Society mirror

Society mirror. Issue X. 1846 (title page)

The society mirror was an influential, socially critical journal of the Vormärz . It was published monthly between 1845 and 1846 in Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal ) and saw a total of 12 issues. Her full title was Society Mirror. Organ to represent the dispossessed national classes and to illuminate the social conditions of the present . It was edited by Moses Hess and Friedrich Schnake and published by the Elberfeld bookseller Julius Bädeker .

In addition to Hess himself, the authors included Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels (to a lesser extent), Rudolf Matthäi , Hermann Püttmann , Heinrich Bürgers , Friedrich Schnake and Georg Weerth , who wrote many amounts. Hess and Engels initially planned to publish the “society mirror” together, but ultimately, according to the Marx-Engels works , Engels did not join the editorial team (Marx-Engels works. Volume 27, p. 621). According to him, the aim should be "to portray the social misery and the bourgeoisie regime" (to Marx, January 20, 1845. Marx-Engels-Werke. Volume 27, p. 15). Engels believed that the magazine should do for German conditions what his work The Situation of the Working Class in England did for the British.

In addition to descriptions of social and working life, the social mirror also contained contributions on politics and social legislation, but also poems. The society mirror found ample material for its social reports in what was then Elberfeld and Barmen , as these cities were among the earliest industrialized areas in Germany. A contemporary observer certified the social mirror that it had left "a deep mark in the spirit of the people".

swell

• Moses Heß, Friedrich Schnake: Society mirror: Organ to represent the dispossessed national classes and to illuminate the social conditions of the present , Vol. I / II. Detlev Auvermann, Glashütten im Taunus 1971. (Reprint).
• Edmund Silberner : The “Communist Rabbi” and the “Society Mirror” (PDF; 4.7 MB); in the archive for social history .
• Friedrich Engels to Karl Marx. January 20, 1845 ( Marx-Engels-Werke Volume 27, pp. 14-18.)

Web links

• Society mirror. Organ to represent the dispossessed national classes and to illuminate the social conditions of the present . Reprint digitized
• Society mirror in: Ralf G. Hoerig and Hajo Schmück: Database of German-speaking anarchism - DadA. Department: Periodicals 1798 - 2001 ff.
• Manfred Behrend: The suicide article by Marx and his destiny , Berlin 2001; Review of Eric A. Plaut, Kevin Anderson (Ed.): Karl Marx: Vom Sumord. With a foreword by Michael Löwy. Neuer ISP Verlag, Cologne 2001. 118 pages.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Only issues 11 and 12 1846.
2. ↑ Peuchet: On suicide. From Karl Marx.
3. ↑ King Steam. Translated from English by Friedrich Engels . (Booklet 4, 1845, p. 160 f.) Printed in more detail in Friedrich Engels: The situation of the working class in England . (Marx-Engels-Werke Volume 2, p. 405 f. And in album . Ed. Hermann Püttmann . A. Reiche, Borna 1847, p. 251 f. MDZ Reader )
4. ↑ "The latest thing is that Hess and I will be publishing a monthly journal at Thieme & Butz in Hagen from April 1st on: 'Society mirror' ..." (MEW 27, p. 15.
5. ↑ Edmund Silberner: The "Communist Rabbi" and the "Society Mirror", p. 102.
6. ↑ With a newly compiled table of contents and a separately bound introduction by Ernst Theodor Mohl : Marginalia for the reprint of the journal Gesellschaftsspiegel along with footnotes on the more recent Marx-Engels research.