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The article provides information on German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies and his views on rural sociology. Ferdinand was born in 1855, at his parental farms in Eiderstead in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. A symposium has been organized on the 125 birth anniversary of Ferdinand by the "Institut für Soziologie" of the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, the "Ferdinand Tönnies Gesellschaft" and the "Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliotek Kiel." The most important outcome of the symposium was a volume of essays "Ankunft bei Tönnies. Contributions to the volume have been prepared by fifteen scholars with varied backgrounds and interests. The concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as analytical tools are discussed by Alexander Dreichsel. Ralph Segalman writes about the use and misuse of the concept of Gemeinschaft. Sybille Tönnies considers the part played by Tönnies' personal values in his conceptualization of the Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft typology. Finally, Klaus Heberle, Horst Rode and Ekkehart Klug examine where Tönnies stood politically when nazism emerged in Germany.