Anarchism in Germany
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German
The anarchists
Contemporary German anarchist organizations include the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers' Union and the Federation of German speaking Anarchists (Föderation Deutschsprachiger AnarchistInnen).
History
The roots of anarchism in Germany
Anarchist historians often trace the roots of German anarchism back to the 16th century German Peasants' War. On the other hand, both James Joll and George Woodcock hold that this link is exaggerated. Later anarchists have also claimed the liberal thinking of Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and Heinrich Heine to be the precursors of anarchism.[3]
In the first half of the 19th century, there was no significant anarchist movement in Germany to speak of, but several thinkers were influenced by anarchism, particularly by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. According to Gustav Landauer, the thinking of political satirist Ludwig Börne, though not anarchist, had some parallels to anarchism.
Several German socialists of this period also exhibited anarchist tendencies. The young
German anarchists such as Max Nettlau and Gustav Landauer credited Edgar Bauer with founding the anarchist tradition in Germany.[5] In 1843 he published a book titled The Conflict of Criticism with Church and State. This caused him to be charged with sedition. He was imprisoned for four years in the fortress at Magdeburg.
Max Stirner
Stirner's philosophy is usually called "egoism". He says that the egoist rejects pursuit of devotion to "a great idea, a good cause, a doctrine, a system, a lofty calling," saying that the egoist has no political calling but rather "lives themselves out" without regard to "how well or ill humanity may fare thereby."[6] Stirner held that the only limitation on the rights of the individual is his power to obtain what he desires.[7] He proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society—were mere spooks in the mind. Stirner wanted to "abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members."[8]
Max Stirner's idea of the union of Egoists (German: Verein von Egoisten), was first expounded in The Ego and Its Own. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the state.[9] The Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will.[10] The Union requires that all parties participate out of a conscious egoism. If one party silently finds themselves to be suffering, but puts up and keeps the appearance, the union has degenerated into something else.[10]
Although Stirner's philosophy is individualist, it has influenced some
Johann Most
As the 1860s drew to a close, Most was won over to the ideas of
After advocating violent action, including the use of explosive bombs, as a mechanism to bring about revolutionary change, Most was forced into exile by the government. He went to France but was forced to leave at the end of 1878, settling in London. There he founded his own newspaper, Encouraged by news of labor struggles and industrial disputes in the United States, Most emigrated to the USA upon his release from prison in 1882. He promptly began agitating in his adopted land among other German émigrés.
German individualist anarchism
An influential form of individualist anarchism, called "egoism,"[18] or egoist anarchism, was expounded by one of the earliest and best-known proponents of individualist anarchism, the German Max Stirner.[19] Stirner's The Ego and Its Own, published in 1844, is a founding text of the philosophy.[19] According to Stirner, the only limitation on the freedom of the individual is their power to obtain what they desire,[20] without regard for God, state, or morality.[21] To Stirner, rights were spooks in the mind, and he held that society as an abstract whole does not exist but rather "the individuals are its reality".[22] Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw unions of egoists, voluntary and non-systematic associations continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will,[23] which Stirner proposed as a form of organization in place of the state.[9] Egoist anarchists claim that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals.[24][page needed] "Egoism" has inspired many interpretations of Stirner's philosophy. It was re-discovered and promoted by German philosophical anarchist and LGBT activist John Henry Mackay.
John Henry Mackay
In Germany the Scottish-born German John Henry Mackay became the most important individualist anarchist propagandist. He fused Stirnerist egoism with the positions of Benjamin Tucker and translated Tucker into German. Two semi-fictional writings of his own Die Anarchisten and Der Freiheitsucher contributed to individualist theory, updating egoist themes with respect to the anarchist movement. His writing were translated into English as well.[25] Mackay is also an important European early activist for LGBT rights.
Anarchism in the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and under Nazism
In the German uprising known as the Bavarian Soviet Republic the anarchists Gustav Landauer, Silvio Gesell and Erich Mühsam had important leadership positions within the revolutionary councilist structures.[1] On 6 April 1919, a Soviet Republic was formally proclaimed. Initially, it was ruled by USPD members such as Ernst Toller, and anarchists like Gustav Landauer, Silvio Gesell and Erich Mühsam.
Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam (6 April 1878 – 10 July 1934) was a German-Jewish anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic. Also a cabaret performer, he achieved international prominence during the years of the Weimar Republic for works which, before Hitler came to power in 1933, condemned Nazism and satirized the future dictator.
