German Workers' Abstinents Association

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB) was founded in 1903 and was the most important anti-alcohol association of the social democratic cultural movement. The first members were social democrats who lived abstinently and who pursued the goal of fighting alcoholism within the working class . Organizationally, the DAAB was based on the decentralized foundation of independent district and local groups. The federal headquarters was located in Berlin .

The peculiarity of the socialist abstinence movement and the distinguishing feature from the bourgeois temperance or abstinence associations, which fought alcohol mainly because of its individual harmfulness, was mainly the fact that the members of the DAAB in the pursuit of abstinence were a means in the time of the German Empire Class struggle saw that without alcohol this struggle could be achieved faster, more effectively and more perfectly.

Membership structure

The members of the Workers' Abstinence Association were prohibited from consuming alcoholic beverages. A basic problem of the association was connected with these high demands on the way of life of the members of the DAAB: The lack of stability of the association life due to an unprecedented turnover of members. For example, between 1909 and 1911, seventy-one new local groups were founded. But at the same time thirty-one local groups stopped working. Between 1907 and 1911, 5800 new members could be recruited, but at the same time the DAAB had to accept 4900 withdrawals. Shortly before the end of the war, the anti-alcohol association only had 2,800 members. Even during the Weimar Republic, the DAAB was unable to expand significantly; the number of members stagnated at around 3,000.

The social structure of the DAAB was characteristic of a social democratic cultural organization. Craftsmen and skilled workers primarily shaped the social membership structure. On the one hand, the proportion of academically educated members was vanishingly small, but their proportion in the leadership elite was strikingly large. Most of the DAAB members were between 26 and 40 years old. The vast majority belonged to the SPD.

With regard to the regional distribution of membership, the strongholds of the association were mainly in the north German coastal area, Rhineland-Westphalia, East Westphalia and central Germany. South of the Main line, the DAAB remained in the diaspora.

Publication activity

The workers abstinent union published an organ of the association every 14 days, which was edited by the Vorwärts editor Georg Davidsohn and was called "The abstinent worker". In 1911 it had a print run of 4,520 copies.

The First World War marked a radical turning point for the DAAB. Not only was the organizational structure largely smashed during the war years, the number of members also fell to 1,100, and the age and gender structure of the federal government was drastically changed in the following years.

Program

In 1912, the general assemblies of the workers' abstinence federations of the German-speaking countries approved a firm programmatic foundation: In this program, the united socialist anti-alcohol movement of the German-speaking countries openly committed itself to the principles of the social democratic parties, first and foremost the workers abstinence from being social democrats and only then abstinent. Alcohol was described as the most serious obstacle to the labor movement, as alcohol capitalism would use the drug as a targeted weapon to suppress the proletariat. Overcoming the "alcohol enemy of the proletariat" can only be achieved through abstinence, moderation is unsuitable for this. That is why the united workers abstinence movements in Germany, Austria and Switzerland called on the social democratic parties to remove the obligation to drink at party events.

The factors which, in the opinion of the united German, Austrian and Swiss workers abstainers, were responsible for the spread of alcohol consumption are on the one hand the influence of alcohol capital and industrial alcohol production, on the other hand the social problems of many members of the working class, which are alleviated because of their desolate situation looking for alcohol, and finally the traditional drinking habits rooted in folk culture, including compulsory drinking. Because of these factors, alcohol consumption (of the working class) skyrocketed in the 19th century, causing numerous physical and mental illnesses and ultimately causing a degeneration of the people through alcohol abuse, as alcohol had a degenerative effect on people's genes. It was believed that the working class, due to its predicament and lack of education, was particularly endangered by alcohol, and that the consumption of alcohol drove the already impoverished proletarian into even greater hardship, as there was little money left for him due to his spending on alcohol Stay alive.

In their program, the workers abstinent did not see the social harm of alcohol as the only fatal effects of the "alcohol devil". In their opinion, the worst of all was the burden of the class struggle by “the drinking worker”, since alcohol makes them lazy, dull and disinterested. The drinking worker is therefore not a suitable class fighter, but on the contrary an important pillar of capitalism.

This fundamental part was followed by the demands on the labor movement: The compulsory drinking at party events should be removed and instead alcohol-free party pubs should be founded through cooperative cooperation. One wanted to ban alcohol during strikes and wage disputes, as well as alcohol advertisements and advertising in the organs of the Social Democratic Party and its organizations.

