Bio: (1912-1984) German sociologist. Helmut Schelsky received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig, where he came under the influence of Hans Freyer. Before the Second World War, he taught at the University of Strasbourg, and in that period he became a member of the Nazi Party in Germany. After the Second World War, he taught at the universities of Hamburg, Münster, and Bielefeld. Schelsky mainly studied German post-war society: institutions, stratification, family, industry, youth, education, unemployment, and sexuality. He was a representative of applied sociology. He believed that the German youth in the 1950s became what he called a "skeptical generation", and this situation was due to the fascist past of the country that the youth wanted to suppress, so this generation was mainly focused on professional and family life. At the end of his life, Schelsky became a lawyer and an antisociologist.      

Main works

Theorie der Gemeinschaft nach Fichtes „Naturrecht“ von 1796 (1935);

Das Freiheitswollen der Völker und die Idee des Planstaats (1946);

Zur Stabilität von Institutionen (1952);

Wandlungen der deutschen Familie in der Gegenwart (1953);

Soziologie der Sexualität (1955);

Die sozialen Folgen der Automatisierung (1957);

Die skeptische Generation (1957);

Schule und Erziehung in der industriellen Gesellschaft (1957);

Ortsbestimmung der deutschen Soziologie (1959);

Einsamkeit und Freiheit: Die deutsche Universität und ihre Reformen (1963);

Die Soziologen und das Recht (1980).