On the Genesis of a Collected Edition of Simmel's Works, 1918−2012

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2012 29: 302Theory Culture SocietyOtthein Rammstedt

2012On the Genesis of a Collected Edition of Simmel's Works, 1918

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Article

On the Genesis

of a Collected Editionof Simmels Works,19182012

Otthein Rammstedt

Abstract

The article records the three stages of work undertaken to assemble a single orga-nized corpus of Simmels dispersed writings after his death in September 1918. Thisincudes a first phase of work by Gertrud Simmel and Gertrud Kantorowicz from theyears of the Weimar Republic, a second phase from the post-1945 period, overseenby Michael Landmann and Kurt Gassen, and a third phase, inaugurated in the 1980sby a team of scholars at Bielefeld University headed by Otthein Rammstedt and initially Niklas Luhmann, which resulted in the 24 volumes in print today withSuhrkamp Verlag.

Keywords

Collected Edition, Gesamtausgabe, Simmel

If a collected edition of Simmels works is to be produced soon, it mustbe sure to preserve his legacy for many years to come, urged HermanSchmalenbach in his obituary to Georg Simmel in 1919.1 What

Schmalenbach likely had in mind was something comparable to the col-lected works of Nietzsche or Wilhelm Dilthey: it would have to makeSimmels multifaceted oeuvre accessible and it would have to set it offfrom fashions and styles of the moment. Schmalenbach wanted to seeSimmel in the gallery of Great Thinkers and felt himself confirmed in thisview by the many other obituaries that appeared after his death, and byan explosion of interest in his ideas at this time, not least as a conse-quence of the problems of culture that faced Germany after defeat in theFirst World War which came as a surprise to almost all.

Corresponding author:

Austin Harrington, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS29JT, UK

Email: [email protected]

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191833

Publishing houses responded to the new interest in Simmel and his bur-geoning relevance to the early post-war years of the Weimar Republic withfresh editions of almost all his writings.2 Gertrud Simmel registered thistoo and recalled her husbands remark in 1917 that his ideas were increas-ingly finding resonance in the new generation. Though he might havedoubted for a while what the younger generations can and want to takefrom me, even if perhaps they would rather turn to me than to any otherliving philosopher,3 Simmel felt himself obligated in the face of his loom-ing death to ensure his last reflections came quickly to publication, par-ticularly in conjunction with his last monograph, The View of Life.4 Heasked his pupil and friend Gertrud Kantorowicz to prepare two folders oflast manuscripts marked Philosophy of Art and Metaphysics for pub-lication in the journal LOGOS;5 and he entrusted his younger colleague,the Privatdozent Otto Baensch, with his notations on Freedom.6

It was in this spirit that Gertrud Simmel sought to act as manager ofSimmels intellectual legacy when she declined to permit new editions ofbooks that her husband had described to her as theoretically obsolete oras no longer relevant;7 and engaged Karl (Charles) Hauter to edit andbring to publication Simmels pamphlet on school education,8 probablystill during her last days in Strasbourg.9 She interpreted Simmels inten-

tion as being that the texts he had entrusted to Kantorowicz and Baenschwere to be published first of all and her task was only to ensure that hisworks be republished without outside interference.10 But this intentionwas endangered, indeed threatened to evaporate entirely, when largeparts of Simmels manuscripts were stolen from Gertrud Kantorowiczin early or mid 1921, a fact which she divulged to Gertrud Simmel onlyover the turn of the year 19212 as she no longer saw any chance ofretrieving what was lost.11 As Gertrud Simmel saw matters, the onlyoutstanding tasks now remained the projected publication of the manu-

scripts given to Baensch and Hauter,12 since Gertrud Kantorowiczs planto pre-publish the manuscripts from the folder Philosophy of Art inLOGOS and then to produce a separate collected volume of writingson the same subject had become impossible,13 and also no fragmentsof treatises from the folder on Metaphysics remained that could havebeen finished for publication.14 Gertrud Simmel thus changed the plan ofproceedings in January or February 1922, now seeing her central task asmanager of her husbands intellectual estate as being to enable renewedaccess to those writings from Simmels widely dispersed corpus that had

remained significant15 but that otherwise were not available16 and hadnot been incorporated into any of his monographs.17 Her desire was toarrange these essays and treatises in anthologies titled Collected Essayson. . . They were to include essays on the philosophy of art, philosophyof history, religion and the contributions to LOGOS.18

