The action

Title of the action from 1914 with an illustration by Egon Schiele

The Aktion was a literary and political magazine published by Franz Pfemfert from 1911 to 1932, which helped Expressionism to break through and stood for undogmatic left politics. Initially, Die Aktion appeared weekly, from 1919 bi-weekly, from 1926 only irregularly.

Between 1981 and 2013 Lutz Schulenburg continued Die Aktion in Verlag Edition Nautilus . A total of 220 issues appeared. The last issue (September 2013) was published by Hanna Mittelstädt and is dedicated to Schulenburg, who died a few months earlier.

prehistory

From 1904, Pfemfert had worked for some time (together with Herwarth Walden , later editor of the magazine Der Sturm ) on the anarchist magazine Kampf published by Senna Hoy , through which he worked with numerous modern authors, artists and intellectuals who opposed the Wilhelmine Empire were in contact. He then worked for Das Blaubuch and finally for the Demokrat , whose co-editor he became in 1910. In this radical democratic magazine, which he published together with the free thinker and social democrat Georg Zepler (1859-1925), he published texts by numerous authors who shortly afterwards would also shape Die Aktion . At the beginning of 1911 there was a break with Zepler when he had a contribution by Kurt Hiller removed from the paper without authorization . Now it was clear to Pfemfert: he needed his own notebook.

History of the magazine

1911–1914: Expressionism and internationalism

Already on 20 February 1911, the first issue appeared action with the subtitle "magazine for liberal politics and literature", which was changed to "weekly for politics, literature and art" 1912th Through contact with Hiller and his friends in the New Club , who organized reading evenings with expressionist artists under the name Neopathetisches Cabaret , Die Aktion quickly became the leading organ of the new direction. Since Pfemfert succeeded in quickly making many authors known and also establishing connections with publishers such as Ernst Rowohlt and Samuel Fischer , although he did not pay any fees, he always had sufficient contributions of high quality. From 1913 onwards, several special editions appeared that only contained poetry, including a number that he dedicated exclusively to the work of Georg Heym , who died young in January 1912 . From 1914, the proportion of graphic work increased, with particularly expressive woodcuts shaped the appearance of the magazine.

In the first number Pfemfert outlined the aim of the action as follows:

“ The campaign advocates the idea of ​​the Great German Left without accepting any particular political party. The campaign aims to promote the imposing idea of ​​'organizing intelligence' and to restore the long frowned-upon word 'Kulturkampf' [...] to its old shine. In the things of art and literature, Die Aktion seeks to counterbalance the sad habit of the pseudo-liberal press of evaluating newer impulses only from a business point of view, that is, to keep them silent. "

Until 1914 Pfemfert tried to exert political influence on the SPD through Die Aktion , hoping to be able to carry left-revolutionary and anarchist currents into the party. In editorials, Pfemfert criticized the party's chauvinist and often opportunist stance and called on it to reconsider that the cause of the labor movement was an international one. Pfemfert also used the magazine for campaigns in other ways, for example for the release of the Austrian sexual psychologist Otto Gross , whom his father, the influential criminologist Hans Gross , had arrested and sent to forced psychiatric treatment .

1914–1918: Artistic opposition during the war

The magazine was confiscated for the first time in 1914, before the outbreak of the First World War . As is so often the case in the German Empire , action was taken against a politically unpopular magazine under the pretext that it had published morally offensive texts. With the outbreak of war in August 1914, the situation worsened as censorship was now tougher . Pfemfert therefore decided to only publish literary texts with immediate effect in order to avoid a complete ban on the magazine. Amazingly, this succeeded, even though Pfemfert skilfully assembled inflammatory articles from other newspapers in sections like I Cut Out the Time , and sharply attacked artists and intellectuals who supported the war in a mailbox section. He also cleverly used literary publications in the spirit of anti-militarism , for example by publishing poems from the front, including poetry by Oskar Kanehl and Wilhelm Klemm , which impressively shaped the horror of war. The publication of special issues that were entirely devoted to the literature of an "enemy country" was even bolder. In 1914 a special issue by Hans Flesch-Brunningen with a portrait of Egon Schiele was published .

