Freiland-Freield-Bund

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Paulus Klüpfel, founder of the FFB

The Freiland-Freileld-Bund (FFB) was one of the early organizations of the free economy movement Silvio Gesells (1862-1930). It was founded in 1915 on the initiative of the former Roman Catholic priest Paulus Klüpfel (1876–1918). Its seat was Berlin-Steglitz . In the same year a parallel organization of the same name was founded in Switzerland . The initiators here were, among others, the doctor and mathematician Theophil Christen (1873–1920) and the reform pedagogue and psychoanalyst Ernst Schneider (1878–1957).

In some publications, the founding of the FFB Gottfried Feder (1883–1941), Silvio Gesell's National Socialist opponent, is attributed. This attribution is based on an error. Feder's organization, founded in 1919, was called the Kampfbund to break the bondage of interest . The terms free land and free money are clearly associated with Silvio Gesell and his natural economic order.

Surname

... through free land and free money

The components of the name free land and free money come from different contexts.

Originally, Silvio Gesell only aimed for monetary reform, but from 1904 onwards he followed up on the Freiland ideas of Henry Georges (1839-1897) and Theodor Hertzkas (1845-1924) and finally adopted them for his Natural Economic System in the version by Michael Flürscheim (1844 -1912). His free-range doctrine required the nationalization of the land and intended to combine it with a currency reform .

The part of the name, free money, goes back to Paulus Klüpfel. Gesell originally used other terms for this in his programmatic writings, including rusting banknotes , reform money and - very rarely - Schwundgeld . Both terms were also included in the title of Gesell's main work: The natural economic order through open land and free money .

history

The oldest organization among Silvio Gesell's supporters was the Association for Physiocratic Politics founded by Georg Blumenthal in 1909 (later the Physiokratischer Kampfbund ). In second place in chronological order was the Freiland- Freileld -Bund Paulus Knüpfels (founded 1915), followed by the one initiated by Helmut Haacke Federation for free economy . This was also created in 1915 and was politically right - wing .

Beginnings

After Paulus Knüpfel resigned his priesthood in Pottenstein , he moved to Berlin in 1914 at the latest. One of the reasons for this move was the land reformer Adolf Damaschke (1865–1935), whose writings he had already familiarized himself with during his pastoral service in Upper Franconia. In the Berlin reformer scene, he got to know the "Physiocrat" and follower of Silvio Gesell Georg Blumenthal through Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1943), as well as the movement he set up. Lectures and, above all, Silvio Gesell's books, which he received from Blumenthal, made him want to get to know the author personally. He visited him in his Oranienburg domicile, the Eden settlement , soon became Gesell's private secretary and moved in with him in 1914. From the employment relationship a partnership developed relatively quickly, from which the jointly written war leaflet Deutsches Freiland emerged at Pentecost 1919 . Later evidence of the close cooperation is the foreword written by Klüpfel to the second edition of Gesell's main work, The natural economic order through open land and free money , published in 1916 .

German section of the FFB

In the middle of 1915 Paulus Klüpfel founded the Freiland-Freiland-Bund . Paragraph 1 of the FFB statutes read: "[The FFB strives for] complete free economy through the elimination of any unemployed income in the knowledge that uninterrupted ascent and full development of culture are only possible if all economic obstacles are removed."

Klüpfel understood the FFB less as an organization, more as a connection between like-minded people or as a "friendship association". The founding members included Marie Meixner and Hertha Holtze-Ritter, two teachers who were associated with the women's rights movement. Early members of the FFB were Hans Vogt (1890–1979), one of the inventors of the optical sound system , and Hans Langelütke (1892–1972), who later became the director of the IFO Institute . Other personalities joined them only a short time later, including the trade unionist Wilhelm Beckmann and the mine director Otto Weißleder as well as Otto Pfleiderer and Otto Maaß. After that, Theophil Christen and Anna Seberich were added. The FFB saw itself as an apolitical and politically neutral movement. In contrast to Georg Blumenthal's physiocrats , who rather turned to the proletariat, the FFB was primarily concerned with the social middle class. The first meeting point of the federal government was the Hertha Holtze-Ritter apartment.