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For an overview of the project she prepared a bibliography ofSimmels essays and treatises in the first months of 1922. On 9 March1922 she told Friedrich Gundolf19 of 137 Simmel essays she had found

in the catalogue of Jena University, and she asked for offprints of articlesin her circle of acquaintances.20 She wanted first of all three volumes ofcollected essays to be published as quickly as possible21 and created aprovisional list that she then greatly reduced after objections fromMartin Buber, Friedrich Gundolf, Karl Jaspers and Karl Joel. This listshe sent to her friends, such as Buber, on 24 February 1922, and in thesame covering letter to Friedrich Gundolf she noted that the feasiblematerial would fill only one or two volumes,22 not including the con-tributions in LOGOS. Probably around this time she spoke to the vari-

ous publishers of Simmels works familiar to her, but in these advanceswas made to feel the implications of the rising inflation as none of theseseem to have made her any offers or commitments. Disappointed, shereduced her plan to two volumes, the one from LOGOS and the one onphilosophy of art, on the grounds that Simmel had valued this last themevery highly and wanted to see an edition by Gertrud Kantorowicz of thecorresponding reflections from his final manuscripts.23 Unwilling toapproach these same publishers again, she sought a new publisher forthe volume on art and made contact through the mediation of Buber withGustav Kiepenheuer Verlag in Potsdam, but in the context of the eco-nomic climate this publisher was only prepared to commit to a volume nolonger than five folios.24 The 27 originally projected pieces had to bereduced to 16, making a slim volume that could not be called CollectedEssays but instead simply Essays on the Philosophy of Art.

In coordination with Gertrud Simmel, Gertrud Kantorowicz beganpreparing another anthology at this time designed to assemble theitems she had already published from Simmels last manuscripts, togetherwith another previously unpublished manuscript on Naturalism and theremaining contributions to LOGOS. In other words, this was meant to bethe originally intended volume Collected Essays in LOGOS. But the pub-lisher J.C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck insisted on copyright, meaning that anysuch volume could only appear in May 1925 at the earliest.25 The onlyspeedy solution open to Kantorowicz and Gertrud Simmel was then toset aside the essay on Naturalism and the earlier essays in LOGOSand toinclude only Simmels later LOGOS writings and of course to shift theemphasis away from LOGOS and instead toward SimmelsLebensphilosophie, as indeed implied by the preface of the volume even-tually published under the title Fragmente und Aufsatze aus dem Nachla

und Veroffentlichungen der letzten Jahre [Fragments and Essays from theLast Manuscripts and Other Late Writings]. The publisher that GertrudKantorowicz managed to interest with the aid of Paul Wittek, whoseacquaintance she had made during the war in Turkey was the DreiMasken Verlag in Munich, which also printed two advance parts of the

304 Theory, Culture & Society 29(7/8)



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volume in the journal Oesterreichische Rundschau, where Wittek workedas an editor.26

Despite the difficult circumstances, the last extant parts of Simmels

corpus appeared within less than a year.27

With these publicationsGertrud Simmels editorial activities came to an end. In accordancewith Simmels wish, the priority lay with the writings from the last manu-scripts, which were being prepared for publication by Baensch, Hauterand Gertrud Kantorowicz with the exception of the stolen parts and themanuscripts that Simmel himself expressly excluded. The importance ofthe work on the philosophy of art had been addressed by GertrudSimmels anthology On the Philosophy of Art, which fulfilled her ideaof publishing and thematically ordering the still relevant yet disparatelyprinted essays under the label Collected Essays on. . .. The circumstancesof inflation made any further pursuit of this idea pointless. Andwhat otherwise remained were the new editions of Simmels establishedbooks and writings. Gertrud Simmel took charge of these and proof-readthem.28 Most likely she bequeathed the remaining papers in her posses-sion to Margarete von Bendemann, who described herself as authorizedofficially to write a major study of Simmel.29

With the National Socialist takeover of power in Germany, the expul-sion of all Jewish elements began virtually immediately. Simmel wasdesignated non-Aryan and his son Hans expelled from teacher training

in April 1933. In May 1933 a student mob burned Simmels books30 andhis writings were henceforth blacklisted. Between 1933 and 1945 no writ-ings by Simmel were republished in Germany and no monographs on hiswork appeared.31

194580

In 1931 Karl Dunkmann affirmed that Simmel without doubt was the

most independent-spirited of German sociologists before the FirstWorld War and of all his peers Scha ffle, Gumplowicz, M. Weber,To nnies had exercised the greatest contemporary influence inGermany.32 In a similar spirit Albion Small asserted that Germanyssociological movement of the 1920s took its point of departure fromSimmel.33 In 1948 Michael Landmann, on the other hand, could observeonly that Simmel in the meantime had fallen into oblivion. To counterthis, he raised the question of a Collected Works, one that would notonly reopen access to his work but would also bring to light for the firsttime his intellectual vision in its true contours. Of special urgency

would also be a collection of essays faithful to Simmels idiom ofthought, even if not everything might have been appropriate for inclu-sion in a Collected Works. As a first step, a Simmel archive could bestarted, which would collect together rare miscellanies, lecture tran-scripts, letters and oral communications and personal reminiscences.34

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Michael Landmanns commitment, encouragement to others and inten-sive searches for lost traces of Simmels work not coincidentally, he wasa student of Herman Schmalenbachs, who, as noted, had first aired the

idea of a Collected Works in 1919 would pay off. On the centenary ofSimmels birth on 1 March 1958 Landmann and Kurt Gassen wouldpresent a Festschrift (the Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel), whichincluded Landmanns Outline of an Intellectual Biography andGassens extensive German-language based bibliography.35 Alongsidethese two seminal contributions the book included several articles anda selection of letters, personal reminiscences and other pieces, as well as aPlan for a Collected Works by Horst Mu ller, who was also probably theauthor of the transcript of the discussions of the group around

Landmann.

