A Life between Politics and Academia: Lord Ralf Dahrendorf (1.5.1929 - 17.6.2009)

Lord Ralf Dahrendorf (1.5.1929 - 17.6.2009) Shortly after his 80th birthday, Lord Ralf Dahrendorf, arguably one of the most renowned liberal thinkers of our time, died in Cologne on 17th June. The international family of liberals lost one of its most influential and unique intellectuals, and the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit a great former Chairman.

The social conditions and institutional requirements for freedom and liberal democracy were the core topics of Dahrendorf's professional life as a politician and as an academic. In both spheres, he was exceptional and left outstanding marks.

The son of a consumer rights' lobbyist and Social Democratic politician who defied the totalitarian ways of the Nazi dictatorship, Dahrendorf was brought up in a family climate in which the values of individual freedom and self-responsibility played an important role, against all limitations that prevailed under the conditions of the day. His father Gustav, a former MP for the Social Democratic Party who had suffered from different forms of persecution under the regime, was in contact with the resistance movement against the Nazis. After its plot against Hitler failed on 20th July 1944, he was arrested and sentenced to seven years of rigid imprisonment. In the wake of his father's detention, also 15-year old Ralf was arrested, on charges of agitation against the regime. Together with fellow-pupils, Ralf had written texts and pamphlets against
Lord Dahrendorf and his wife Christiane. Left: Dr. W. Gerhardt, Chairman FNF; Right: Dr. G. Westerwelle, Leader of the FDP the Nazis – a potentially deadly activity by naïve young boys, as Dahrendorf conceded in his memoirs. He escaped the death penalty, but remained in custody in a camp not far from Berlin until the Soviet Red Army occupied the area. Soon after the war, the family got into new troubles with the unfolding rule of yet a new dictatorship in parts of Germany, this time of Communist leanings. In 1946, the family settled in the West, in Hamburg, from where Ralf Dahrendorf set out for his outstanding career.

He obtained his PhD at the University of Hamburg in 1952, with a dissertation on "The Concept of the Righteous in the Thinking of Karl Marx". Afterwards, he was among the first Germans after the war to study abroad. He stayed for two years at the London School of Economics, where Karl Popper was among his teachers. It was at LSE where Dahrendorf perfected his skills necessary for his outstanding intellectual and academic career. After returning to Germany, he qualified as a Full Professor in Saarbrücken and soon took up a teaching position in Hamburg. In 1960, he became Professor of Sociology in Tübingen and later in Konstanz at the newly established university where he belonged to the founding staff.

Already in this early stage of his career, Dahrendorf was an original thinker who was instrumental for the establishment of modern, empirical sociology as a subject at German universities. In his obituary to Dahrendorf, Jürgen Habermas, the second outstanding contemporary German intellectual and philosopher, elaborated on the sharpness and methodological distinctiveness with which Dahrendorf impressed his fellows in the social sciences. Already in the 1950s, as Habermas notes, he was considered to be the leading German sociologist of his time.

But Dahrendorf was also tempted by political activism, following his quest that, in order to be relevant, academics must perform as "public intellectuals". Like his father, he had become a member of the SPD after the war, but in 1967 he switched to the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). He worked closely with the party leadership that determined the new, reformed programmatic outlook of the FDP with a stronger focus on civil rights and civil liberties. In 1969, he was elected to the German Parliament (Bundestag) and appointed junior foreign minister in Willy Brandt’s first lib-lab coalition government. However, the constraints of party and coalition politics were not exactly compatible with his independent mind. Not even a year later, in August 1970, he moved on to Brussels and served as Commissioner, first for External Relations and External Trade, and later for Science and Education, in the Commission of the European Community. In this role, he observed with delight the negotiations for the British entry into the Common Market.

In 1974, Dahrendorf returned to academia. For ten years, he was the Director of the LSE, his principal alma mater, the first foreign director of this reputed institution. LSE later introduced the Dahrendorf Scholarship, named in his honour, to assist LSE students from developing countries. After two short stints in Konstanz and New York, he became Warden of St. Anthony's College at Oxford in 1988, a position he held for another ten years. During his years in London and Oxford, he firmly integrated not only in the academic and public life, but also in the society of his second home, Great Britain. Queen Elizabeth elevated him to "Knight Commander of the British Empire" (KBE) in 1982. After acquiring British citizenship in 1988, he was finally granted a Life Peerage in 1993. Sir Ralf choose the designation Baron Dahrendorf of Clare Market in the City of Westminster, under which he now was a member of the House of Lords – one of the very few personalities in European history to become a parliamentarian in two different countries.

This is not the place to give an even rough overview about the academic achievements and credentials Ralf Dahrendorf accomplished in his life time. Suffice to state that his early works on Social Class and Class Conflict in the Industrial Society and Society and Democracy in Germany introduced new and arguably more adequate concepts to understand structures, roles and changes in modern society. Throughout his work, the realization of freedom under the conditions of modernity remained his normative yardstick. Influenced foremost, as he himself stated, by Karl Popper, Raymond Aron and Isaiah Berlin, he was a stern defender of free, pluralistic and open forms of governance – in short, of liberal democracy. In his numerous books, essays and articles he commented for more than 50 years on the challenges and opportunities of liberal democracy in the political and social development of Europe and the world.

Ralf Dahrendorf belongs to the intellectual heritage of Europe, foremost of his two homes, Germany and Great Britain. Though in his later years, he found his principle personal and intellectual environment in Great Britain, he never lost his German roots. We note with pride and gratitude that Ralf Dahrendorf, throughout the years, maintained his contacts and links with the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit. For several years he had served on the Board of the Foundation, before becoming Chairman from 1983 to 1987. On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Foundation in 2008, the Lord accepted to hold the Keynote Speech in the Bundestag in Bonn. Only a few weeks ago, the Foundation honoured Lord Ralf Dahrendorf at the occasion of his 80th birthday with a Symposium – aptly organized in the premises of the British Embassy in Berlin – whose title summarized Dahrendorf's political message: "For a Europe of the Free Citizen". Sadly, this was to be the last public event of the Foundation with one of the most eminent liberals of our time. As Dr. Wolfgang Gerhardt, Chairman of the Foundation, stated in his obituary: "His initiatives provided a compass to the Foundation, his personality gave it a profile. Lord Dahrendorf will not be forgotten, we are grieved that we lost him."

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