Friedrich Adolf Sorge
Friedrich Adolf (Adolph) Sorge (born November 9, 1828 in Bethau near Torgau , Saxony ; † October 26, 1906 in Hoboken (New Jersey) , USA ) was a German music teacher , revolutionary and communist and long-time correspondent of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels .
Revolutionary struggles in Germany
His father, a Lutheran pastor, taught him at an early age. In Halle an der Saale , from the end of 1842 he attended an institution for training as a teacher. In 1848 he took part in the German Revolution . He fled from the Prussian troops to Switzerland in the spring of 1849. At the time of the Reich constitution campaign , he stayed in Baden, where he joined August Willich and his volunteers.
During the struggles of the Baden Revolution in 1849, he also met Johann Philipp Becker and Friedrich Engels. Again he fled to Switzerland and traveled to Geneva. Here he met Wilhelm Liebknecht . After he had to leave Switzerland in 1851, he went to Belgium. In 1852 he traveled to London, where he visited Karl Marx.
Activities in the USA
In the same year he went to the USA and worked there as a music teacher. In 1857 he co-founded the Communist clubs of New York City . He received American citizenship on June 24, 1857. A year later he was elected president of the club. One of the club's goals was to combat slavery. He founded a section of the International Workers' Association (IAA) in 1867.
In New York City in 1867 he played a key role in the merger of the Communist Club with the General German Workers' Association to form the Social Party , which only existed for a short time. At the end of 1869, the General German Workers' Association was re-established. This joined the National Labor Union . In December 1869 the association became a member of the IAA.
From then on, Sorge was devoted more and more to the expansion of the IAA in the USA. In December 1870 he was elected to the Central Committee of the IAA. In December 1871 he was a member of the Federal Council of the US IAA. In this function he represented the United States Federation in 1872 at the IAA Congress in The Hague . When the General Council of the IAA was relocated to the United States, he assumed the role of Secretary, which he held until September 25, 1874.
Founding a workers' party and working as a writer
From 1875 to 1876 he tried to unite the various social democratic groups and organizations in the USA. Thus, in 1876 in Philadelphia , the Workmen's Party of America formed a year later in Socialist Labor Party renamed. His influence led this party to largely orientate itself towards the IAA. But when the influence of the left-wing extremist tendencies increased in the organization of the workers, he withdrew from direct political work.
In the following years, especially from 1890 to 1904, he wrote several historical writings and worked as a journalist for the newspaper Die Neue Zeit . Since 1871 he was in lively correspondence with Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. By 1895 he had written 147 letters that are known today. Numerous letters were published in Berlin from 1966 to 1968 in volumes 33 to 39 of the Marx-Engels works .
He was the great-uncle of Richard Sorge (1895–1944).
Fonts
- The presidential election in the United States. In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 15.1896-97, Volume 1 (1897), Issue 1, pp. 10-19
- The presidential election in the United States. In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 15.1896-97, Volume 1 (1897), Issue 2, pp. 54-58
- The presidential election in the United States. In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 15.1896-97, Volume 1 (1897), Issue 3, pp. 81-87
- From the United States . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 15.1896-97, Volume 1 (1897), Issue 5, pp. 142-148
- From the United States . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 15.1896-97, Volume 1 (1897), Issue 6, pp. 177-182
- Letters from North America , in: Die Neue Zeit, 1890/91
- The labor movement in the United States until 1850 , in: Die Neue Zeit, 1890/91 (a continuation followed in several articles)
- School singing lessons . (Reprinted from: Musikalisches Wochenblatt . Leipzig, February 4th and 11th, 1892). FW Fritzsch, Leipzig 1892
- From the United States , in: Die Neue Zeit, 1895/96
- Memories of a forty-eight person , in: Die Neue Zeit, 1898/99
- On March 14th (anniversary of the death of Karl Marx), in: Die Neue Zeit 1902/03
- Women's and Child Labor in the United States , in: Die Neue Zeit 1903/04
- Socialism and the Worker , London 1906
- Letters and excerpts from letters from Joh. Phil. Becker , Jos. Dietzen , Friedrich Engels and others to FA Sorge and others . JHW Dietz successor, Stuttgart 1906. Archiv.org.
- Morris Hillquit: History of Socialism in the United States. Authorized translation by Karl Müller-Wernberg. Introduced by FA Sorge . JHW Dietz successor, Stuttgart 1906 (International Library, vol. 39)
Honors
In his honor the battalion “Funkelektronischer Kampf 3” in Eilenburg ( Saxony ) was named “Friedrich Adolph Sorge” in the National People's Army on March 1, 1988 . A street in Dresden is named after him.
literature
- Franz Mehring : FA Sorge . In: Die neue Zeit. Bulletin of the German Social Democracy. 25.1906-1907, Volume 1 (1907), Issue 5, pp. 145-147
- The Sorgesche correspondence from Franz Mehring . In: The new time. Weekly of the German Social Democracy . 25.1906-1907, Volume 1 (1907), Issue 1, pp. 10-19
- The Sorgesche correspondence. (End) by Franz Mehring. In: The new time. Weekly of the German Social Democracy . 25.1906-1907, Volume 1 (1907), Issue 2, pp. 50-57
- Ninelʹ Semenovna Rumjanceva: Fridrich Zorge. čelovek uprjamoj spravedlivosti . Mysl ', Moskva 1966
- Hans Jürgen Friederici : Sorge, Friedrich Adolph . In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 436-438
- Rolf Weber (Ed.): Roses under alpine snow. German emigrants in Switzerland. 1820-1885 . Berlin 1983
- Philip S. Foner / Brewster Chamberlin: Friedrich A. Sorge's Labor Movement in the United States. A History of the American Working Class from Colonial Times to 1890 . Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1977
- Philip S. Foner: "Father of Modern Socialism in America". Friedrich Adolph Sorge . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement , Berlin, 20 Jg., 1978, No. 1, pp. 111-118
- Hans-Hermann Krönert: Friedrich Adolph Sorge. From revolutionary democrat to general secretary of the First International . Commission for research into the history of the local labor movement at the Cottbus district management of the SED, Cottbus 1988
Web links
- Literature by and about Friedrich Adolf Sorge in the catalog of the German National Library
- Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library
Individual evidence
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Worry, Friedrich Adolf |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Worry, Friedrich Adolph |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American workers leader and music teacher |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 9, 1828 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Bethau , near Torgau , Saxony |
DATE OF DEATH | October 26, 1906 |
Place of death | Hoboken, New Jersey , USA |