In the Shadow of Max Weber: Bärbel Meurer's Portrait of Marianne Weber

Abstract

[iMWS 11.1 (2011) 141-146] ISSN 1470-8078 Review Essay In the Shadow of Max Weber: Bärbel Meurer's Portrait of Marianne Weber Bärbel Meurer, Marianne Weber. Leben und Werk (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. xix + 688,20 photos. ISBN 978-3-16-150452-5. Hbk. €89.00. On 17 June 1920 an impressive number of mourners from academia, politics and society gathered at Munich's East Cemetery. It was the funeral ceremony for Max Weber who in the midst of a new burst of creative energy had died at the age of 56. After the funeral speeches the widow, Marianne Weber, stepped forward 'to the richly decorated bier in order to speak of his inner being and his generosity of spirit'.1 This was reported in the newspapers as well as in private correspondence as unusual and unbecoming. Marianne Weber should be regarded as a brave and, for her time, a modern woman. She is known today, also in England, as the biographer of Max Weber. Her 'Lebensbild' has been translated into many languages and stands as the richest biography of the great sociologist and universal scholar. But who was she really? The sociologist Bärbel Meurer has laboured in a comprehensive biography of almost 700 pages to retrieve Marianne Weber from the large shadow of her husband. The book is published by Mohr Siebeck of Tübingen and its cover is very similar to the 'Lebensbild' from the same publishing house. Immediately it feels like a parallel biography, and indeed Meurer uses the same methods as Marianne Weber: she cites where available from a selection of the surviving correspondence of Marianne Weber to Helene Weber and allows Marianne's voice to speak for herself. Alongside this large collection of letters, the letters to Sophie Rickert and to Else von Richthofen are used. The life of Marianne Weber (1870-1954) is laid out before us in eight chapters with all its highs and lows, not only the personal story but also German history. She was born in the Kaiserreich, lived through the first and second world wars, and the breakdown of political and social order of 1918 and 1933 as well as the new start of 1945. The foundations of her life were always precarious, both personally and materially. As the only child of a country doctor Eduard Schnitger and his wife Arma Weber, who came from a family linen business, she grew up, after the early death of her mother and the worsening psychological illness of her father, as more or less an orphan looked after in the small town of Lemgo by her grandmother and aunt. After leaving school, she went to Berlin in 1892 taking drawing lessons and came in closer contact with the family of Max Weber. Marianne Weber, and here Meurer7s descriptions are wonderful, stood 1. Anonymous newspaper article: 'Max Webers Feuerbestattung', Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, Nr. 244,18 June 1920:3.© Max Weber Studies 2011, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 142 Max Weber Studies out in her garish clothes and lower middle class be and upper middle class atmosphere. She quickly fe reserved eldest son of the Weber family. Meurer ske the engagement and marriage in 1893 with her cousi At Max Weber's side the young ambitious wom education. She attended, as a guest, the lectures colleagues. She wanted to gain a doctoral degree Rickert with a study of Fichte, but lacking the f not be admitted as a student. Her book on Ficht 'Volkwirtschaftliche Abhandlungen der Badischen by Max Weber. At the same time her private life achiever among the young professors of economic after the summer semester of 1898 he could no long in clinics followed one after another, those neares and helplessness and this was accompanied by a sion of Max Weber's apparent weakness of will. In the household in Heidelberg and started a months with her husband, always dependent on the finan life did not accord with Marianne's outlook, sinc wished to be part of the intellectual and social s ingly overwhelmed and suffered from nervous tens with the middle class women's movement and ab she attempted to...