Emerich K. Francis

Emerich Francis (born Emerich Franzis: 27 June 1906 – 14 January 1994) was an Austrian-American sociologist. He is also identified in some sources under the pseudonym that he sometimes used as "Junius". His emigration from what had become, by 1939, part of Nazi Germany, appears to have been undertaken as a result of his (hitherto, to most people, unknown) Jewish provenance. During the 1930s his work had a German-nationalist focus, and dealt in particular with ethnic and religious minorities. After 1945 his contributions became more theoretical and less overtly political.

Life Provenance and early years Emerich Klaus Franzis was born at Gablonz (as Jablonec nad Nisou was known before 1945), a midsized trading and manufacturing town northeast of Prague, in the mountain foothills of northern Bohemia, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This meant that despite being born in what became, after 1918, Czechoslovakia, he was nevertheless able to retain his Austrian citizenship after the postwar break-up of Austria-Hungary. He then studied for two terms during 1924/25 at the University of Innsbruck where he embarked on courses at the Philosophy and Arts ("Philosophisch-Kulturwissenschaften") Faculties. As a postgraduate student in Prague he also supported himself both through journalism and by working as a home tutor to families from the Bohemian nobility. During 1935 Emerich Francis married Gisela Schweizer from nearby Leitmeritz. One source indicates that he was hoping to become a monk or a priest. At one point, taking advantage of his vocational training during the 1920s, he was able to take skilled work as a typesetter. who dedicated a considerable amount of time to driving Francis round the countryside, between the East and West Mennonite "reserves". Friesen later recalled that although Francis was, on most occasions, perfectly able to understand the Plautdietsch dialect he encountered during his researches, he always insisted on conducting his interviews in High German.Francis was able to devote himself full-time to the project, since the Historical and Scientific Society, which had commissioned the work, backed him with a fellowship which provided support from September 1945 till March 1947. He also continued to teach German and assist the embryonic sociology department at the university. While undertaking his study Francis was able to cultivate the Winnipeg historian William Lewis Morton, with whom he had much in common personally and politically. Morton became an ally in the search to try and find a publisher for the substantial book that the research work could support. In the event the book in question was published only in 1955 due to issues over permissions (from the Historical Society that had sponsored the research) to publish and a succession of disagreements with the University of Toronto Press on matters such as the inclusion of large numbers of (expensive to reproduce) tables and appendices, along with the ticklish question of whether and how much the original manuscript might be edited down. Nevertheless, long before that the Mennonite research had formed the basis for several well based academic papers. Even though many of the audiences from the Historical and Scientific society to whom he presented his findings were more appreciative of the historical narratives included in his work than in the extensive demographic, ecological and institutional analyses, many of them delivered by means of a formidable battery of number based charts and tables, by 1947 Francis was already establishing himself in North America as a social scientist of note. The subject was not yet widely taught outside continental Europe, but that would change during the 1950s and 1960s. During the next two years he took on visiting professorships at both the University of Innsbruck and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Munich In 1955, Francis applied for the newly instituted chair in Sociology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The chair came with the opportunity to create the university's new Institute of Sociology. His appointment was opposed by the Bavarian Minister for Education and Culture, August Rucker. Even after the minister's favoured candidate turned down the position, Rucker continued to oppose the appointment of Emerich Francis to it. The vacancy as envisaged remained unfilled: Alfred von Martin administered the new sociology department, but von Martin was by now in his mid-70s and contributions he made between 1955 and 1958 appear to have made relatively little impression. In the end it took a change of government to open the way for Francis. The coalition government of Wilhelm Hoegner fell in October 1957 and Rucker lost his ministerial position. Emerich Francis took up the teaching chair in sociology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Francis remained in post at Munich till his retirement in 1974. Admirers record with obvious regret that his "list of publications in journals after 1958 is rather sparse". In 1967, his responsibilities were added to when he accepted a part-time Honorarprofessor position at the University of Innsbruck. There is a sense that setting up the new Institute of Sociology and the quantity of teaching he found himself doing left little time either for writing or for "hiking in the Alps" beyond Garmisch.

Awards and honours (selection)

Published output (selection)