Julian Borchardt

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Julian Borchardt with his wife, around 1912

Julian Borchardt (born January 13, 1868 in Bromberg ; † February 16, 1932 in Berlin ) was a socialist German journalist and politician at the time of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic .

Time of the empire

Borchardt was the son of a Jewish businessman and after graduating from school also did an apprenticeship as a clerk. He then worked for a few years as a businessman in Berlin. From 1896 to 1900 Borchardt worked as a librarian and teacher in Brussels . At the same time he studied at the university there. Borchardt worked as an editor for various social democratic newspapers since the 1890s . Among other things, he worked in Königsberg and Harburg . From 1907 to 1913 he was employed as a traveling teacher at the central education committee of the SPD . He was considered one of the party's economics teachers.

From 1911 to 1913 he was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives . During the plenary session of the House of Representatives on May 9, 1912, Borchardt caused a scandal when he interrupted the speech of the national liberal MP Anton Schifferer with heckling and after being excluded from the session by the meeting chairman Hermann von Erffa refused to leave the room. The President of Parliament had Borchardt and MP Robert Leinert removed from the room twice by the police. Both were later charged with trespassing and resisting. Hugo Haase , Wolfgang Heine and Hugo Heinemann appeared as defense counsel for the defendants at the appeal hearing before the Reichsgericht in Leipzig (1913) .

World War, Revolution and Weimar Republic

For reasons unknown, Borchardt came into conflict with the party leadership that same year. Borchardt then founded the rays of light. Journal of International Communism . This was initially a focal point of the internal party opposition. Immediately after the beginning of the First World War and the approval of the war credits by the Social Democratic parliamentary group in the Reichstag, Borchardt called on the left wing of the party to leave the SPD. He himself took this step back in 1914. In the course of 1915, the rays of light intensively promoted a split. There were connections to the Bremen left-wing radicals such as Anton Pannekoek and Karl Radek , who wrote regularly in Borchardt's newspaper.

A group around Borchardt in Berlin and the Bremen radicals formed the International Socialists of Germany (later International Communists of Germany ) from 1915 . This joined the Zimmerwald group . The only participant in the Zimmerwald Conference on the part of the International Socialists was Borchardt. After the light rays were banned , he founded the magazine Leuchtturm in 1916 , which was also banned shortly afterwards. The apparent lack of action and initiative of the broad sections of the population made Borchardt resigned and from 1917 onwards he no longer agreed with the prevailing opinions of the international socialists.

In December 1918 Borchardt was excluded from the International Communists because of his anarchist tendencies and thus did not join the KPD . In the following years Borchardt was no longer a party. After the November Revolution , however, he was again editor of the rays of light until 1921 . During the republic he was a member of the Protection Association of German Writers and co-founder of the Association of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers . He was also a teacher at the Marxist Workers' School (MASCH) . In 1931, Borchardt received an appointment to the Marx-Engels Institute from Dawid Borissowitsch Rjasanow in Moscow to participate in the Marx-Engels Complete Edition . While preparing to move to Moscow, he fell ill and died on February 16, 1932 in Berlin.

Borchardt also worked as a translator, particularly of English literature on the situation of the working class. He was also the author and editor of numerous economic and political papers. Among them was a popular edition of Karl Marx's Capital (first edition 1919)

Fonts (selection)

  • Where does the money for the war come from? Leipziger Buchdruckerei, Leipzig 1916. MDZ Reader
  • Revolutionary Hope! Publishing house of light rays, Berlin-Lichterfelde 1917. MDZ Reader
  • Me and the submarine war. A word of defense . Self-published, Berlin-Lichterfelde 1917. Berlin State Library digitized
  • Peace, freedom, bread and a parliamentary system . Ms. Wilh. Grunow, Leipzig 1917. MDZ Reader
  • Karl Marx. The capital. Critique of Political Economy. Common edition , provided by Julian Borchardt. Modern book publisher, Berlin-Schöneberg 1919. (3rd edition. Laub, Berlin 1922; 5th edition, increased by a register. Laub, Berlin 1922; 7th revised edition. Laub, Berlin / Hamburg, Klemm, Leipzig 1931.) New edition 2018 by Westhafen Verlag, ISBN 978-3-942836-16-6 .
  • Cashier calls. Out of need and death! . “Der Firn” Verlag, Berlin 1919. MDZ Reader
  • The dictatorship of the proletariat . Publishing house of light rays, Berlin-Lichterfelde 1919. MDZ Reader
  • Before and after August 4, 1914. Has German Social Democracy abdicated? Publishing house of light rays, Berlin-Lichterfelde 1919. Berlin State Library digitized
  • The basic economic terms according to the teachings of Karl Marx . Buchverlag Rätebund, Berlin 1920. (= Council textbooks Volume 4) MDZ Reader
  • The paper money in the revolution 1797 = 1920 . "Der Firn" Verlag, Berlin 1920. MDZ Reader
  • German economic history. From prehistoric times to the present . 1st volume. Laub, Berlin 1922. MDZ Reader
  • German economic history. From prehistoric times to the present . 2nd volume. Laub, Berlin 1924. MDZ Reader
  • World capital and world politics . Laub, Berlin 1927. MDZ Reader

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See short biography in: Mann, Bernhard (arr.): Biographisches Handbuch für das Prussisches Abrafenhaus. 1867-1918 . Collaboration with Martin Doerry , Cornelia Rauh and Thomas Kühne . Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1988, p. 76 (Handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties: Vol. 3)
  2. ^ Hans Manfred Bock: History of left radicalism in Germany. An attempt . Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3-518-00645-2 , p. 83.
  3. ^ H. Gebauer: Borchardt, Julian , p. 56.
  4. ^ New edition of the 7th edition from 1931 was published in March 2018 by Westhafen Verlag, ISBN 978-3-942836-16-6 ).
personal data
SURNAME Borchardt, Julian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Bromberg
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1932
Place of death Berlin