36

If the assumption of these discussions was that Simmelhad fallen into oblivion, the aim had to be to end this state of affairsby presenting texts of Simmel that still seemed pertinent to the day. Afirst desideratum was to make available Simmels monographs again, 28years after the last reprint. The publishers still in existence were to beasked to issue new editions of their previously released works, and newpublishers were to be sought for the most important other books. Asecond and most predominant focus of the plan for a Collected Workswas to edit and anthologize Simmels widely dispersed essays under the-matic titles, along the lines of Michael Landmanns first collection afterthe Second World War, titled Brucke und Tur (after Simmels eponymousessay, Bridge and Door).37 Accordingly, Mu ller envisaged a total of 14volumes.38

Both Mu ller and Landmann were conscious that this plan for aCollected Works would not amount to a truly systematic edition39 andboth readily conceded that not all of Simmels publications would beincluded. What they had in mind instead was a type of CollectedWorks comparable to that of the existing collected edition of WilhelmDiltheys writings, a model that would go on to become the norm in the1960s and 1970s for other founding figures in the social sciences. Theleading publisher of Simmels works, Duncker & Humblot, was preparedto publish a sixth edition of The Philosophy of Money for the 1958 cen-tenary (the first edition since 1930) and a fourth edition of Sociology:Inquiries into the Forms of Sociation (the first since 1923). It was ready toname these two editions Volumes 1 and 2 of a Collected Works afterMu llers plan and declared itself keen to develop energetically the pro-

ject of a collected edition, but would not commit to any further volumesuntil the next jubilee year.40 Landmanns plea in the meantime for pub-

lication of the volumes of essays also fell on deaf ears. By 1968 Duncker& Humblot produced a fifth edition of Sociology, while Suhrkamp pub-lished a slim volume of essays under the title Georg Simmel: Das indivi-duelle Gesetz. Philosophische Exkurse (Georg Simmel: The IndividualLaw. Philosophical Essays); but Landmann could find no publisher




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willing to realize his plan for two or three comprehensive volumes ofshorter writings. At this point the question of a collected edition ofSimmels works was no longer even raised. The enterprise had failed.

1980 to the present

In June 1982 Otthein Rammstedt announced his intention to edit a sys-tematic Collected Works. In a preparatory two-year period, in collabor-ation with Heinz-Ju rgen Dahme, almost all of Simmels philosophicaland sociological texts were brought to Bielefeld. Conversations withNiklas Luhmann at Bielefeld suggested that the Academy of North-Rhine Westfalia, of which Luhmann was a member, might be willing

to support a collected edition, and after a series of negotiations therenowned Suhrkamp publishing house agreed to take on the project.The announcement was made at a conference on The Relevance ofGeorg Simmel at Bielefeld Universitys Centre for InterdisciplinaryResearch, to which experts were invited from the German FederalRepublic, France, Italy, Scotland, Israel and the USA, also with a viewto discussing the planned Collected Works.41 The impact was highlypositive and the intention welcomed. This was thanks in large part tothe impetus coming from sociology. After the Second World War,

Simmel as philosopher, whether labelled as a Neo-Kantian orLebensphilosoph,42 seemed to merit only a footnote in the history ofphilosophy, whereas Simmels sociological ideas had initiated a plethoraof new approaches in American sociology43 that in turn demonstratedSimmels relevance to German sociology. This intersected with a bur-geoning discussion about the classics of sociology in the wake of theself-historicization of the social sciences,44 a discussion motivated bya search for validation of the social sciences in times of crisis45 but thatwould also be cited as justification for scholarly editions of collected

works.

46

The work of a classic thinker would be felt to claim a timelesssignificance that would be jeopardized by any passing questioning of themoment. In the 1970s at a time of the renaissance of Marx, this meant forthe institutes of Marxist-Leninism of the Communist Party in the USSRand the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of the GermanDemocratic Republic that a Collected Works of Marx and Engels wouldcrown political teaching with a scientific aura.47 Similarly, it was thoughtthat a Collected Works of Max Weber would cement his significance forcontemporary sociology and facilitate the influence of his ideas inpolitics.48

It was against this background that a collected edition of Simmelsworks struck the participants in the first Simmel conference as necessaryand definitely realizable. In particular, the talks about organization of aCollected Works were so fruitful49 that barely a day later Rammstedt feltable to submit a finished plan for a Collected Works to the Academy of

