biographischen Zugang zu Reinhard Höhn beschäftigte sich Alexan[d]er O. Müller, in dessen Studie auf das Wirken Höhns als deutschen Management-Guru sowie der Rolle und Wirkung der AFK in den Unternehmen gesetzt wird.
- ^ Yamazaki, Toshio (2013). German Business Management A Japanese Perspective on Regional Development Factors. Springer Japan. p. 122. ISBN 978-4-431-54303-9.