In 1915 Paulus Klüpfel was drafted into the military. However, he was allowed to stay in Berlin and do his job in a gas mask factory as a porter and clerk. During this time, a large number of brochures, magazine articles and memoranda were published in connection with the FFB, of which unfortunately only a few have survived. It has been handed down from them, however, that they always contained the “Freiland-Freiland-Refrain”. The Klüpfel article Geld und Freield , which appeared in the journal Der Kunstwart in February 1918 and with which he responded to Otto Corbach's (1877–1938) remark that Gesell’s teaching was an inorganic and fetishistic Americanism, caused a particular stir . Another work of FFB chairman Paul Klüpfels should not go unmentioned here: He conducted numerous correspondence - not only with personalities of the FFB and other branches of the free economy movement (Silvio Gesell, Georg Blumenthal, Hans Langenlütke, Marie Meixner, Horst Vogt and others) . Well-known addressees of his letters included Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) and Walter Rathenau (1867-1922). Gradually the FFB succeeded in building up its own publishing house, even if the war time severely restricted the FFB's work. Many members had been drafted, some of them already fallen. In addition to Paulus Klüpfel, it was FFB women Marie Meixner and Hertha Holtze-Ritter who tried to keep the union alive. Anna Seberich, teacher at the Würzburg Pleicher School and representative of the women's suffrage movement as well as Klüpfel's great (but unfulfilled) love, came to Berlin to help the FFB survive.

At the end of July 1918 Paulus Klüpfel died of tuberculosis in a Berlin military hospital. However, the work of the FFB continued. In 1919 in Berlin-Steglitz a memorandum of the FFB addressed to the German National Assembly appeared under the title The legal safeguarding of the purchasing power of money through the absolute currency . In the closing words of this text it says:

"" Copernicus discovered the movements of the earth around the sun. But he could not rise to the thought of an earth floating freely in space. He let the earth run on a solid plane. The events of modern times have given a number of theorists the idea of ​​a paper currency, which, like the absolute currency, should revolve around the average price of goods instead of gold. But these theorists, they call themselves nominalists, are still sticking to the material; for the concept of their paper money they still need some solid material level (gold currency) on which they let their paper money revolve. With the absolute currency this last fetter will also be removed; the absolute currency, without being tied to any specific commodity, revolves freely, like the earth around the sun, around the average price of commodities. "

- Freiland -freield-Bund to the National Assembly in 1919

On September 14, 1919 in Arnstadt ( Thuringia ), after a series of preliminary talks, the Free Land Free Money Bund and Helmut Haackes Bund für Freiwrtschaft to form the German Free Land Free Money Bund (DFFB). Otto Maaß was elected chairman of the joint association. The physiocrats Georg Blumenthals (with the exception of the local branch in Berlin and a not inconsiderable part of the regional association of West Germany) and Fritz Bartels' Freiwirtschaftsbund Germany joined forces with the DFFB in May 1921 at a joint conference in Kassel . The new name of this unified organization was Freiwirtschaftsbund . In his federal program it said:

“The Freiwirtschaftsbund seeks to unite the entire working people in a common struggle against exploitation in every form. For this purpose, the federal government strives to carry out its economic demands, namely: (1) Transfer of the land interest to general property (open land); (2) Conversion of money into a pure medium of exchange (free money); (3) Consolidation of the purchasing power of money (fixed currency). "

- Freiwirtschaftsbund, May 1921

Swiss section of the FFB

During the war in 1915, Silvio Gesell visited neutral Switzerland several times from Oranienburg. On the one hand, he wanted to prepare his planned move to Les Hauts-Geneveys , on the other hand, he wanted to keep an eye out for people who were interested in his ideas. He found them, among other places, in the Bern Society for Land and Tax Reform . Its members, including Theophil Christen, were followers of Adolf Damaschke and intended to solve the social question by changing land and tax law. Christen, who was already connected with Gesell and his money reform idea, tried to win over the members of the above-mentioned society for the free money idea. The social problems - so Christians - could only be solved with a monetary reform running parallel to the land reform. After Christians won the majority of its members, the Land and Tax Reform Society threatened to split. In order to prevent this, a vote was taken on the one hand to keep the previous program and on the other hand to initiate the establishment of a Swiss Free Land Free Money Federation .

