MARIE JAHODA - File Inspection: Marie Jahoda in Detention

Book

Date of First Publication: October 15, 2021

The social psychologist Marie Jahoda (1907-2001) was imprisoned for nine months in 1936/37. Her crime was fighting the dictatorship of the Dollfuß-Schuschnigg regime as a revolutionary socialist. During interrogations and in court, Jahoda strictly adhered to one rule of clandestine underground work: Admit only what can no longer be denied, and do not incriminate others. "This book makes an important contribution to political education and honors a woman whose political resistance against dictatorships serves as a role model counterpoint to today’s widespread political disenchantment — because: 'Those who sleep in democracy wake up in dictatorship.'" Friedrich Forsthuber, President of the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters.

On the 115th Birthday: With the study “The Unemployed of Marienthal,” Marie Jahoda became famous far beyond scientific circles. Less known is her political engagement in the 1930s and her imprisonment in Austrofascist prisons from November 1936 to July 1937.

Marie Jahoda is known as the main author of the study “The Unemployed of Marienthal,” which examined the effects of the Great Depression on the social fabric of a small Austrian town nearly 100 years ago. On January 26, 2022, Jahoda’s birthday will mark her 115th anniversary. Her biography is widely known, from the Marienthal study to exile in Great Britain and the USA, to her professorship at the University of Sussex in England, where she shaped the discipline of social psychology. Less well known are the years immediately preceding her expulsion from Austria: her political engagement and imprisonment in Austrofascist prisons in 1936 and 1937.

Author Portrait

The Editors: Johann Bacher, Sociologist, University Professor at the Institute of Sociology, Johannes Kepler University Linz. Waltraud Kannonier-Finster, Sociologist, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Innsbruck (until 2011). Meinrad Ziegler, Sociologist, retired University Professor at the Institute of Sociology, Johannes Kepler University Linz.

Bibliographic Details

2021, 256 pages, dimensions: 16 x 23.5 cm, hardcover, German

Edited by: Bacher, Johann; Kannonier-Finster, Waltraud; Ziegler, Meinrad

Publisher: StudienVerlag

Publication Date: 19.10.2021

Review of “File Inspection”

"This book makes an important contribution to political education and honors a woman whose political resistance against dictatorships serves as a role model counterpoint to today’s widespread political disenchantment — because: 'Those who sleep in democracy wake up in dictatorship.'" Friedrich Forsthuber, President of the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters.