Marxist politics | Frank Deppe: For knowledge and intervention

The unions are important: Frank Deppe 2025 at the DGB's May 1st event in Mörfelden-Walldorf Photo: IMAGO/Marc Student In 2006 it was Wolfgang Abendroth's 100th birthday. And Frank Deppe retired as a professor. For us Marxist-oriented students and doctoral candidates at the Marburg Institute of Political Science, 2006 was marked by these two events. Deppe was the penultimate representative from Abendroth's direct generation of students at the department. The last was Dieter Boris, who worked at the Institute of Sociology and retired in 2008.

On the occasion of the Abendroth anniversary, we formed a small research group that, based on biographical interviews, wanted to find out whether there was such a thing as a core of the “Marburg School” of political science. Although the different generations of students and the individual research profiles differed in many ways, they had one thing in common - according to our results published in the journal "The Argument" at the time: political science should not only interpret the world, but should also want to help change it.

The Marburg tradition differed from other left-wing or “Marxist-inspired” movements in that it was not enough to form left-wing radical circles or to embark on a march through the institutions, which sometimes brought them into the mainstream of a liberal zeitgeist. Rather, the "Marburg School" maintained contact with the "real-existing left wing of the workers' movement" and entered into the fray of political disputes with it: be it in party political contexts (SPD, SDS, DKP, later: The Left) or within the trade union movement.

Frank Deppe embodies such a committed understanding of science to this day. Born on September 23, 1941 in Frankfurt am Main, grew up as a child first in Walldorf in southern Hesse, then in the Bornheim district of Frankfurt. He initially studied for a few semesters at the Goethe University and came into contact with the representatives of critical theory - with Horkheimer and Adorno, but also, more formatively, with Herbert Marcuse, when he held a visiting professorship in Frankfurt in 1964.

In the same year, Frank Deppe joined the Socialist German Student Association (SDS) and moved to Marburg, where he received his doctorate in 1968 with a thesis on the French revolutionary and left-wing communist Louis-Auguste Blanqui and initially worked as an academic advisor at the Institute for Sociology, which was influenced by Werner Hofmann and Heinz Maus. In 1972 he was appointed to a full professorship as the successor to Ernst-Otto Czempiel.

This was preceded by a major campaign in which not only renowned international scientists and prominent representatives of the trade unions (who themselves were scandalized by the conservative side), such as the legendary district secretary of IG Metall in Baden-Württemberg, Willi Bleicher, took part, but also countless students who took their demands to the streets under the slogan "Marx to the university, idiot to H4" that is still known today.

Even after Abendroth's retirement, a constellation emerged at the Institute for Political Science - to which, in addition to Frank Deppe, Reinhard Kühnl, Georg Fülberth and Peter Römer were appointed in the early 1970s - a constellation that made it possible to maintain Marburg as a center of critical, interventionist, Marxist political science. Last but not least, close cooperation with non-university actors such as the trade unions or the Institute for Marxist Studies and Research (IMSF) in Frankfurt am Main was important.

With him you didn't study political science, which is defined by a sub-area that is as small as possible. Because his work impresses with the versatility of his objects.

The 1970s were marked by numerous struggles: In particular, the collective work "On the History of the German Trade Union Movement" triggered heated discussions, and the institute was repeatedly under fire and had to be defended against attacks, for example when in 1976 the Hessian CDU under Manfred Dregger called for the dissolution of the social sciences department, striking a tone that can also be found in science policy programs today - now, of course, especially in those of the AfD. Dregger's former pupil Alexander Gauland acts as its honorary chairman.

Nevertheless, Marburg political science was able to assert itself for decades as a place with charisma that attracted numerous young students who - like me at the end of the 1990s - were looking for a place where they could get to know a decidedly critical and interventionist academic tradition. Frank Deppe played a central role as an academic teacher and political friend. With him you didn't study political science, which is defined by a sub-area that is as small and specialized as possible. His work impresses with the versatility and breadth of his subjects. Writings on political theory and its history are also included, as are empirically saturated studies of class structure in constantly changing capitalism. Work on European research sits alongside contributions on the role and history of the trade union movement, state theory and global power shifts.

This is held together by an interest in knowledge and intervention that is both historical and contemporary diagnostic, which is neither limited to a merely contemplative attitude to the world nor is it prepared to accept political myths. In addition to the five-volume magnum opus of the "History of Political Thought in the 20th Century" and the fundamental study of Machiavelli, one of his most important writings is a small study entitled "Unity and Division of the Working Class", in which he traces that in the history of the workers' movement, the fragmentation of the class is the usual thing, while its political organization, on the other hand, has to assert itself again and again in the contradictions and distortions of its time. A central point of reference here - as well as in studies on Europe and international political economy - is the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, from whom we can also learn that the impulse to develop theory is always fed by historical defeats.

Particularly in a time like ours, it is necessary not only to poke around in the limited horizon of individual current political events, but also to think in historical contexts. This makes it possible to relativize the present from a twofold perspective: from the past, whose precise reconstruction makes it understandable what the causes of the crisis lie, and towards the future, in which these crises appear to be surmountable. To this day, Frank Deppe is tirelessly busy arguing at events and lectures as well as in numerous writings that the upheavals that we are confronted with in contemporary crisis-ridden capitalism are not the last word of history. With that in mind, congratulations on your 85th birthday, Frank!

The »nd.Genossenschaft« belongs to its readers and authors. They are the ones who make our journalism accessible to everyone through their contribution: We are not backed by a media company, not a large advertising customer or even a billionaire.

With your support we can continue to:

→ report independently and critically → address overlooked topics → give space to marginalized voices → counter misinformation → advance left-wing debates

With “Pay voluntarily” you can take part. You help ensure that this newspaper has a future. So that nd remains.