Götz Briefs

Götz Anton Briefs (born 1 January 1889 in Eschweiler; died 16 May 1974 in Rome) was a Catholic social theorist, social ethicist, social philosopher and political economist, who together with Gustav Gundlach, SJ influenced the social teachings of Pope Pius XI.

Biography

In 1908, Briefs began to study history and philosophy at the University of Munich. As it was customary in German academic circles at the time, he frequently switched universities, moving in 1909 to Bonn, and later in 1911 to Freiburg. In Freiburg, he became a member of K.D.St. V. Wildenstein Freiburg im Breisgau, a Catholic student fraternity that belong to the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen. In 1911, he completed his doctoral dissertation with an investigation of the influence of the alcoholic beverage industry on market price structures. He was awarded the highest honor summa cum laude for his dissertation and continued on the topic of profits with his Habilitation on the effect of average profits on the economy in 1913.

In 1919, he was named Professor for economics at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg. Two years later 1921 he accepted a professorship at the Julius-Maximilian-Universität in Würzburg. In 1923 he returned to Freiburg and in 1926 to Berlin at the Technische Hochschule. In 1928, he founded an Institute for Industrial Sociology in Berlin.

After the National Socialists won the elections in Germany and took over the government, he, like many other outspoken Catholics, lost his career and was forced to leave his native country. Göetz Briefs emigrated to the USA, where he found a teaching position as guest professor at the Catholic University and later full professor at the Jesuit Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

After being widowed during the war years, he married Elinor Castendyk in 1951, who later became known for her work on and translations of Romano Guardini. After his retirement, the couple lived in a mountain retreat near the Trappist monastery Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville in Clarke County, Virginia, which he visited with his wife on a daily basis. Briefs influenced the social teachings of the Catholic Church and was considered a ghost writer of the encyclical Quadragesimo anno of Pope Pius XI with his friend, the Jesuit Gustav Gundlach, with whom he spent his annual Summer vacations together. On 16 May 1974 Briefs died in Rome after a short illness. He is buried in the Vatican's Campo Santo Teutonico.

With Gustav Gundlach, Theodor Brauer, Paul Jostock, Franz Hermann Müller, Heinrich Rommen and Oswald von Nell-Breuning, he was a member of the "Königswinter Circle" at the Königswinter "Institute for Society and Economy". Briefs received multiple scholarships and six honorary doctorates. In addition:

• 1959 – The Distinguished Service Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany "Pour le merit"
• 1968 – The Star to the Order of Merit

Briefs published approximately 350 scientific articles. The road "Götz-Briefs-Weg" in his hometown was named after him in 1989.

Writings

The starting point of his scientific work is the emergence and development of the proletariat, which he — in contrast to Karl Marx — does not see as the engine of revolution, since the wage labor force is fundamentally less interested in cementing its status than in social advancement. For him, this idea — along with a social Christian superstructure — is essential to the emergence of the social market economy, which allows for such social mobility (as opposed to a society of estates or classes). If Briefs is still an advocate of the trade union in the 1920s, he later criticizes the German trade unions in particular as rigid. He coined the term "fortified unions," which were increasingly distancing themselves from their core task of negotiating collective wages and losing sight of the reality of workers' lives. Perhaps one reason for his change of heart was his new environment in the United States. Here he also got to know Joseph Schumpeter personally, who placed entrepreneurship at the center of his work.

In philosophical-ethical terms, Goetz Briefs worked for a reconciliation of (ordo)liberalism with Catholic social teaching. His emigration is an example of the brain drain that began among German intellectuals after the so-called "Röhmputsch" in 1934. Despite his anti-Marxist stance, Briefs was hated by the National Socialists because of his Catholic faith.

Works in English translation

• "State, Political Liberty and Militarism in Germany." In: German Culture, Catholicism and the World War: A Defense against the Book La Guerre Allemande et le Catholicisme (1916)
• "Security," The Commonweal, Vol. XXVI, No. 6 (1937)
• The Proletariat: A Challenge to Western Civilization (1937)
• A Christian Statesman and Political Philosopher: Donoso Cortés (1938)
• "The Roots of Totalism," Thought, Vol. XIX, No. 1 (1944)
• The Agony of the Mass Age (1950)
• "Ethics in Industrial Relations," Politeia, Vol. III, No. 1/2 (1951)
• Unionism Reappraised, from Classical Unionism to Union Establishment (1960)

External links

• Works by Götz Briefs at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Götz Briefs at JSTOR
• Works by or about Götz Briefs at Internet Archive
• Works by Götz Briefs at The Review of Politics
• The Mont Pèlerin Society Records at the Hoover Institution Archives contains sound recordings of Briefs.
• Website about Götz Briefs including timeline (German)
• Georgetown University Götz Briefs papers page II
• Dr. Gina Briefs-Elgin obituary with Briefs family information