The action was the only opposition literary and art magazine during the war and was able to confidently bypass censorship with covering writing and other means, according to Gerald Raunig in an article from 2004.

1918–1925: Weekly for Revolutionary Socialism

After the First World War, Pfemfert soon turned away from Expressionism, disappointed. Many authors were now too saturated for him and only looking for contracts with large publishers. For the moralist Pfemfert this was betrayal, and it was not without good reason that he sensed that the once rebellious phase of Expressionism was finally over. In the action now primarily political texts appeared. He resolutely supported council communism and also published texts by Lenin and other Russian revolutionaries, e.g. B. Leon Trotsky , with whom Pfemfert and his wife were also personal friends.

By the end of 1918, the published action calling the Spartacus League . After the founding of the KPD , Pfemfert made his magazine the organ of this party for some time and gave the action the new subtitle “Weekly for Revolutionary Socialism”. When the KPD in October 1919 changed its course and syndicalists exclude began trying Pfemfert in action for some time to unite the leftist opposition. From 1920, however, he supported the left-wing communist Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) and from the end of 1921 its split-off General Workers Union - Unity Organization (AAUE), of which he was a leading member. In the mid-1920s he approached Rudolf Rocker's Free Workers Union (FAUD) and published some of his texts in the magazine. At that time, however, it was already clear that the revolution in Germany had failed.

From 1913 on, Pfemfert had published articles against German anti-Semitism more often in the Aktion . After the war he became involved against anti-Semitic tendencies in the KPD and the Comintern . In 1923 his article The black and white plague in the former Spartakusbund documented anti-Semitic excerpts from a speech by the then KPD chairwoman Ruth Fischer , with which she had tried to win over ethnic students for the KPD: “You are calling against Jewish capital, gentlemen? Anyone who calls against Jewish capital, gentlemen, is already a class warrior, even if he doesn't know it. You are against Jewish capital and want to fight the stock market jobbers down. So it is right. Come the Jews capitalists down, it depends on the lantern, trampled them. "From 1925 fought Pfemfert in action the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as" counter-revolutionary "and called Josef Stalin as" anti-Semitic fascists ". From 1927 onwards, Pfemfert and his wife Alexandra Ramm-Pfemfert, who came from a Jewish family, showed solidarity with Leon Trotsky, although they rejected his suppression of the Kronstadt sailors' uprising (1921). They explained Stalin's persecution of the Trotskyists out of his anti-Semitism. In December 1928 the action reprinted Pravda articles about "the growing anti-Semitism among the young communists". In 1927 and 1931 she referred to a National Socialist brochure because it presented the power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky as "Russia's struggle against Judaism". From 1929 Alexandra Ramm-Pfemfert translated Trotsky's writings into German. In their correspondence with Trotsky, the Pfemferts also frequently addressed anti-Semitism among communists.

1926–1932: The action disappears

The failure of the revolution and the trench warfare between the left parties also damaged the action , which accordingly lost readers. Before that, its purely political orientation had deterred readers only interested in art. Then there was inflation . From 1927 the magazine appeared only irregularly about six to seven times a year. In 1929 the subtitle was changed to “Magazine for Revolutionary Communism”, but by then the action had hardly existed. Recently, texts were set in ever smaller types in order to save space; 1929 published three editions, 1930 a, 1931 two and in August 1932, finally, the last number of the action . In addition to the economic and political reasons mentioned, Pfemfert's deteriorating state of health from the late 1920s onwards led to the fact that the action finally came to an end.

Appearance

The action was in quarto format, the sentence was in two columns. Initially the booklet was in Fraktur , but the Antiqua was used as early as 1912 - in keeping with the modernity of the content. The magazine usually began with an editorial on a political topic, often written by Pfemfert. The volume of the booklet was usually 14 text pages. The front page, on which the leading article often appeared in the beginning, was later redesigned to a cover, which was often designed with expressionist graphics and contained the table of contents.

