THE RECEPTION OF WEBER,MAX IN THE GDR - A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW

In East Germany, Max Weber was not considered a classical writer on th e social sciences. Being a ''bourgeois author'' he was subjected to th e mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization typically applied to Wes tern modernists. Nevertheless, marked differences can be traced over t he 40-year existence of the GDR in how the state dealt with the man co nsidered today to be the world's most influential German-language auth or in the field of sociology. By looking first at Georg Lukacs's criti cism of German sociology in the light of the national socialist experi ence, then at the establishment of sociology in East Germany in the si xties and finally at the discussion on historical theory (the analysis of formations through history) in the seventies and eighties, this ar ticle describes the retreat from tradition and the gradual process of re-adaptation which occurred in the GDR not only in the case of Max We ber's works, but which was typical of East Germany's treatment of West ern modernists. The reception of Weber's works in the GDR focused on t he fundamental positions in his theories of value and cognition as wel l as his methodology. Even here acceptance was hindered by unsurpassab le hurdles erected by a political regime whose survival depended on th e legitimizing ideology of Marxism-Leninism.