Gesell (center) in conversation with the Swiss FFB members Fritz Schwarz (left) and Werner Zimmermann (right)

With only five members initially, the Swiss FFB (SFFB) was founded on July 4, 1915. The registered name of the association reads: Freiland und Freield - Swiss Confederation for the creation of the right to full employment through land ownership and monetary reform . The first members were Theophil Christen, who mathematically underpinned the free economic teachings and formulated numerous submissions for the SFFB, Fritz Trefzer, Vice Director at the Federal Insurance Office and the educationalist Ernst Schneider. Others were added: the pedagogue and life reformer Werner Zimmermann , a pupil of Ernst Schneider, Fritz Schwarz , also a Schneider pupil, who in 1917 became editor of the journal of the club's own journal Die Freistatt Zeitschrift für Kultur und Schulpolitik , as well as the one that became known beyond Swiss borders Architect Hans Bernoulli . The latter lost his chair at the ETH Zurich because of his commitment to the natural economic order of Silvio Gesell .

Ernst Schneider and Fritz Schwarz founded the Pestalozzi-Fellenberg-Haus publishing house in 1918 , which mainly published books on the subject of free land and free money. The first work in this regard was the 1919 published free-free money Primer of SFFB. In spring 1924 the SFFB changed its name to Schweizerischer Freiwirtschaftsbund (SFB). In the 1939 political elections, the SFB succeeded in gaining a seat in the National Council with Hans Konrad Sonderegger in Basel-Landschaft and one to three seats in the Grand Council in some German-speaking cantons. Because of the different positions of its members, the SFB split in 1946. Successor organizations were the Free Economic Movement and the Liberal Socialist Party of Switzerland.

The German and Swiss FFB as editor and publisher

Title page of
the memorandum "on a petition to the National Assembly" published by the FFB in 1919
Title page
Georg Blumenthal: Liberation from the rule of money and interest

The Freiland-Freield-Bund acted as the editor and publisher of numerous free-economic publications, tracts and leaflets. Here is an incomplete overview, the alphabetical order of which is based on the names of the authors.

  • Joseph Barnabas
    • Solomon and our war finances . Berlin 1916
  • Georg Blumenthal
    • Liberation from the rule of money and interest. A new way to overcome capitalism . Berlin-Lichterfelde 1919 (not to be confused with Gottfried Feder's programmatic writing: Overcoming interest bondage !)
  • Theophile Christians
    • Current inflation and the Swiss National Bank Act . Bern 1916
    • National monetary policy . Bern 1918
    • The purchasing power of money and its importance for the economy . Munich 1915
    • The quantity theory of money . Munich 1916
    • Currency, interest and wages . Munich 1917
    • Implementation of the absolute currency . Munich 1915
  • Ernst Frankfurth , Silvio Gesell
    • Active monetary policy. A new direction in the field of note issuance . Berlin-Lichterfelde 1909 (reprint of the first edition)
  • Freiland-Freield-Bund
    • The legal safeguarding of the purchasing power of money through the absolute currency. Memorandum for a submission to the National Assembly . Berlin-Steglitz 1919
  • Silvio Gesell
    • The natural economic order through free land and free money . 4th edition, 1919
    • Freiland, the iron demand for peace . Reprint of a lecture. Bern 1917
    • Gold or peace . Reprint of a lecture from 1916
    • The doctrine of interest after the destruction of the belief in values . Berlin-Lichterfelde 1911 (reprint of the first edition)
    • The acratic, dismantled people's state . Berlin-Steglitz 1919
  • Georg Hammer
    • The currency issue - presented in a generally understandable way . Stuttgart no year
    • The free economy . Berlin-Steglitz 1919
  • Paulus Klüpfel
    • Preface to Silvio Gesell: The natural economic order (leaflet). no year
    • Money and free money. One answer . Special print from the Kunstwart . no year
  • Karl Polenske
    • To all! The proletarian financial and economic program of the People's Representative of the Bavarian Soviet Republic Silvio Gesell. Presented to the German workers and farmers by Gesell's legal adviser Karl Polenske . Publishing house Freiland-Freilel-Bund : Berlin-Steglitz 1919
  • Silas (pseudonym)
    • The ethics of interest . Bern 1918
  • Swiss Free Land Free Money Bund
    • Free money primer . Bern 1915
    • Outdoor primer . Bern 1918
    • The gold mania. A national threat to Switzerland . no year
    • The money strike . Bern 1918
    • The National Bank at a crossroads . 1. Leaflet. Bern 1918
    • Die Freistatt (bi-monthly magazine). Bern

