For a prosopographic profile of exiled German speaking sociologists

di Christian Fleck
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 31 (2009), p. 81

Sociologists have an eminent role among social scientists which were forced to migrate to the United States after 1933. The objective of defining their prosopographic profile pushed the author to identify the main features that determine the identity of this figure, which did not have a precise profile in Europe in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Crossing various sources, the article first delineates the basic identikit of the German speaking sociologist and then compares a few specific categories: scholars who migrated, those who remained in their native country, and those of German or Austrian origin. The second part of the essay is totally devoted to the evaluation of the impact of the scientific production of this group of sociologists on American culture.