This course compares and analyses the most important empirical social research studies in Germany and the USA conducted from the middle of the 19th century until the mid 1950s. We will discuss if the possible di?erences in the choices of research themes, the development of new research methods, and the intended use for research results could be caused by the di?erent societal development in both countries. We will check our hypotheses that the di?erences in empirical research resulted from the researchers reaction on the respective political, economic and social situation in both countries. This hypothesis is supported by looking at the breaks of government forms in Germany: From a height of social empirical research during the time of the German Empire (1872 to 1918) empirical social research was disrupted during the Weimar Republic (1919 - 1933) mainly because of economic reasons but also by political struggles. Empirical social research then nearly was terminated in Germany during the Nazi Regime (1933 -1945) because only National Socialistic research themes were allowed to be conducted and promoted. In the USA, in contrast, empirical social research started to develop since the consolidation of the federation of states around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, and from then developed steadily and with increasing acceleration: Empirical social research was used to stabilize the democratic state. After World War II the USA heavily supported empirical social research in the three, by the USA, Great Britain and France ruled democratic ´Zones´ of Germany, the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) (1949), which may be interpreted as a ´reimport´ of parts of basics of empirical social research developed earlier in Germany. New initiatives of empirical social research developed in the FRG did not ?nd the same acceptance. Schließen