Reinhard Opitz Papers

Period 1954-1986 (-2000)
Total size  19.22 m.
ConsultationNot restricted

Biography

Born in Beuthen, Upper Silesia, Germany 1934, died in Cologne 1986; German Marxist and political scientist; active in left-wing circles of universities and publishers around the periodicals Konkret (Hamburg), Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik (Cologne), Das Argument (Berlin), DVZ/die tat and Marxistische Blätter (Frankfurt am Main); left the GDR with his family 1951; studied in Berlin and Tübingen; active in the peace movement and the movement against rearmament and reintroduction of the general conscription; member of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenverband (SDS) 1956; banned (as a member of the ‘Konkret’-group) from the SDS 1959; working for the periodical Konkret (until 1957 named Studenten-Kurier) 1956-1960; editor of the Berlin edition of Konkret 1957; press officer of the 1960 founded Deutsche Friedensunion (DFU) 1960-1965, then also staffer in other organizations 1979-1982; editor at Pahl-Rugenstein publishing house 1965-1979; co-editor of Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik since 1972; Ph. D. degree at the University of Marburg with ‘Ideologie und Praxis des deutschen Sozialliberalismus 1917-1933', a study on left-wing liberalism during the Republic of Weimar 1973; lectured at various universities and other institutions but never got a permanent academic post; published Der große Plan der CDU: die ‘Formierte Gesellschaft’ (1965), Europastrategien des deutschen Kapitals 1900-1945 (1977) and Faschismus und Neofaschismus (1984); died of cancer 1986; after his death Rainer Rilling and Ilina Fach published in collaboration with the library of the Philipps University of Marburg Reinhard Opitz, Liberalismus-Faschismus-Integration in 1999, an edition in three volumes in which 6,000 pages from his written legacy are included.

Content

Correspondence 1965-1986 in particular with a.o. Kurt Gossweiler 1971-1985; manuscripts and typescripts of articles and lectures 1954-1986, in particular on strategies of monopoly-capitalist integration, liberalism, expansion strategies of German capital since 1900 (including the unpublished typescript and documentation of his edition on ‘Kolonialstrategien des deutschen Kapitals 1900-1945'), German fascism and neo-fascism, including the Ernst Röhm affair and new political guises right of centre as well on anti-militarist and anti-fascist resistance; files on the DFU 1960-1986; the Pahl-Rugenstein publishing house 1965-1979, and his jobs at the universities and colleges of Cologne, Marburg, Münster, Osnabrück and Paderborn 1976-1986; files on the edition of Opitz's written legacy 1987-2000.

Processing information

Inventory made by Thomas Lühr and edited by Bouwe Hijma in 2008