Edition and funding

The economic basis of the action was, despite her initial major success in intelligence, always shaky. At the best of times, 7,000 copies were sold. The sales price was initially 10  pfennigs , after the outbreak of the First World War only 30, then 40 and after 1918 it rose to 80 pfennigs. In order to generate further income, a luxury edition with an edition of 100 copies was printed on handmade paper and sold for four times the price. Since Pfemfert largely avoided advertisements in order to be independent, regular events such as balls, readings and lecture evenings were held. He declined donations from third parties, for example from Paul Cassirer , who made him an offer during the war. The action books appeared from 1916 . The action book and art store founded in 1917 , which was managed by Pfemfert's wife Alexandra Ramm-Pfemfert and which was located at Kaiserallee 222 (today Bundesallee) in Berlin-Wilmersdorf , generated additional income.

Editing and editorial office

Kurt Hiller and the anarchist Anselm Ruest initially worked on the magazine. However, there was a break with Ruest as early as 1912, and a falling out with Hiller in 1913. From 1918 to 1929 the poet Oskar Kanehl was Pfemfert's most important collaborator, and Alexandra Ramm-Pfemfert was regularly involved in the work on the magazine. At least for a while there was also a secretary, Lisa Pasedag .

Die Aktion never had an actual editorial office . The magazine was a one-man business, the editorial address was the private address of Franz Pfemfert: Nassauische Strasse 17 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . Franz Jung described the atmosphere there as follows: “The man who sat behind his desk on Nassauische Strasse in the rear building on the fourth floor, so to speak, with the door open, anyone could come in and come to him without knocking or ringing the bell talk while he stuffed his cigarettes with a small hand machine. For Pfemfert, everyone who came into the store, whether they brought something for evaluation or wanted to be printed, was a customer, a good or a bad one. "

Artists and authors

Visual arts Gerd Arntz Alexander Archipenko Rüdiger Berlit Otto Beyer André Derain Conrad Felixmüller Lyonel Feininger George grosz Katharina Heise Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Alfred Kubin Margarete Kubicka Stanislaw Kubicki Wilhelm Lehmbruck Franz Marc Henri Matisse Ludwig Meidner Carlo Mense Max Oppenheimer Pablo Picasso Christian Schad Egon Schiele Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Georg Schrimpf Max Schwimmer Franz Wilhelm Seiwert Georg Tappert Félix Vallotton Heinrich Vogeler

literature Ernst Angel Hugo Ball Johannes R. Becher Gottfried Benn Ernst Blass Franz Blei Paul Boldt Georg Brandes Max Brod Theodor Däubler Albert Ehrenstein Carl Einstein Heinrich Fischer Heinz Elm André Gide Claire Goll Yvan Goll Ferdinand Hardekopf Paul Hatvani Max Herrmann-Neisse Georg Heym Kurt Hiller Jakob van Hoddis Angela Hubermann Richard Hülsenbeck Heinrich Eduard Jacob Hanns Johst

Franz Jung Oskar Kanehl Rudolf Kapri Hermann Kasack Kurt Kersten Wilhelm Klemm Arthur Kronfeld Else Lasker-Schüler Alfred Lichtenstein Heinrich Mann Charles Péguy Ernst Stadler Theodor Lessing Franz Mehring Erich Mühsam Mynona Karl Otten Maximilian Rosenberg Ludwig Rubiner René Schickele Paul Scheerbart Walter Serner Carl Sternheim Ernst Toller Frank Wedekind Franz Werfel Alfred Wolfenstein Carl Zuckmayer

politics Michael Bakunin Alexander Bogdanov Otto Corbach Otto Gross Pyotr Kropotkin Nadezhda Krupskaya Lenin Karl Liebknecht Anatoly Lunacharsky Rosa Luxemburg Rudolf Rocker Otto Rühle Leon Trotsky