literature

  • Werner Onken : Silvio Gesell and the natural economic order. An introduction to life and work . Gauke Verlag für Sozialökonomie: Lütjenburg 1999. ISBN 3-87998-439-5 .
  • Günter Bartsch : The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Volume 1 in the series Studies on the Natural Economic Order . Gauke specialist publisher for social economy: Lütjenburg 1994. ISBN 3-87998-481-6 . Pp. 25-27
  • Günter Bartsch: Free economy as an internal and external world task. Attempt of a portrait of Paulus Klüpfel . In: Journal for Social Economy . Episode 87/1990. Pp. 3-12.
  • Hans-Joachim Werner: History of the free economy movement. 100 years of struggle for a market economy without capitalism . Waxmann Verlag GmbH: Münster / New York 1989. ISBN 3-89325-022-0 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ Two examples: Markus Roth: Herrenmenschen (...) . P. 476 ; Hans-Christian Harten: ideological training of the SS and the police in National Socialism: compilation of personal data . 2017 (PDF) ; viewed on June 19, 2020
  2. ↑ Albrecht Tyrell: Gottfried Feder - The failed programmatician , in: Ronald Smelser , Rainer Zitelmann (ed.): The brown elite. 22 biographical sketches . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft WBG, later new edition, Darmstadt 1989, p. 34
  3. ↑ See title of Gesell's main work: The natural economic order through free land and free money .
  4. ↑ Hugo Luczak: History of the FFF movement in Germany. A look back . Verlag der FZ Zeitung: Erfurt 1931. P. 18
  5. ↑ See also Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement ; Section: Supplementary Summary ( The Incubation Phase - from 1891–1912 ) ; viewed on June 20, 2020
  6. ↑ The "Physiocrats" formed the left wing within the free economy movement. With their name they tied in with the physiocratic school initiated by François Quesnay and Vincent de Gournay , but only adopted some of the views that they then combined with anarchist and free-economic ideas. - See Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Lütjenburg 1994. p. 23f; in detail in the chapters Georg Blumenthal's Building Blocks (p. 22–24) and The Physiocratic Basic Current (p. 50–57)
  7. ↑ Ernst Winkler: Freedom? - The central question in the political struggle for a just social order . In: magazine questions of freedom . Issue 273/274 (2006). Published by the seminar for liberal order (Bad Boll). Pp. 1-116; here: p. 16
  8. ↑ This emerges, among other things, from a collection of letters that Hans Vogt published in 1967 along with other written legacies from Klüpfel>; see (Hans Vogt (Hrsg.): Inside is the infinite will of the world. The records of Paulus Klüpfel * 1876 † 1918, submitted by Hans Vogt . Self-published: Erlau bei Passau o. J. [1967; see foreword]. p. 41–119.) The first letter written in Berlin is dated November 1, 1914 (see p. 84)
  9. ↑ Werner Onken : Silvio Gesell and the natural economic order. An introduction to life and work . Gauke Verlag für Sozialökonomie: Lütjenburg 1999. p. 48
  10. ↑ Werner Schmid : Silvio Gesell. The life story of a pioneer . Cooperative publisher of free economic writings : Bern 1954. S. 117.
  11. ^ Günter Bartsch: Free economy as an internal and external world task . In: Journal for Social Economy . Episode 87/1990. P. 8; Sp II and 9; Sp I. - Klüpfel's foreword was published several times as an independent text. For example, Hans Blüher , Werner Schmid , Benedikt Uhlemayr, Hans Joachim Führer, Paulus Klüpfel and others: Silvio Gesell. Contemporary voices on the work and life of a pioneer . Rudolf Zitzmann Verlag: Lauf bei Nürnberg 1960. pp. 107–112.
  12. ↑ Quoted from Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Volume 1 in the series Studies on the Natural Economic Order . Gauke specialist publisher for social economy: Lütjenburg 1994. ISBN 3-87998-481-6 . P. 25