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North-Rhine Westfalia.50 Concerning editorial procedure, it was agreedthat all authorized texts were to be included and supplemented with anappendix explaining Simmels scholarly references and pinpointing inter-

textual connections and significance of particular texts. Since all ofSimmels last unfinished papers had been lost, recourse was to be madeto the good bibliography of Kurt Gassen, which nevertheless needed tobe revised through systematic checking of journals and newspapers inwhich Simmel published and investigation of the archived papers of thoseauthors with whom Simmel stood in close contact as well as attention tocorrespondence. The structure of the Collected Works was to be dividedinto three parts, on the model of the edition of Max Webers collectedworks. A first part should include Simmels writings in chronological

order but arranged at the same time into thematic areas. A secondpart was to assemble the letters. (The known quantity of letters at thistime was estimated at about 900, and it was expected that a systematicsearch would yield up to 15,000.) As with the edition of Diltheys works,a depository of transcripts of the letters was to be established at an earlystage to facilitate the work of the editors of the individual volumes. Athird part was to assemble transcripts of lectures (Landmann andRammstedt had collected around 10 such transcripts by this time), sup-plemented with lecture manuscripts where available. An institutionalbase for the editorial work was to be established, again on the modelof the Weber edition, to assure the existence of the project independentlyof fluctuating personnel. A contract was to be drawn up between theSimmel estate (Arnold Simmel) as copyright holder until 1988 and thepublisher (Suhrkamp), and the project was to be recognized officially inthe research programme of the Academy of North-Rhine Westfalia. Aprovisional editorial board was to be set up, including Lewis A. Coser,Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, Michael Landmann, Niklas Luhmann, OttheinRammstedt and J.A. Schmoll (Eisenwerth). Incorporation in theAcademy programme was designed to ensure funding for two research-ers, one secretary and materials for four years. The archive and the edi-torial base was to remain in Bielefeld; and the Centre forInterdisciplinary Research was to be asked to fund a long-term researchgroup which would become a Simmel study group comprising the edi-tors, assistants and collaborators. Due to its interdisciplinary characterthe enterprise was to be located not in the Department of Sociology butin the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research.

Luhmann and Rammstedt submitted their request for the projectsincorporation in the Academy Programme in July 1982, and in the

same month the editorial Working Group was established withRammstedt as chair. The two editorial scholars Dahme and Ko hnke51

had the task of tracking down hitherto unknown texts and letters bySimmel, as well as lecture or seminar transcripts, and of researchingthe intellectual contexts of texts necessary for historical commentary.




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Unfortunately, due to the financial difficulties of the state of North-Rhine Westfalia, Luhmanns petition for funding from the Academy hadto be withdrawn, creating for Rammstedt the double burden of securing

finances and ensuring the suitability of the project for social science pur-poses. In September 1983 Luhmann and Rammstedt procured alternativefunding for three years from the Volkswagen Foundation, but furtherhopes of support from the Academy of North-Rhine Westfalia wouldhave to be abandoned by 1986, and other avenues had to be explored.Luhmann, Rammstedt, Dahme and Ko hnke all pursued various otherpossibilities, but with no success. In this seemingly desperate situationRammstedt turned directly to the Education Ministry of the state ofNorth-Rhine Westfalia, and finally, after numerous consultations, man-

aged to secure the ministrys agreement to support small related projects,to assist in approaching scientific organizations and foundations and toestablish an assistant position at Bielefeld for the History of Sociologywith a focus on Simmel scholarship.52 This enabled support for Dahmefor one year53 in 1986 and Ko hnke for five years54 from various projectfunds from the German Research Council, the Fritz ThyssenFoundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Education Ministry.

In March 1989 the first two volumes appeared: vol. 2, containing OnSocial Differentiation and the first version of Problems of the Philosophyof History, edited by Heinz-Ju rgen Dahme; and vol. 6, containing ThePhilosophy of Money, edited by David P. Frisby and Klaus ChristianKo hnke. Despite lack of a continuous editorial committee and assuredfinances, all the volumes of the Collected Works subsequently reachedpublication. The final volume, no. 24, is forthcoming in 2013.

Translated by Austin Harrington

Notes

1. Herman Schmalenbach, Simmel, Sozialistische Monatshefte 25 (1919),vol. 52, p. 288.

2. See the listing in Georg-Simmel-Gesamtausgabe (Collected Works in 24 vol-umes, hereafter GSG), vol. 20, pp. 510f., and the chronological bibliographyof first editions in GSG 24.

3. Letter to Margarete von Bendemann, 5 May 1918, GSG 23, p. 946; similarstatements to Hans Simmel, Lebenserinnerungen [Recollections] (1941/43),Simmel Studies 18 (1/2008), pp. 105f., and Ignaz Jastrow confirm that interestin Simmel grew even greater after his death in September 1918 than in his

lifetime, remarking on how those most deeply and uniquely influenced byhim were those who knew him personally. With the most composed of gazeshe would find a concept and a context for every object he beheld or contem-plated, taking his audience with him into philosophical heights and depths,and all the while ready to offer his brilliant mental counsel to others withoutany desire to show off or impress (Autobiographical Sketch [1920], hand

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manuscript, archive of the University of Chicago, Fritz Redlich Collection,p. 73f.; quoted in GSG 23, p. 1002).

4. Simmel completed corrections to the proofs of The View of Life on hisdeath-bed, the book subsequently appearing with Duncker & Humblotin December 1918. According to his wife, Simmel repeatedly describedthis work in his last days as his testament; it was, he said, the last dropof my wisdom, small as it may be (letter of Gertrud Simmel to HermannGraf von Keyserling, 22 January 1919, in library of the University ofDarmstadt, Keyserling Archive).

