Workers' education association

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A workers' education association is to be understood as an association of workers and craftsmen , which serves their education and led to the development of a proletarian class consciousness in the Vormärz .

Workers' education associations before 1848

Wilhelm Weitling

As early as the 1830s, workers' education associations were established in the area of ​​the German Federal Government. They were partly founded with the participation of the liberal bourgeoisie and partly by workers and artisans themselves. In them the main focus was on imparting knowledge and education of a general and professional nature.

In addition, from the beginning there was also the discussion of political events of the day, as well as forms of sociability. Political activities in the narrower sense then unfolded the educational associations of the wandering (German) journeymen abroad. As in the case of the radical “ League of the Just ” around Wilhelm Weitling , the transition from the educational association to a preliminary form of a political party in the foreign associations was fluid.

Before March 1848 the following workers' education associations can be proven:

The Hamburger Bildungsgesellschaft - Educational Association for the Elevation of the Working Class can be named here as an example . In 1847 it had 450 members, mainly carpenters, shoemakers and tailors. There were lectures and courses in German, foreign languages, history, as well as technical drawing. Speech exercises served political education. The society owned a library and 17 journals with the “radical sheets” of the time.

Members of workers' education associations

Initially, mainly emigrated intellectuals and craftsmen were members of workers' education associations, later the membership base increased and numerous workers from other branches of the economy joined. As a result, the majority of workers' associations usually had several hundred members.

Well-known founders or members of workers' education associations were:

Workers' education associations after 1848

Board at the house of the German workers' education association Eintracht in Zurich, Neumarkt 5

After the revolution of 1848/49 was put down , many associations were dissolved. By resolution of the Frankfurt Bundestag on July 13, 1854, all federal states undertook to intensify the persecution of all workers 'and workers' education associations.

As with political life as a whole, a new phase of expansion began for the workers' education associations as the political repression subsided. In Berlin the “Craftsmen's Association” revived and in Leipzig in 1861 the Industrial Education Association was founded. A workers' education association was launched in Halberstadt in 1862. Something similar happened in numerous other German cities. These associations were close to the liberal Progressive Party or their corresponding counterparts at the state level. Others followed up on the associations of the General German Workers' Association, which had been banned a few years earlier .

Using the example of Leipzig, the solution of the local workers 'association from the tradition of the democratic bourgeois movement towards the (social democratic) workers' movement can be observed. A minority of the members split off there, distancing themselves from liberalism and demanding a more political orientation. This group formed the nucleus of the General German Workers' Association ( ADAV ). This was founded on May 23, 1863 in Leipzig and is considered the first of several forerunner parties of the later SPD . More sustainable than in the Vormärz and the revolution of 1848/49, the workers' education associations became the nucleus of party formation.

As a counter-foundation, the Association of German Workers' Associations (VDAV) was also established in 1863 . At first it was close to the bourgeois democratic movement, but under the influence of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht it also turned to the socialist movement and formed one of the roots of the SDAP .

With that, the majority of the workers' associations had already gone over to the Social Democrats. First of all, party formation has weakened the importance of workers' education associations. But under the Socialist Law from 1878 to 1890, the workers' education associations were given new members. Socialist ideas were passed on and the political cohesion of the workers ensured under the external form of chanting, reading and sports clubs.

Floor mosaic in the entrance area

After the end of the Socialist Law, the workers' education associations lost their political significance in the narrower sense and became organizations that actually had their focus on educational work. But indirectly, their orientation also had political significance. In the last decades of the empire and during the Weimar Republic, the workers' associations were an important part of the wide-ranging social democratic association system. In addition to the still important general and technical education, they contributed to the reproduction of the milieu over generations by conveying the socialist worldview. During this time women and girls also had access to the workers' education associations. Ottilie Pohl , Rosi Wolfstein and others were involved in a workers' education association for girls and women.

Workers' education associations after 1933

The National Socialists ended the tradition in 1933. Last but not least, the dissolution of the “historical” milieus after 1945 was the reason why the workers' education associations barely had any significant significance. The democratic society in Germany has not remedied this break.

See also

literature

  • Hilde (Hildegard) Reisig: The lessons of the political meaning of workers 'education, a look back at the political thinking of the German workers' movement from the 1940s to the world war. In: Friedrich Mann's Pedagogical Magazine. Issue 1372. H. Beyer & Sons, Langensalza 1933.
  • Hans Stein: The Amsterdam workers' education association from 1847 and the forerunners of the modern social movement in Western Europe. In: International Review for social history. Brill, Leiden 1937, pp. 105-170.
  • Herbert Steiner : Austrian Labor Movement, 1867–1889. Contributions to their history from the founding of the Viennese workers' education association to the unification party conference in Hainfeld . (= Publications of the Working Group for the History of the Labor Movement in Austria 2). Europa-Verlag, Vienna 1964
  • Helga Grebing : History of the German labor movement . dtv, Munich, 1966, ISBN 3-423-00647-1 .
  • Hans Pelger: The Osnabrück Workers' Education Association 1849-1851. In: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen. Volume 77. Meinders & Elstermann, Osnabrück 1970, pp. 165-194.
  • Karl Birker: The German workers' education associations 1840-1870 . Colloquium-Verlag, Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-7678-0320-8 .
  • Dirk H. Axmacher : Adult Education in Capitalism. A contribution to the political economy of the training sector in the FRG. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-436-01837-6 .
  • Adolf Brock , Hans Dieter Müller, Oskar Negt (eds.): Arbeiterbildung. Sociological fantasy and exemplary learning in theory, criticism and practice Reinbek near Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-499-17250-X .
  • Hilde Reisig: The political meaning of workers' education . With a foreword by Lutz von Werder. VSA-Verlag, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-87975-064-5 .
  • Marianne Schmidt: Founded 125 years ago. The Dresden Workers' Education Association (1861–1878). In: 1986 yearbook on the history of Dresden. Dresden 1986, pp. 63-69.
  • Jacques Grandjonc; Karl-Ludwig König and Marie-Ange Roy-Jacquemart (eds.): Statutes of the “Communist Workers Education Association” London 1840–1914 . (= Writings from the Karl-Marx-Haus Trier. Issue 23). Trier 1979
  • Wolfgang Schröder: Leipzig - the cradle of the German labor movement. Roots and development of the workers' education association 1848/1849 to 1870/71 . Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-320-02214-3 .
  • Elke Brünle: Libraries of workers' education associations in the Kingdom of Württemberg 1848–1918 . (= Mainz Studies in Book Studies 20). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-447-06195-7 .
  • With a brotherly greeting and handshake. 150 years of the Stuttgart workers' education association . ABV, Stuttgart 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Finding aid for the holdings of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803–1869) and the Fein family (1737-) approx. 1772–1924 . Lower Saxony Archive Administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991, especially pp. 88f., 95f. mwNachw, ISBN 3-927495-02-6 .