Johann Baptist von Schweitzer

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Johann Baptist von Schweitzer

Johann Baptist von Schweitzer (actually Schweitzer-Allesina, born July 12, 1833 in Frankfurt am Main , † July 28, 1875 in Giessbach am Brienzersee , Switzerland ) was a social democratic agitator and playwright . In succession to Ferdinand Lassalle , Carl Wilhelm Tölcke and others, he was the longest-serving president of the General German Workers' Association (ADAV) from 1867 to 1871 and during the same period he was a member of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation for the electoral district of Elberfeld - Barmen . He also emerged as an author of dramas and comedies, among other things.

Life

Origin and early years

He came from a Frankfurt patrician family of French origin. The father, Franz Karl Ludwig Allesina von Schweitzer, was an officer and chamberlain in the service of Karl von Braunschweig at a young age. The mother Emilie was the daughter of Carl Peter Berly . The couple had four children, of whom Johann Baptist was the oldest. The grandparents exercised the first intellectual influences. From his grandmother, who was related to Jean Paul , he got his first literary knowledge. Grandfather aroused interest in politics. He attended the Latin school in Aschaffenburg and lived in a Jesuit study seminar during this time . After graduating from high school in 1852, he studied law in Heidelberg and Berlin until 1855 . He received his doctorate as Dr. jur. He then opened a law firm in Frankfurt am Main

He first appeared publicly as a writer. In 1858 he published the drama Friedrich Barbarossa . The comedy Alcibiades followed . Since 1859 he devoted himself to politics. He was big-German and initially came out with brochures as a defender of Austria against France . A year later he had given up hopes for German unity through the princes and saw himself as a democrat and a republican. In order to achieve unity, he now counted on a revolution of the people. In the meantime, he published in Frankfurt / M. In 1861, influenced by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer , with whom he was in contact in his last years, a philosophical work “The Spirit of the Time and Christianity”.

On the political stage, von Schweitzer fought against the German national association, which had a small German focus . Since the majority of Frankfurt's citizens, including the bourgeois democrats, were still in favor of the national association at this time, von Schweitzer saw the workers as possible allies. He was chairman of a gymnastics club consisting mainly of workers. Von Schweitzer was also active in the rifle movement and was one of the founders of the German Rifle Federation .

Turning to the labor movement

When a workers' association was founded in Frankfurt, he was elected president in 1861. He turned increasingly to socialist ideas and his speech on a workers' day on May 25, 1862 marked the beginning of the social democratic movement in the area in and around Frankfurt. His goal was to establish a party until a brief jail term ended these plans. In August 1862, von Schweitzer was accused of having molested a school-age boy in the Mannheim palace gardens. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison not for a crime against morality but for causing public scandal . August Bebel reported in his autobiography about the incident, which he believed to be true, as von Schweitzer did not appeal the judgment and several boys testified that he had also spoken to them.

Von Schweitzer joined Ferdinand Lassalle and his General German Workers' Association in 1863 . In Frankfurt he was socially ostracized by the events in Mannheim in the workers' association. He therefore wanted to become the editor of an ADAV party newspaper in another city. He moved to Berlin and became co-editor and editor-in-chief of the ADAV party newspaper Der Social-Demokratie . He won over Georg Herwegh , Wilhelm Rustow , Johann Philipp Becker and Moses Heß, among others , and came into contact with Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht . They had given the promise to participate in the Social Democrats, but withdrew because of political differences of opinion.