Approach and response

Before the First World War, the DAAB tried to gain a foothold in the labor movement through propaganda and agitation, including at information events within the social democratic organizations. Whenever possible, people tried to point out the alcohol problem in the session discussions.

But especially in the start-up phase of their abstinence project in the German Empire, but also partly in the Weimar Republic, which was more favorable to their concerns, the workers who were abstinent did not enjoy a particularly high reputation among parts of the working class. They were often abused and mocked when they appeared at beer-loving party and trade union meetings. Often the members of the DAAB were denied access to people's houses (which do good business with beer) or the room rents were so high that the DAAB supporters could no longer afford them. The reasons for the negative attitude of many workers towards the proletarian anti-alcohol fighters also lay in the moralizing, often derogatory tone of the bourgeois and Christian anti-alcohol movements, which mostly approached the workers earlier. The rejection was also due to the abstinent workers themselves and their insensitive demeanor, who vigorously defended the anti-alcohol point of view towards their classmates at every opportunity.

Change of the DAAB in the Weimar Republic

If one looks at the overall development of the DAAB in the course of the Weimar Republic, a change from a radical agitation and propaganda association to an organization based on ideals of life reform can be observed. This development was reinforced by the DAAB's turn to the socialist cultural organizations, which, often oriented towards life reforms, were more interested in the questions of an abstinent lifestyle than many delegates at the party events of the SPD, who often had little interest in written propaganda and had shown speech.

These life reform tendencies of the DAAB in the Weimar Republic went so far that some members of the DAAB would have welcomed a renaming of the association, which would have led to the new name "Association for socialist lifestyle" and the fight against tobacco was officially included in the association's catalog of objectives would have included. Despite the fact that this renaming did not materialize, the consumption of tobacco in the second half of the Weimar Republic became an absolute "NoGo" among socialist alcohol opponents, after the dedicated life reformers in the DAAB strove all the more to include the fight against nicotine and other narcotics in the program of the DAAB. The topic had become a long-running issue at DAAB meetings, with the top federal government resisting inclusion in the association's official program, as they feared that the strengths would be split up if smokers could no longer be won over to the fight against alcohol. This was more important to the leaders in the DAAB, arguing that alcohol had worse social consequences. In addition, nicotine was not considered to be as harmful to health as alcohol. Thus, the DAAB must first defeat alcohol before it can devote itself to the fight against nicotine. Until 1928, however, the agitation of anti-nicotine opponents in the DAAB was so strong that a resolution was passed in the Bundestag in 1928, which pointed out the harm caused by nicotine consumption and urgently advised all members of the DAAB against smoking.

Through the impulses of life reform thinking, because of the changed drinking habits and lower consumption of alcohol in the interwar period, the emphasis of the arguments against alcohol consumption also changed: Instead of the senseless (narcotic) drinking of the prewar period, the drinking habits of the interwar period, which were regarded as bourgeois, were criticized. The moderate, controlled consumption of alcohol after work or at cozy get-togethers now became the enemy of workers abstinent. In the Weimar Republic, for example, the great danger for the organized labor was no longer seen in the physical and mental disintegration of the proletariat, but instead recognized in the cultural harmfulness of alcohol. The habitual drinking after work led, in the opinion of the DAAB, to the danger of "twisting the proletariat".

In the time of the Weimar Republic, especially since 1923, the German Workers' Abstinents Association had primarily become a reformist welfare and life reform organization as an integral part of the reformist milieu of the solidarity community of social democratic cultural associations.

literature

  • Hasso Spode : The power of drunkenness. Cultural and social history of alcohol in Germany , Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1993, ISBN 3-8100-1034-0
  • Wilhelm Sollmann : Socialism of Action , German Workers' Abstinents Association, 1925.
  • German Workers Abstinence Association: Our way and goal - Commemorative publication for the 25th anniversary of the German Workers Abstinence Association , 1928.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter, Franz: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB); in: Walter, Franz / Denecke, Viola / Regin, Cornelia: Socialist health and life reform associations. Bonn 1991. p. 97.
  2. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 107.
  3. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 99 ff.
  4. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 99 ff.
  5. ↑ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 98 f.
  6. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 107 f.
  7. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 131 f.
  8. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 139.
  9. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 102.
  10. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 118.
  11. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 120.
  12. ^ Walter: The German Workers' Abstinents Association (DAAB). P. 101.