5. Gertrud Kantorowicz edited: Aus Georg Simmels nachgelassenemTagebuch [Selections from Simmels Diary], LOGOS: InternationaleZeitschrift fur Philosophie der Kultur, vol. 13, 3 (1919), pp. 12151; ZurPhilosophie des Schauspielers [Philosophy of the Dramatic Actor],

in ibid., vol. 9, 3 (1921), pp. 33962; and Fragment u ber dieLiebe [Fragment on Love], in ibid., vol. 10, 1 (1921), pp. 154.6. See Georg Simmel, Ueber Freiheit. Bruchstu cke aus dem Nachla [On

Freedom: Fragments from the Last Manuscripts], ed. Otto Baensch, inibid., vol. 11, 1 (1922), pp. 130.

7. Simmel preferred these writings not to be reissued, wrote Gertrud Simmelto Antonio Banfi on 13 June 1920 (Banfi-NL, Reggio Emilia), referringprimarily to Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft [Introduction to MoralScience] of 1892/93 and Der Krieg und die geistigen Entscheidungen [TheWar and our Spiritual Decisions] of 1917.

8. Georg Simmelffl

Schulpadagogik: Vorlesungen, gehalten an der UniversitatStrassburg [School Education: Lectures Held at the University ofStrasbourg], ed. K. Hauter, Osterwieck/Harz: A.W. Zieckfeldt, 1922; seeOtthein Rammstedt, GSG 20, pp. 504f. (editorial report).

9. According to Strasbourg municipal records, she left the city for Heidelbergon 16 December 1918, although on 22 January 1919 she wrote to HermannGraf von Keyserling that a Herr Hauter in Strasbourg would edit thelectures on school education (Keyserling-Archiv, Darmstadt).

10. Notably she rejected Gottfried Salomons proposal to introduce and editanew On Social Differentiation, concerned that the form of the book not be

altered. On principle I undertake nothing with Simmels books he has notalready intended and could not consider myself justified in writing a preface(letter 5 Dec. 1926; Int. Inst. v. Soc. Geschiedenis, Amsterdam).

11. See Michael Landmann, Bausteine zur Biographie [Rudiments of aBiography], in Kurt Gassen/Michael Landmann (eds) Buch des Dankes anGeorg Simmel. Briefe, Erinnerungen, Bibliographie. Zu seinem 100.Geburtstag am 1. Marz 1958 [Festschrift for Georg Simmel: Letters,Reminiscences, Bibliography on the Centenary of his Birth, 1 March1958], Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1958, p. 14. See Otthein Rammstedt,Editorischer Bericht [editorial report] in GSG 20, pp. 501f.; see also Gertrud

Kantorowicz, letter to Margarete von Bendemann, 7 March 1922 (LeoBaeck Institute, New York, Susman Collection).

12. Otto Baensch received an agreement from LOGOS to publish the essay onFreedom. Karl Hauter, on the other hand, appears to have met with greatdifficulties in finding a publisher for the manuscript on School Education.




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13. Gertrud Simmel reported this intention to Hermann Graf von Keyserling on22 January 1919 (Keyserling Archive, Darmstadt) and to Antonio Banfi on13 June 1920, expressly stating that this volume would contain exclusivelynew material (Banfi-NL, Reggio Emilia).

14. All that remained was one manuscript on Naturalism, which GertrudKantorowicz later subsumed in her anthologyffl Fragmente und Aufsatzeaus dem Nachla und Veroffentlichungen der letzten Jahre [Fragments andEssays from the Last Manuscripts and Other Last Writings].

15. To Karl Jaspers she wrote on 9 March 1922 that she was composing anessay collection designed to bring together only material of the highestimportance, and that to assemble material of diminished current importwould have been quite against Simmels intentions (DLA [GermanLiterature Archive], A: Jaspers).

16. Gertrud Simmel, letter to Martin Buber, 24 February 1922 (JNUL, BuberArchive, Letter 35).

17. Gertrud Simmel, letter to Martin Buber, 31 January 1922 (JNUL, BuberArchive, Letter 32) and to Friedrich Gundolf, 25 February 1922 (Universityof London, Gundolf-Nl).

18. Probably from hearsay about these activities, Michael Landmann formedthe conviction 35 years later that Gertrud Simmel had been at pains toinaugurate a Collected Works of her own after Simmels death and thather undertaking could not be realized because none of the many previouspublishers of Simmels work were willing to renounce copyright (Bausteine

zur Biographie, op. cit., p. 14). The truth is that before 1926 Gertrud didnot have access to Simmels library in Strasbourg after his death, and there-fore also not to any hand copies or printed copies of works, and she had noexact overview of his output and thus could form no reliable bibliography.And even in the 1920s no publisher would in principle have objected to theproject of a collected edition. The crucial matter was that a collected editionwould have been contrary to both Georgs and Gertruds understanding, fortheir concerns were solely to ensure that the last manuscripts came to printand that relevant parts of the total oeuvre remained readily available.