The relationship with Marx and Engels deteriorated particularly when von Schweitzer made a political about-face on the question of German unity and, in a speech to the Leipzig congregation of the ADAV, expected unity either from “German proletarian fists” or “Prussian bayonets”. In 1865 he even dedicated a benevolent series of articles to Otto von Bismarck in the Social Democrats and praised his alleged state socialist plans. There was even a rumor that Schweitzer was paid for by the government. August Bebel declared in the Reichstag on December 9, 1875:

"Gentlemen, I don't know if you know, but we do know that Dr. von Schweitzer, the socialist leader, was secretly a political instrument of the Prussian government (cheerfulness; listen!) and, according to our conviction, the deputy Dr. Schweitzer granted leave of absence on the grounds that he played the government agent under a radical mask, in other words was a political rascal (great amusement; very correct! Contradiction on the right) whereas MPs Hasenclever and Most remain in prison as good men had to. (Laughter and contradiction.) Gentlemen, the word "de mortuis nil nisi bene" only applies to me in cases where the truth does not suffer. "

This led to a break with most of the well-known former 1848 democrats as well as with Marx, Engels, and Liebknecht. Wilhelm Liebknecht, who was a member of the ADAV from 1863 to 1865, was expelled from the party in 1865 at Schweitzer's instigation. However, he also criticized the reaction policy of the Prussian government during the constitutional conflict . He was imprisoned for a press offense from 1865 until shortly before the outbreak of the German War . After his release he agitated in Berlin for general, equal and secret suffrage and thus against three-class suffrage .

After the resignation of Carl Wilhelm Tölcke, a new president of the ADAV had to be elected. At the Leipzig Congress of the ADAV on June 17, 1866, Sophie von Hatzfeldt failed , mainly because of Schweitzer's resistance, to get Hugo Hillmann to be a party president she liked. Instead , Schweitzer suggested August Perl , who was also elected. The actual political line, however, was determined by Schweitzer.

With the establishment of the North German Confederation, the hope for a democratic Germany ended. Von Schweitzer recognized the new framework and saw no more chance of the success of a revolutionary movement. He therefore referred the labor movement primarily to the parliamentary and trade union field. When August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht founded the Greater German Saxon People's Party in 1866 , Schweitzer urged the members of the ADAV not to join the new party, mainly because of their anti-Prussian stance.

President of the ADAV

In May 1867 he was elected President of the ADAV. He declares that the working class must remain in the sharpest opposition to the Prussians and the reactionary powers that dominate the federal government.

Shortly afterwards, he was also given the Reichstag mandate for the Elberfeld-Barmen constituency. He held this position until 1871. In contrast to Karl Liebknecht, who had also been elected, von Schweitzer not only used parliament as a stage for agitation, but also tried to achieve legal improvements for the welfare of the workers through positive cooperation. A comprehensive bill drawn up by him for the "protection of labor against capital" failed right from the start because he did not even get the 15 necessary supporters.

Schweitzer led the party almost dictatorially. But he managed to overcome the organizational crisis. Schweitzer succeeded in increasing the number of members from 2500 to 12,000.

Together with Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche , von Schweitzer organized a workers' congress on September 27, 1868 with 206 delegates speaking for over 140,000 workers. The General German Workers' Union was founded as an umbrella organization for the unions closely related to the ADAV. Like the ADAV, the trade union organization was also strictly centralized with Schweitzer as president. However, the labor association soon encountered competition from the liberal Hirsch-Duncker trade unions and the organizations founded by Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel . The attempt at an agreement failed because of Schweitzer's resistance.

There were bitter conflicts between Schweitzer and Bebel and Liebknecht and their respective supporters. At the 9th general assembly of the ADAV in 1869, Bebel and Liebknecht were also present. They criticized Schweitzer for his pro-Prussian attitude. When Schweitzer was re-elected, there was a considerable number of votes against. In addition, the chairman's dictatorial rights were curtailed. In April 1869, Schweitzer, Bebel and Liebknecht signed a standstill agreement for their organizations. In June of that year Schweitzer aroused considerable resentment in his own ranks when he called for the reunification of the unity of the Lassallean party, i.e. the reunification with the split-off Hatzfeld association, to be resolved on the basis of the Lassallean statute of May 1863. This was directed against the restriction of the recently decided restriction of his powers and was seen in the party as an attempted "coup". Schweitzer could not prevent numerous leading members of the ADAV from turning to the new party when the Social Democratic Workers' Party was founded.