Mühsam moved to Berlin in 1900, where he soon became involved in a group called
In 1926, Mühsam founded a new journal which he called Fanal (The Torch), in which he openly and precariously criticized the communists and the far Right-wing conservative elements within the Weimar Republic. During these years, his writings and speeches took on a violent, revolutionary tone, and his active attempts to organize a united front to oppose the radical Right provoked intense hatred from conservatives and nationalists within the Republic. Mühsam specifically targeted his writings to satirize the growing phenomenon of Nazism, which later raised the ire of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.
Mühsam was arrested on charges unknown in the early morning hours of 28 February 1933, within a few hours after the
Rudolf Rocker, German Anarcho-Syndicalism and World War II
Rudolf Rocker returned to Germany in November 1918 upon an invitation from Fritz Kater to join him in Berlin to re-build the Free Association of German Trade Unions (FVdG). The FVdG was a radical labor federation that quit the SPD in 1908 and became increasingly syndicalist and anarchist. During World War I, it had been unable to continue its activities for fear of government repression, but remained in existence as an underground organization.[26] Rocker was opposed to the FVdG's alliance with the communists during and immediately after the November Revolution, as he rejected Marxism, especially the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Soon after arriving in Germany, however, he once again became seriously ill. He started giving public speeches in March 1919, including one at a congress of munitions workers in Erfurt, where he urged them to stop producing war material. During this period the FVdG grew rapidly and the coalition with the communists soon began to crumble. Eventually all syndicalist members of the Communist Party were expelled. From 27 to 30 December 1919, the twelfth national congress of the FVdG was held in Berlin. The organization decided to become the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) under a new platform, which had been written by Rocker: the Prinzipienerklärung des Syndikalismus (Declaration of Syndicalist Principles). It rejected political parties and the dictatorship of the proletariat as bourgeois concepts. The program only recognized de-centralized, purely economic organizations. Although public ownership of land, means of production, and raw materials was advocated, nationalization and the idea of a communist state were rejected. Rocker decried nationalism as the religion of the modern state and opposed violence, championing instead direct action and the education of the workers.[27]
On
In the following years, Rocker became one of the most regular writers in the FAUD organ
During the mid-1920s, the decline of Germany's syndicalist movement started. The FAUD had reached its peak of around 150,000 members in 1921, but then started losing members to both the Communist and the Social Democratic Party. Rocker attributed this loss of membership to the mentality of German workers accustomed to military discipline, accusing the communists of using similar tactics to the Nazis and thus attracting such workers. In the 1930 elections, the Nazi Party received 18.3% of all votes, a total of 6 million. Rocker was worried: "Once the Nazis get to power, we'll all go the way of Landauer and Eisner" (who were killed by reactionaries in the course of the Munich Soviet Republic uprising).[30]
After the
In May, Rocker and Witkop moved back to London. There Rocker was welcomed by many of the Jewish anarchists he had lived and fought alongside for many years. He held lectures all over the city. In July, he attended an extraordinary IWA meeting in Paris, which decided to smuggle its organ Die Internationale into Nazi Germany.[32] In 1937, Nationalism and Culture, which he had started work on around 1925, was finally published with the help of anarchists from Chicago Rocker had met in 1933. A Spanish edition was released in three volumes in Barcelona, the stronghold of the Spanish anarchists. It would be his best-known work.[33] In 1938, Rocker published a history of anarchist thought, which he traced all the way back to ancient times, under the name Anarcho-Syndicalism. A modified version of the essay would be published in the Philosophical Library series European Ideologies under the name Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism in 1949.[34]
Post-war
After World War II, an appeal in the Fraye Arbeter Shtime detailing the plight of German anarchists and called for Americans to support them. By February 1946, the sending of aid parcels to anarchists in Germany was a large-scale operation. In 1947, Rocker published Zur Betrachting der Lage in Deutschland (Regarding the Portrayal of the Situation in Germany) about the impossibility of another anarchist movement in Germany. It became the first post-World War II anarchist writing to be distributed in Germany. Rocker thought young Germans were all either totally cynical or inclined to fascism and awaited a new generation to grow up before anarchism could bloom once again in the country. Nevertheless, the Federation of Libertarian Socialists (FFS) was founded in 1947 by former FAUD members. Rocker wrote for its organ, Die Freie Gesellschaft, which survived until 1953.[35]
Contemporary
The
The Federation of German speaking Anarchists (Föderation Deutschsprachiger AnarchistInnen) is a
Covid-19 pandemic
German authorities have tried to evict anarchist communities and squats that are the base of anarchist support. During the 2020 pandemic German authorities forcefully evicted
Publications
Der Eigene
Der Einzige
Graswurzelrevolution
References
- ^
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8387-5416-0.
- ^ Carlson 1972, p. 13.