  13. ↑ Hertha Holtze-Ritter also appears at the 8th German Pacifist Congress in 1919 and, in her contribution, demands "not to lose sight of the deeper economic context"; see Hellmuth von Gerlach (Ed.): Eighth German Pacifist Congress, convened by the German Peace Society and the Central Office for International Law (negotiation report) . Berlin (June 13 to 15) 1919. p. 62 ( online )
  14. ^ Günter Bartsch: Free economy as an internal and external world task. Attempt of a portrait by Paul Klüpfel . In: Journal for Social Economy . 87th episode / December 1990. p. 7; Sp I
  15. ^ Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Volume 1 in the series Studies on the Natural Economic Order . Gauke specialist publisher for social economy: Lütjenburg 1994. p. 27
  16. ↑ Werner Onken: Silvio Gesell and the natural economic order. An introduction to life and work . Gauke Verlag für Sozialökonomie: Lütjenburg 1999. ISBN 3-87998-439-5 . P. 136
  17. ^ Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Lütjenburg 1994. p. 325
  18. ↑ Hugo Luczak: History of the FFF movement in Germany. A look back . Verlag der FZ Zeitung: Erfurt 1931. S. 21f
  19. ↑ International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam): Photocopies of letters from Gustav Landauer to Silvio Gesell (1914) and Paulus Klüpfel (1915-1917)
  20. ^ Deutscher Freiwirtschaftsbund (Ed.): Journal Freiwirtschaftliches Archiv. Journal of Natural Economic Order . 4th year. Issue 9 / December 1928
  21. ^ Günter Bartsch: Free economy as an internal and external world task. Attempt of a portrait by Paul Klüpfel . In: Journal for Social Economy . 87th episode / December 1990. p. 10; Sp I and II
  22. ^ Würzburg.de: Würzburg women make politics. 100 years of women's suffrage in Germany . Booklet accompanying the 1919 exhibition. Pp. 14–15 ; (PDF online), accessed on June 25, 2020
  23. ↑ Werner Onken: Silvio Gesell and the natural economic order. An introduction to life and work . Gauke Verlag für Sozialökonomie: Lütjenburg 1999. p. 136
  24. ^ Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Volume 1 in the series Studies on the Natural Economic Order . Gauke specialist publisher for social economy: Lütjenburg 1994. p. 27
  25. ↑ A digitized version of the memorandum can be found at Archive.org ; viewed on June 26, 2020
  26. ^ Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Volume 1 in the series Studies on the Natural Economic Order . Gauke specialist publisher for social economy: Lütjenburg 1994. p. 38
  27. ↑ Werner Onken: Silvio Gesell and the natural economic order. An introduction to life and work . Gauke Verlag für Sozialökonomie: Lütjenburg 1999. ISBN 3-87998-439-5 . P. 54
  28. ↑ (Web-Archive.org) Lebensreform.ch / Edi Muster, Edi Goetschel: Swiss Free Land Free Money Bund (November 15, 2013) ; viewed on June 27, 2020
  29. ^ Günter Bartsch: The NWO movement Silvio Gesells. Historical ground plan 1891–1992 / 93 . Volume 1 in the series Studies on the Natural Economic Order . Gauke specialist publisher for social economy: Lütjenburg 1994. S. 88
  30. ↑ The name of the magazine has changed several times over the years: Der Freeldler (from 1921), Das Freeld: Zeitschrift des Schweizer Freiland-Freileld-Bund (1922), Die Freiwirtschaftliche Zeitung (from 1923)
  31. ↑ Werner Onken: Silvio Gesell and the natural economic order. An introduction to life and work . Gauke Verlag für Sozialökonomie: Lütjenburg 1999. ISBN 3-87998-439-5 . P. 54
  32. ^ Yvonne Voegeli: Released free spirit - Hans Bernoulli on his 140th birthday (ETHeritage, February 19, 2016) ; viewed on June 27, 2020
  33. ↑ (Web-Archive.org) Lebensreform.ch: Pestalozzi-Fellenberg-Haus (November 15, 2013) ; viewed on June 27, 2020
  34. ↑ (Web-Archive.org) Lebensreform.ch / Edi Muster, Edi Goetschel: Swiss Free Land Free Money Bund (November 15, 2013) ; viewed on June 27, 2020
  35. ↑ HLS-DHS.ch / Ruedi Brassel-Moser: Free Economic Movement (October 2, 2008) ; viewed on June 27, 2020