Der "zukünftige Menschheitsbau": Knud Ahlborn (1888-1977). Dimensions of German 'middle class' renewal behaviour and ideology in the German Youth Movement and Life Reform Movement in the 20th century.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Anselm Doering-Manteuffel
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 317331298

The social, cultural and political movements of search of the German Youth Movement and the middle class Life Reform Movement, as well as their 'longing for order' are characteristic for the widespreading off their social milieu addition tendency of modernism, to develop new social forms of community, order structures and ways of life. Topic of the project are the emergence of ideas, the development of conceptions of order and the resulting social behaviour of the physician and conservationist Knud Ahlborn (1888-1977) as well as his working and disposition network. The intellectual biography covers the years from the late 19th century to the 1970s. For two reasons, the physician, publicist and conservationist can be regarded as paradigmatic figure of the Reform movement. On the one hand, his renewal efforts represent the patterns of thought, as well the social psychology disposals and assurance processes within this flow. On the other hand, he himself, as a supplier of ideas and "networker" with substantially interpretative sovereignty, initiated symptomatic, collective effective ways of behaviour and thinking within the sociocultural milieu. This project is divided into the four investigation periods 1888-1913, 1913-1933, 1933-1945, 1945-1977 and comprises the following three levels of analysis: Firstly, it reconstructs Ahlborn's performance in politics and society, as well his networking strategies and ideation in exchange with his working and disposition network. Secondly, it examines the influence of the social and political change and, moreover, investigates the gradual establishment of a western-oriented model of society on Ahlborn and his working and disposition network's figures of thought, normative sets of actions and sphere of activity. And, thirdly, it pursues the question to what extent their impulses transport behaviours of subjectivisation, individualisation and participation, as they were increasingly characteristic for the German society after 1945, and, as well, how they contribute to the development of a new 'middle class' and social culture in society. This intellectual biography develops a 'history of society' of leading ideas. It provides insight into processes concerning the mentality and the historical development of ideas, as well as into behaviour of repositioning within the youth movement and the 'middle class' Life Reform Movement. Their formative protagonists operated and exerted influence on highest municipal and nationwide levels in politics, culture and education. The question regarding the "renewal" of the 'middle class' offers the opportunity to connect the history of these ideas with praxeology. The project aims to analyse not only the youth and life reformist but also the exceeding behaviour of Ahlborn and his working and disposition network, in order to fit the German Youth Movement and the 'middle class' Life Reform Movement into the context of the modernisation process in Germany.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants