Abstract
This volume of Max Weber’s letters is the final volume to appear in the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe although it contains the correspondence from his early years (1875–1886). Weber’s letters from the first two years are to his mother and father and are typically about the weather, his studies, and his interests. By the closing years of this volume Weber is an adult who has graduated with a degree in law, has completed most of his military service, and has successfully passed a major legal examination. The letters are addressed to a number of different people, but almost all of them reveal an increasingly sophisticated and knowledgeable young man. It is not surprising that many of the letters are addressed to his mother and his father, nor is it surprising that many of them are written to uncles, aunts, and cousins. In particular, there are a dozen letters to his older cousin Fritz Baumgarten on various topics, including the books that Weber was reading. These included some of Walter Scott’s novels, and Ernst Curtius’s three-volume work on Greek history. He wrote that he was reading two of Leopold Ranke’s books on history and he noted they were written in a style that was reminiscent of Goethe. Weber did not find that so unusual as they were published in 1824, but he was sorry that both of Ranke’s books were mostly forgotten. He was looking forward to the publication of Friedrich von Treitschke’s second volume on the history of 19th-century Germany, but it appears from these letters that Weber had already adopted a cautious approach to this famous Berlin professor. While at Heidelberg, Weber wrote often about his professors: he thought that the noted economist Karl Knies was boring and the famous Kuno Fischer was pretentious, but he enjoyed Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer’s history lectures and especially Immanuel Bekker and his courses on law. Weber indicated that he learned much from both of these professors but that he personally liked Bekker. In his wish list for Christmas 1882, Weber included Gibbon’s History of Decline and wrote he would welcome it in German or in English. Weber’s opinions of his professors sometimes changed—in May of 1882, Weber wrote that while he found Kuno Fischer’s course on logic to be tedious, he later acknowledged that he greatly appreciated his lectures on Kant. At the beginning of the summer semester of 1883, Weber admitted he no longer thought that Knies was boring and he was actually learning a significant amount from his lectures.
It is also not very surprising that many of these letters contain references to political events and they reveal Weber as having a keen sense regarding political issues. Some of these comments are about general political issues, but often they were about his family. One particular case involved two of his uncles: Hermann Baumgarten who was a professor in Straßburg wrote a scathing review of Treitschke’s work and Treitschke responded in kind. When Weber commented on this, his other uncle Adolf Hausrath who was a professor in Heidelberg defended Treitschke by insisting that dozens of Baumgartens could be made out of one Treitschke. This shows that Weber’s passion for political controversy was also an inherited trait.
What is surprising is that these letters also reveal he had a remarkable understanding of theology and history and a good appreciation for religious issues. He read works by Friedrich Schleiermacher and David Strauß, and at Straßburg he attended lecture courses given by the church historian and legal scholar Rudolf Sohm. However, he was not totally convinced by Strauß’s writings and he did not share Sohm’s aversion to Catholicism. His interest in religion is shown by his discussions about his conversations with his aunt Ida Baumgarten about William Ellery Channing’s writings. His concern about religion is also shown by some letters to his younger brother Alfred. That Weber emphasized the practical side of Christianity and the importance of the Christian community is to be expected; but he also insisted that religion is an individual matter and that religion is fundamentally a matter of faith and not something that can be conceptualized.
Weber’s letters often are filled with comments about mundane things: how good or bad the weather was, whether he slept well or poorly, or how much something cost. And, there are almost always greetings to family members as well as the apologies for his tardiness in writing. These letters also reveal Weber’s interests—the books he is reading, the courses he is taking, and the people he has met. In short, the letters reveal a young man discovering life’s complexity and richness. Those interested in learning about Max Weber the person rather than the famous thinker will be rewarded by reading this volume of his correspondence.