19. Not until 1925/6 did she retrieve her possessions in Strasbourg, including

hand copies of texts in Simmels library. When Antonio Banfi asked her fora bibliography in June 1920, all she could do after a visit to Jena UniversityLibrary on 2 August 1920 was send him a list of 123 titles (Banfi-NL, ReggioEmilia). This was well short of the 192 essays identified by todays CollectedWorks as having been published in Simmels lifetime.

20. Two of these bibliographies can be identified as stemming from GertrudSimmel, one titled Aufsa tze von Georg Simmel: Nach dem Verzeichnis derJenaer Universita tsbibliothek, containing 11 pages of type with 123 entries,the other headed Aufsa tze von Georg Simmel: Vorhanden, with 9 typedpages and 117 items, also detailing the number of copies in her possession

(one item belonging to [Ignaz] Jastrow, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, preu.Kulturbersitz, NL125 (Landmann)).21. She sent Martin Buber a provisional list for the areas art, religion and

philosophy of history on 31 January 1922.22. Letter of 15 February 1922 (University of London, Gundolf Archive).

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23. On this see also Hans Simmel (op. cit., p. 56), who reports that as early as1907 Simmel hoped one day, when all other studies had been completed, towrite his philosophy of art, free of all other commitments.

24. Gertrud most probably felt less willing to work with Duncker & Humblot(owing to alterations in the second edition of Soziologie, 1922), or with deGruyter (owing to breach of contract for the second of edition ofGrundfragender Soziologie [Basic Questions of Sociology], 1920) or Kro ner (to do with athird edition of Philosophische Kultur [Philosophical Culture], 1921/2), andthe reasons for her turning to Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag seem detectable ina letter to Buber, asking whether he found the publisher trustworthy andreliable (JNUL, Buber Archive, Letters 10 and 11).

25. Werner Siebeck, letter to Gertrud Simmel, 29 April 1922 (VA Mohr Siebeck,Tu bingen).

26. Namely Platonic and Modern Love (no. 6, June 1923) and an abridgedversion of Philosophie des Schauspielers [Philosophy of the DramaticActor] in Obelisk: Literarisches Beiblatt der OesterreichsischenRundschau, September 1923.

27. These were the following items:

August 1922: Ueber Freiheit. Bruchstu cke aus dem Nachla [OnFreedom: Fragments from the Last Manuscripts], ed. OttoBaensch, LOGOS: Internationale Zeitschrift fur Philosophie derKultur, 11, 1 (1922/23), pp. 130.

Probably autumn 1922: Schulpadagogik: Vorlesungen, gehalten ander Universitat Strassburg [School Education: Lectures at theUniversity of Strasbourg], ed. Karl Hauter, Osterwieck/Harz:A.W. Zickfeldt, 1922, pp. 135.

December 1922: Zur Philosophie der Kunst: Philosophische undkunstphilosophische Aufsatze [Essays on the Philosophy of Art],ed. Gertrud Simmel, Potsdam: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1922,pp. 175.

June 1923: Fragment u ber die Liebe. Aus dem Nachla GeorgSimmels [Fragment on Love: From the Last Manuscripts], ed.Gertrud Kantorowicz, LOGOS, 9, 3 (1921), pp. 33962 (alias Derplatonische und der moderne Eros [Platonic and Modern Love],in Fragmente und Aufsatze (see below)).

Probably August 1923: Fragmente und Aufsatze aus dem Nachlaund Veroffentlichungen der letzten Jahre [Fragments and Essaysfrom the Last Manuscripts and Other Last Writings], ed.

Gertrud Kantorowicz, Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1923,pp. 304. This contained the one extant manuscript from thefolder on philosophy of art, Zum Problem des Naturalismus[On the Problem of Naturalism], pp. 267304.




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October 1923: Allgemeine Einleitung [General Introduction], inGoethe-Ausgabe [Goethe: Collected Works], Berlin: VerlagUllstein, 1923, vol. 1 (Poems, 17561796), pp. 1197.

28. The years 19223 saw new editions of the following works: The Philosophyof Money (4th edn, 1922); Problems of the Philosophy of History (4th edn,1922), Religion (3rd, edn, 1922), Sociology (2nd edn, 1922), The View of Life(2nd edn, 1922), Philosophische Kultur [Philosophical Culture] (3rd edn,1923), Schopenhauer und Nietzsche (3rd edn, 1923), Goethe (5th edn,1923), Problems of the Philosophy of History (5th edn, 1923) andSociology (3rd edn, 1923).

29. See Margarete Susman, Ich habe viele Leben gelebt: Erinnerungen [Memoirs],Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1964, p. 137; see also the editorialafterword in Michael Landmann and Margarete Susman (eds), GeorgSimmel: Brucke und Tur: Essays des Philosophen zur Geschichte, Religion,Kunst und Gesellschaft [Georg Simmel: Bridge and Door: Essays on thePhilosophy of History, Religion, Art and Society] Stuttgart: K.F.Koehler, 1957, p. 271.