During the Franco-German War , Schweitzer, like the other social democratic members of the Reichstag, voted against further war loans, since after the capture of Napoleon III. the war goal was achieved. After he was not elected to the German Reichstag in his constituency in 1871 , he gave up political activity entirely. When he was asked by members of the ADAV in November 1872, he refused because he saw the Social Democratic Workers' Party as the actual social democratic party and an association as necessary. This position led to considerable criticism in the ADAV.

Last years

After that he had some success as a writer and playwright. He has been prolific as a writer in the last four years of his life. From a financial point of view in particular, writing was more profitable than political activity, which had forced von Schweitzer to go into debt. In 1872 he married his long-time fiancée Antonie Menschel.

His successor in the presidency of the ADAV was Wilhelm Hasenclever , who initiated a political reorientation of the association. The resignation of the anti-Marxist von Schweitzer, among other political reasons, cleared the way for the unification of the ADAV with the Social Democratic Workers 'Party to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP).

Schweitzer's homosexual orientation sparked an initial debate among the early Social Democrats about how to deal with homosexuality in the party. While Ferdinand Lassalle supported him, prominent pioneers such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels rejected him, also with reference to his sexual life.

Schweitzer in 1875 died at the age of 42 years at a pneumonia . He was buried in the family grave in Frankfurt's main cemetery.

Works

Political writings (selection)

  • Austria's cause is Germany's cause . Frankfurt 1859.
  • Refutation of Carl Vogt's studies on the current situation in Europe . Frankfurt 1859 digitized
  • The only way to unity. A contribution to the discussion of the national question . Frank Benjamin Auffahrt, Frankfurt 1860 digitized
  • The Zeitgeist and Christianity . Otto Wigand, Leipzig 1861.
  • On the German question . Frankfurt 1862 digitized
  • Official festival newspaper in the output of the Central Committee edited under the responsibility of JB v. Schweitzer, member of the board of the German Shooting Federation and the Central Committee for the German Shooting Festival, July 1862 . Heinrich Keller, Frankfurt am Main 1862.
  • The Austrian top. A contribution to the discussion of the national question . Otto Wigand, Leipzig 1863.
  • Lucinde or capital and labor . Frankfurt 1863/64 digitized
  • The work of Karl Marx . In: Social Demokratie, Berlin January 22, 24, 26 and 31, February 2, 23 and 26, March 8 and 29, April 24 and 29 and May 6, 1868
  • The capital gain and wages. National and economic treatise. Berlin 1868.
  • From the "Socialdemokrat", leading article and essays from the organ of the Social Democratic Party , Berlin 1868.
  • The dead Schulze versus the living Lassalle. From the Berlin "Social Democrat" 1868 . Hottingen-Zurich 1886 (Social Democracy Library, Vol. 8)
  • The social democrat . (from No. 79, July 1, 1865) Social Democrat. Organ of the General German Workers' Association, from January 1, 1866 organ of the Social Democratic Party . Editing by JB Hofstetten and JB Schweitzer (Reprint JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1979, 7 vols.)
  • Schweitzer, Johann Baptist (Ed.): Agitator . Berlin, year 1-2, April 1, 1870 - June 24, 1871. With an introduction to the reprint by Wolfgang Renzsch. (= Reprints on social history by JHW Dietz. Ed. By Dieter Dowe . JHW Dietz, Berlin and Bonn 1978).

Plays (selection)

  • Friedrich Barbarossa . Dramatic poem . JD Sauerländer, Frankfurt 1858
  • Charles I , King of England historical drama in 5 acts. Adelmann, Frankfurt am Main 1858 (digitized version)
  • Three state criminals. Orig. Intrigue piece in 5 acts. Printed as Ms. opposite the stages . Michaelson Berlin 1871.
  • Comtesse Helene. Original farce with singing in three acts . Bittner, Berlin 1873
  • A state secret. Original farce with song and dance in 3 acts . R. Rittner, Berlin 1874
  • Metropolitan. Variation in 4 acts. Opposite the stages as Ms. dr. Bittner, Berlin 1876
  • A rascal. An economic and social humoresque in one act . Akademie Verlag Berlin 1973