literature

• “Die Aktion.” Reprint of the magazine 1911–1932, all issues in 15 volumes. With an introduction and commentary by Paul Raabe . Kraus, Millwood, New York, 1983; Photomech. Reprint of the first four volumes as early as 1961 by Cotta, Stuttgart. With an introduction, certificates, three directories (1. the staff and 2. the reviews and people treated as well as 3. the publishing house Die Aktion and its events and publications)
• The action. The mouthpiece of expressionist art. Ed .: Städtisches Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn 1984
• The 1911–1918 campaign. Weekly for Politics, Literature and Art. Edited by Franz Pfemfert . A selection by Thomas Rietzschel. Structure, Berlin and Weimar 1986, as well as DuMont, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7701-2137-6
• Action and storm. Woodcarving and Expressionist Poetry. Edited by Elmar Mittler and Jan-Jasper Fast. Lower Saxony State and University Library Göttingen, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-930457-28-8
• Franz Pfemfert: I oppose this periodical. Edited by Wolfgang Haug , Darmstadt and Neuwied 1985, ISBN 3-472-61559-1
• Franz Pfemfert: The Revolutions GMBH agitation and political satire in the 'action'. Edited by Knut Hickethier , Wilhelm Heinrich Pott and Kristina Zerges. Anabas, Wilßmar and Steinbach 1973
• Franz Pfemfert. In memory of a revolutionary intellectual. In: Lutz Schulenburg (Hrsg.): Die Aktion, Issue 209 from August 2004. Edition Nautilus , Hamburg ISSN  0516-334X
• Pfemfert. Reminders and settlements. Texts and letters. Edited by Lisbeth Exner and Herbert Kapfer . Belleville, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-923646-35-6
• Ursula W. Baumeister: "The Action" 1911–1932. Journalistic opposition and literary activism of the magazine in a restrictive context. Erlangen & Jena 1996, ISBN 3-7896-0807-6
• Marcel Bois: A transnational friendship in an age of extremes. Leon Trotsky and the Pfemferts , in: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , 14th vol., 2015, no. 3, pp. 98–116.
• Marcel Bois: Beyond Expressionism. The action as a journal of communist dissidence during the Weimar Republic , in: Expressionismus, No. 5, 2017, pp. 25–36.
• Marcel Bois: “The other Germany embodied Pfemfert.” The magazine Die Aktion und der First World War , in: Frank Jacob and Riccardo Altieri (eds.): War and Peace in the Mirror of Socialism 1914–1918, Berlin 2018, pp. 190– 202.
• Lothar Peter : literary intelligence and class struggle. “The Action” 1911–1932. Cologne 1972, ISBN 3-7609-0053-4
• Paul Raabe : “I cut out time.” Expressionism and politics in Franz Pfemfert's “Aktion” 1911–1918. Munich 1964
• Julijana Ranc: Alexandra Ramm-Pfemfert. A counter-life. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-89401-446-6
• Petra Jenny Vock: Poetry from the war worthy of criticism, perhaps important from a documentary point of view. The poems of the “Action” lyricist Alfred Vagts from the First World War. Yearbook of the German Schiller Society XLIII, 2004, pp. 231–266.

Web links

Wikisource: The Action  - Sources and Full Texts

Commons : The action  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Detailed bibliographical information on the action in the database of German-speaking anarchism
• Oliver Pfohlmann: The action 1911-1932
• DIE AKTION, Edition Nautilus, Hamburg , continuation of the magazine
• Egon Günther in conversation with Hartmut Geerken about the early days of the “Aktion”, about Anselm Ruest and other people in the area (Pfemfert, Mynona etc.), in: Jungle World, 2006
• Collection Die Aktion in the archive of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Die Aktion Heft 220 , review at derleser.net
2. ↑ Franz Pfemfert. I set this magazine against this time , ed. by Wolfgang Haug, Darmstadt and Neuwied, 1985, p. 21
3. ↑ Gerald Raunig: The author as a traitor , in: republicart.net , 10/2004 (as pdf) preprint from Gerald Raunig: Art and Revolution. Artistic activism in the long 20th century , table of contents Turia + Kant, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85132-425-0 (An article on Walter Benjamin's essay The Author as a Producer from 1934)
4. ↑ Marcel Bois: A transnational friendship in the age of extremes. Leon Trotsky and the Pfemferts , in: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , 14th vol., 2015, no. 3, pp. 98–116.
5. ↑ Olaf Kistenmacher: Die Aktion (1911-1932). In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbook of Antisemitism Volume 6: Publications. De Gruyter / Saur, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-030535-7 , pp. 9-10

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 29, 2005 .