30. See Richard Drews and Alfred Kantorowicz (eds), Verboten und verbrannt:Deutsche Literatur 12 Jahre unterdruckt [Forbidden and Burned: GermanLiterature Twelve Years of Suppression], Berlin and Munich: HeinzUllstein/Helmut Kindler, 1947, p. 206.

31. With the exception of doctoral dissertations already begun before the startof the Nazi years, e.g.: Gerhard Loose, Die Religionssoziologie GeorgSimmels, Leipzig, 1933; Herwig Mu ller, Georg Simmel als Deuter undFortbildner Kants, Leipzig, 1935.

32. Karl Dunkmann (ed.), Lehrbuch der Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie[Handbook of Sociology and Social Philosophy], Berlin: Junker undDu nnhaupt, 1931, p. 141.

33. Albion Small, review of Nicholas Spykman, The Social Theory of GeorgSimmel, American Journal of Sociology 31 (1925), pp. 8487.

34. Michael Landmann, Georg Simmel: Vorbereitung eines Archivs und einerAusgabe [Georg Simmel: Creating an Archive and an Edition], in GeorgiSchischkoff (ed.), Philosophische Vortra

ge und Diskussionen, Wurzach/

Wu rtt.: Pan/Birnbach, 1948, p. 204f. (Zeitschrift fur philosophischeForschung, Sonderheft 1).

35. Regarding earlier bibliographies other than Gertrud Simmels listing of1921/2, detailing at least 137 German-language essays: a bibliography inNicholas J. Spykmans The Social Theory of Georg Simmel (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1925) also named 137 works, including 93German-language essays. Shortly after the Second World War, the bibliog-raphy by Erich Rosenthal and Kurt Oberlaender, Books, Papers, andEssays by Georg Simmel in the American Journal of Sociology (51, 1946,

pp. 23847), contained 252 items, comprising 132 German-language essays.Kurt Gassen named 31 books, 256 essays, 98 translations and 153 Germanessays, citing Spykmans and Rosenthal and Oberlaenders findings inBibliography of Writings on Georg Simmel, in Kurt H. Wolff (ed.),Georg Simmel 18581919: A Collection of Essays, with Translations and aBibliography, Ohio: State University Press, 1959, p. 357. Still to be

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determined is whether Rosenthal and Oberlaender made use of the now lostbibliography of Gertrud Simmel.

36. Horst Mu ller was a student of Landmann who took his PhD in 1959 at theFree University of Berlin with a thesis on Lebensphilosophie und Religionbei Georg Simmel.

37. The contributions are ordered into the six areas of Life and Philosophy,History and Culture, Religion, The Beautiful and Art, HistoricalPersonalities and Society.

38. Mu llers Plan einer Gesamtausgabe der Werke Georg Simmels (in KurtGassen and Michael Landmann, eds., Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel,Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1958, p. 62f.) was as follows:

Vol. I: The Philosophy of MoneyVol. II: SociologyVol. III: On Social Differentiation/Problems of the Philosophy ofHistory (detailing variants in the 2nd and 3rd editions)Vol. IVa: Introduction to Moral Science, Part 1Vol. IVb: Introduction to Moral Science, Part 2Vol. V: Kant/Kant and GoetheVol. VI: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche/Main Problems ofPhilosophyVol. VII: GoetheVol. VIII: Rembrandt/Michelangelo/RodinVol. IX: Basic Questions of Sociology/School EducationVol. X: The View of Life/Notizen aus dem nachgelassenenTagebuch [Diary Notes]/Aus der nachgelassenen MappeMetaphysik [Manuscripts on Metaphysics]Vol. XI: Essays on Sociology, Ethics and PsychologyVol. XII: Essays on the Philosophy of Culture, History andReligionVol. XIII: Essays on Aesthetics and the Philosophy of ArtVol. XIV: Essays on Thinkers, Poets and Artists/Appendices.

39. Where Landmann wrote in 1948 that not not all essays were appropriate

for a collected edition (op. cit., p. 205), Mu ller stated that fleeting writingsof the moment were not candidates for a Collected Works (op. cit., p. 61).

40. Michael Landmann, letter to Hans Broermann, Verlag Duncker &Humblot, 16 November 1961 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, preu.Kulturbesitz, NL 125 (Landmann)), proposing Mu ller as collaborator fora Collected Works.

41. Delegates included: Bruno Accarino (Florence), Horst Baier (Constance),Heribert Becher (Eichsta tt), Hannes Boeringer (Berlin), Lewis A. Coser(Stony Brook), Petra Christian-Widmaier (Stuttgart), Hein-Ju rgen Dahme(Bielefeld), David P. Frisby (Glasgow), Werner Gephart (Du sseldorf),Uta Gerhard (Giessen), Karlfried Gru nder (Berlin), Sibylle Hu bner-Funk (Munich), Klaus Christian Ko hnke (Berlin), Michael Landmann(Haifa), Donald N. Levine (Chicago), Klaus Lichtblau (Bielefeld),Niklas Luhmann (Bielefeld), Birgitta Nedelmann (Freiburg), OttheinRammstedt (Bielefeld), J.A. Schmoll/Eisenwerth (Munich), Peter-Ernst




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Schnabel (Bielefeld), Hartmann Tyrell (Bielefeld), and Kurt H. Wolff(Newton, MA).