Contemporary documents

literature

Older representations

  • Johann Baptist von Hofstetten : My relationship with Herr von Schweitzer and the "Social Democrat" . Reichardt & Zander, Berlin 1869.
  • Gustav Mayer : Johann Baptist von Schweitzer and the social democracy. A contribution to the history of the German labor movement. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1909 (Reprint: Detlev Auvermann, Glashütten im Taunus 1970). Digitized archive.org
  • Gustav Mayer:  Schweitzer-Allesina, Johann Baptist von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, pp. 197-203.
  • Franz Mehring : A biography of Schweitzer . In: The new time. Features section. 28.1909-1910, 1st vol. (1910), H. 23/24, P. 431-436 ( digitized version ) and H. 25/26, P. 696-701 ( digitized version ).
  • Franz Mehring: Johann Baptist von Schweitzer. Political essays and speeches . Bookstore Vorwärts (Paul Singer), Berlin 1912.
  • Heinrich Laufenberg : The policy JB v. Schweitzers and Social Democracy . In: The new time. Weekly of the German Social Democracy. - 30.1911-1912, 1st vol. (1912), no. 20, pp. 693-704 ( digitized version ); H. 21, pp. 731-739 (conclusion; digitized version ).
  • Franz Mehring: Schweitzer's Beginnings . In: The new time. Features section. - 30.1911-1912, 2nd vol. (1912), H. 55, pp. [985] - 990 ( digitized version ).

Newer representations

Web links

Commons : Johann Baptist von Schweitzer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Johann Baptist von Schweitzer  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gustav Mayer, pp. 8–9.
  2. ↑ Gustav Mayer, p. 432 f.
  3. ↑ Gustav Mayer, p. 432: the boy in question had not been identified
  4. ↑ http://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/bebel/1911/leben2/kap1-01.html
  5. ↑ Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels: Complete Edition Section 1, Works, Articles, Drafts Vol. 21 September 1867 to March 1871 Apparat. Berlin, 2009 p. 1358
  6. ^ Protocols of the Reichstag, 2nd legislative period, 1875/6, 1, 23rd session, page 487. [1]
  7. ↑ Otto plant: Bismarck - the founder of the empire. Munich, 1997 p. 290
  8. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  9. ↑ RP. Morgan: The German Social Democrats and the First International: 1864-1872. Cambridge, 1969 p. 11
  10. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  11. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  12. ↑ Printed in the collection of sources on the history of German social policy 1867 to 1914 , Section I: From the time when the Reich was founded to the Imperial Social Message (1867-1881) , Volume 3: Workers' protection , edited by Wolfgang Ayaß , Stuttgart a. a. 1996, No. 4.
  13. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  14. ^ Toni Offermann: The first German workers' party. Organization, distribution and social structure of ADAV and LADAV 1863-1871 Bonn, 2002 p. 111
  15. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  16. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  17. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  18. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  19. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  20. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  21. ^ Franz Osterroth / Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy. Vol. 1: Until the end of the First World War. Bonn, Berlin, 1975 online version
  22. ^ Hubert Kennedy: Johann Baptist von Schweitzer: The Queer Marx loved to hate. In: Journal of Homosexuality. Volume 29, 1995, pp. 69-96 ( online )
  23. ^ Koch, p. 366.
  24. ↑ Detailed review of the first edition of the capital from 1867
  25. ↑ Reprint in: Rolf Dlubek . Hannes Skambraks: "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx in the German labor movement 1867/1868 , Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1967, pp. 158–192
  26. ^ Review by Johann Baptist von Schweitzer and the Social Democracy .
  27. ^ Review by Johann Baptist von Schweitzer and the Social Democracy conclusion.
personal data
SURNAME Schweitzer, Johann Baptist von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schweitzer-Allesina, Johann Baptist von; Allesina von Schweitzer, Johann Baptist
BRIEF DESCRIPTION President of the General German Workers' Association (ADAV) and member of the Reichstag (1867–1871)
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1875
Place of death Giessbach am Brienzersee , Switzerland