- ^ Carlson 1972, pp. 22–30.
- ^ Cp. Nettlau, M., Der Vorfrühling der Anarchie. Berlin, 1925, p. 178. Landauer, G., "Zur Geschichte des Wortes Anarchie." In: Der Sozialist, 1 June 1909.
- ^ Moggach, Douglas. The New Hegelians. Cambridge University Press, 2006 p. 183
- ^ The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge. Encyclopedia Corporation. p. 176
- ^ Heider, Ulrike. Anarchism: Left, Right and Green, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994, pp. 95–96
- ^ ISBN 0-7102-0685-2.
- ^ OCLC 47758413, archived from the original(PDF) on 12 October 2012, retrieved 1 September 2012
- ^ For Ourselves, "The_Right_To_Be_Greedy-v1_2_5-en". Archived from the original on 28 December 2008. Retrieved 17 November 2008. The Right to Be Greedy: Theses on the Practical Necessity of Demanding Everything, 1974.
- ^ "[[Alfredo M. Bonanno]]. The Theory of the Individual: Stirner's Savage Thought". Archived from the original on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2011.
- ^ Wolfi Landstreicher. "Egoism vs. Modernity: Welsh's Dialectical Stirner"
- ^ "The Anarchist Encyclopedia: A Gallery of Saints & Sinners" Recollection Used Books Archived 11 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine 23 August 2010
- ^ Trautmann, The Voice of Terror, pp. 18–19.
- ^ Kunina and Pospelova with Kalennikova (eds.), Marx Engels Collected Works, vol. 45, pg. 508, footnote 466.
- ^ Natalia Kalennikova, "Johann Joseph Most," in Marx Engels Collected Works, vol. 45, pg. 545.
- ^ Goodway, David. Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow. Liverpool University Press, 2006, p. 99.
- ^ a b Leopold, David (4 August 2006). "Max Stirner". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge. Encyclopedia Corporation. p. 176.
- ^ Miller, David. "Anarchism." 1987. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 11.
- ^ "What my might reaches is my property; and let me claim as property everything I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as fas as I entitle, that is, empower myself to take..." In Ossar, Michael. 1980. Anarchism in the Dramas of Ernst Toller. SUNY Press. p. 27.
- ^ Nyberg, Svein Olav. "max stirner". Non Serviam. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 4 December 2008.
- ^ Carlson 1972.
- ^ "New England Anarchism in Germany" by Thomas A. Riley Archived 7 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- S2CID 159569041. Vallance 1973, pp. 77–78
- ^ Vallance 1973, pp. 80–81
- ^ Vallance 1973, p. 80
- ^ Vallance 1973, pp. 81–85 and Rübner 2007
- ^ Vallance 1973, pp. 82–83, 88–89
- ^ Vallance 1973, pp. 90–91
- ^ Vallance 1973, p. 91
- ^ Rothfels 1951, p. 839
- ^ Vallance 1973, p. 93
- ^ Vallance 1973, pp. 94–95
- ^ Arbeiterinnen is the female version of the male Arbeiter, both mean workers in English
- ^ Föderation Deutschsprachiger AnarchistInnen
- ^ "CrimethInc. : Surviving the Virus: An Anarchist Guide : Capitalism in Crisis—Rising Totalitarianism—Strategies of Resistance".
- ^ "German Company Targeted in Anarchist Arson Attack for COVID-19 "Repression" | Far-Right / Far-Left Threat | Articles". 29 June 2020.
- ^ "Antifa and anarchists have hijacked Floyd protests but left won't admit it". 2 June 2020.
- ^ "Berlin police clear anarchist-occupied house Liebig 34 | DW | 09.10.2020". Deutsche Welle.
- ^ Karl Heinrich Ulrichs had begun a journal called Prometheus in 1870, but only one issue was published. Kennedy, Hubert, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality, In: 'Science and Homosexualities', ed. Vernon Rosario (pp. 26–45). New York: Routledge, 1997.
- ^ "Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed were the German Der Eigene, edited by Adolf Brand... "Benjamin Tucker and Liberty: A Bibliographical Essay" by Wendy McElroy
- ^ Constantin Parvulescu. "Der Einzige" and the making of the radical Left in the early post-World War I Germany. University of Minnesota. 2006]
- ^ "...the dadaist objections to Hiller's activism werethemselves present in expressionism as demonstrated by the seminal roles played by the philosophies of Otto Gross and Salomo Friedlaender". Seth Taylor. Left-wing Nietzscheans: the politics of German expressionism, 1910–1920. Walter De Gruyter Inc. 1990
- ISBN 3-932577-05-1
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