42. In the once influential work by Friedrich Ueberweg of 1916, Grundri derPhilosophie vom Beginn des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts bis auf die Gegenwart[History of Philosophy from the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century to thePresent] (ed. Konstantin Oesterreich, vol. 4, Berlin: Mittler, 1916, pp. 398401), Simmels philosophy is categorized as a distinctive variant ofNeo-Kantianism. In Georg Luka css Die Zerstorung der Vernunft[The Destruction of Reason] (1962, 2nd edn, Neuwied: Luchterhand),Simmels Lebensphilosophie is branded the ideology of imperialist rentierparasitism (p. 400).

43. Notably work by among others Reinhard Bendix, Peter M. Blau,Stephen Cole, Lewis A. Coser, C. Wright Mills, Erving Goffman, Everett

C. Hughes, Donald N. Levine, Robert K. Merton, Kaspar D. Naegele,Albert Salomon, Ralph H. Turner and Kurt H. Wolff. See Donald N.Levine, Ellwood B. Carter and Eleanor Miller Gorman, SimmelsInfluence on American Sociology, in Hannes Bo hringer and KarlfriedGru nder (eds), Asthetik und Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende: GeorgSimmel, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1976, pp. 13575; Gary D.Jaworski, Georg Simmel and the American Prospect, Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1997.

44. Horst Baier, Editionen in den Sozialwissenschaften, in Walter Jaeschkeet al. (eds), Buchstabe und Geist. Zur Uberlieferung und Edition philoso-

phischer Texte (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1987), p. 216.45. Against the background of the student revolts of 1968 and the social andpolitical disputes bound up with them, the consciousness of crisis in andabout sociology would be recorded in Alvin W. Gouldner, The ComingCrisis of Western Sociology, New York: Basic Books, 1970; Hans Ju rgenKrysmanski and Peter Marwedel (eds), Die Krise in der Soziologie, Ko ln:Pahl-Rugenstein 1975; and Gottfried Eisermann (ed.), Die Krise derSoziologie, Stuttgart: Enke, 1976.

46. See Niklas Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, vol. 2, Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp, 1981, pp. 25870; idem, Die Wissenschaft der

Gesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992, p. 452f; OttheinRammstedt, Klassiker der Soziologie was ist das eigentlich?,Soziologische Revue 11 (1988), 3, pp. 26977; idem, Umgang mitKlassikern, Soziologische Revue 18 (1995), 4, pp. 51521; CarloMongardini, Die Bedeutung der Klassiker fu r die neue europa ischeSoziologie, Simmel Newsletter 2 (1992), 2, pp. 10512.

47. The prospectus to this Marx/Engels edition describes the volumes as meet-ing a true need of the entire international workers movement and workersscience, an exigency of the progressive forces of all peoples (Prospekt,Marx/Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Berlin: Dietz, 1978, p. 2).

48. The first prospectus for the Collected Works of Max Weber justified theproject by reference to Webers importance for modern sociology, forGerman political history and for European intellectual history(Prospekt, Marx/Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Tu bingen: J.C.B. Mohr [PaulSiebeck] May 1981, p. 2).

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49. Of great value in particular were the suggestions of Horst Baier (from theWeber editorial committee) and Karlfried Gru nder (from the WilhelmDilthey edition).

50. Simmel Archive, Bielefeld, 27 June 1982.51. Heinz-Ju rgen Dahme completed a PhD in 1980 with Rammstedt on

Soziologie als exakte Wissenschaft: Georg Simmels Ansatz und seineBedeutung in der gegenwartigen Soziologie [Sociology as Exact Science:The Work of Georg Simmel and its Significance for ContemporarySociology] (published in 2 vols, Stuttgart: Enke, 1981). Klaus ChristianKo hnke was a student of Michael Landmann and completed his dissertationon Neo-Kantianism in 1985 at the Free University of Berlin: Entstehung undAufstieg des Neukantianismus: Die deutsche Universitatsphilosophie zwischenIdealismus und Positivismus [The Rise of Neo-Kantianism: German

Academic Philosophy between Idealism and Positivism], Frankfurt amMain: Suhrkamp, 1986. In 1982 he extended Kurt Gassens Simmel bibli-ography by some 30 titles.

52. Feeling himself at the limit of his capacities, Luhmann was unwilling to signthe plea that led to this agreement with the ministry and to continue to workas co-editor with Rammstedt.

53. Dahme worked for the History of Sociology cluster in Bielefeld in 19879before moving to a career in public administration.

54. Ko hnke was a lecturer at the Free University of Berlin from 1990 to 1996.

Otthein Rammstedt is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Universityof Bielefeld, Germany. He is General Editor of the German collectededition of Simmels works, published by Suhrkamp Verlag.

http://tcs.sagepub.com/

On the Genesis of a Collected Edition of Simmel's Works, 1918−2012

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