Patriotic fellows

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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries under Wilhelm II, patriotic journeymen were a dirty word for the German communists , socialists and social democrats . This word is attributed to the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , the background of this designation lies in a quote from the manifesto of the Communist Party , which literally says: The workers have no fatherland .

The term was used for other groups at times. In April 2004 the expression was used by the SPD politician Wolfgang Thierse as a dirty word for German companies that relocate jobs abroad. Since then the term has also been used in this context.

Swear word against the political left

At the time of socialist laws of Bismarck and Wilhelm II. To the beginning of burgfriedenspolitik the German Communists, Socialists and Social Democrats were called "unpatriotic". Even at this time, other groups were reviled as journeymen without a fatherland. At the beginning of the 20th century, for example, a German Jewish community in Emden called a local group of the Zionist Association in community assemblies “journeymen without a fatherland” (see History of the Jews in East Friesland ).

As early as 1851, the conservative Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl had disparagingly characterized the fourth class, i.e. the workers, as having no fatherland and contrasted it with the peasant class: “That lack of history and patriotism, which was otherwise regarded merely as the result of an eccentric schoolroom wisdom, is in the fourth class embodied in a large class of the people. There is therefore no greater contrast than the fourth estate and the farmers ”.

In 1913, Ludwig Thoma used the expression "Patriotic journeyman" as the title for a poem in his "Peter Schlemihl" collection. In it he criticizes the difference between rich and poor and reverses the image of the "homeless journeymen" by accusing the rich of having the fatherland only materially for them. In the years before the First World War, this line of argument was often encountered as defensive rhetoric of social democracy. Large armaments companies of the imperial era were repeatedly accused of concealing only profit interests behind their patriotic confessions. Simultaneous deliveries to the German and British navies by German companies during the arms race between the two countries confirmed such allegations.

In 1930 Adam Scharrer published a novel of the same name, the subtitle of which was The First Worker's Book of War . It is primarily about the proletarian “home front”, but the book ends with a revolution of the working class. Since the novel was viewed as communist, it disappeared - unlike in the GDR - from the canon of war literature in post- war Germany . Other authors, however, interpret the text as protest literature.

In the decades that followed, the expression “patriotic journeymen” became a symbol of the oppression and marginalization of social democrats and the labor movement during the Bismarckian era and beyond. Occasionally the term is still used today, mainly in the original sense against groups or individuals of the “politically left camp”, but also against behavior in business and society labeled as “unpatriotic”.

For example, the chairman of the party Die Linke , Bernd Riexinger , was described in a comment in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten on October 8, 2012 as a “patriotic journeyman” because he took part in a demonstration against Angela Merkel's visit to Athens.

Swear word against companies

In an interview with Die Welt am Sonntag for the April 11, 2004 issue, Wolfgang Thierse used the expression in which he said about companies that are relocating jobs abroad: “You are in a certain sense patriotic journeymen because they are in a contradiction live. "Already on 22 March 2004 SPD-General had Klaus Uwe Benneter of the Chairman of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) Ludwig Georg Braun in MDR accused is" unpatriotic to operate "after Braun company had publicly suggested in To examine possibilities of internationalization and thus the outsourcing of jobs within the framework of the EU eastward expansion. The verbal attacks come from the time of the CDU / CSU's patriotism debate , with Benneter and Thierse accusing some German companies or entrepreneurs of lacking a sense of responsibility towards Germany and / or the Germans. The use of the expression preceded the locust debate, which was also critical of capitalism and which was triggered by the then SPD chairman Franz Müntefering in April 2005.

The expression, which is now used again closer to its literal meaning, subsequently also spread to the public. When the Allianz group announced that it would cut 5,000 jobs, DGB chairman Michael Sommer also complained in an interview with the Oldenburger Nordwest-Zeitung on June 24, 2006 that there were companies in Germany "that turn out to be journeymen without a fatherland".

literature

Contemporary literature and its reception
  • Ludwig Thoma (1913): "Patriotic journeyman". In: "Peter Schlemihl" .
Electronic copy on the Gutenberg-DE project
Electronic copy in the Nemesis archive
  • Ulrich Dittmann: The first war book of a worker Adam Scharrer: Fatherlandslose journeymen (1930). In: Thomas F. Schneider and Hans Wagner (eds.), Amsterdam contributions to recent German studies, From Richthofen to Remarque: German-language prose on World War I. Pp. 375-386.
History of social democracy
  • Dieter Groh : Negative Integration and Revolutionary Attentism. German social democracy on the eve of the First World War . Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-549-07281-3 .
  • Dieter Groh, Peter Brandt : Patriotic journeymen. Social Democracy and the Nation, 1860–1990 . CH Beck publishing house. Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-36727-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich: The natural history of the people as the basis of a German social policy. Volume 2: Civil Society . 1st edition. Cotta, Stuttgart / Tübingen, p. 274 .
  2. ↑ Abstract on ingentaconnect.com ( memento from March 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) by Ulrich Dittmann. The first war book by a worker Adam Scharrer: Patriotic journeymen (1930). In: Thomas F. Schneider and Hans Wagner (eds.), Amsterdam contributions to recent German studies, From Richthofen to Remarque: German-language prose on World War I. Pp. 375-386.
  3. ^ Stuttgarter Nachrichten: Commentary on Left Party leader Riexinger (accessed on October 10, 2012)
  4. ↑ April 10, 2004 "Patriotic Journeyman" Bundestag President Thierse sharply criticizes entrepreneurs who relocate abroad
  5. ↑ April 11, 2004 "Longing for Redemption" The SPD programmer Wolfgang Thierse on "patriotic fellows" in the economy and the new threat to democracy from populist seducers - interview
  6. ↑ April 14, 2004 Indecent? Economy is fighting back
  7. ↑ Thierse rebukes the economy: "Patriotic journeymen"
  8. ↑ nz (April 12, 2004). Thierse considers entrepreneurs to be «patriotic». Netzeitung ( Memento of April 30, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed May 5, 2007)
  9. ↑ z. B. (March 23, 2004). "Patriotic" and "unpatriotic". Focus (accessed May 6, 2007). Spiegel online , however, reported on March 22, 2004 that Benneter had even described Braun as a journeyman without a fatherland : Job relocations abroad: Benneter insulted industrial bosses as journeyman without a fatherland. Spiegel online ( abstract accessed May 6, 2007)
  10. ^ "Patriotic journeyman": Summer attacks Allianz top n-tv.de, June 24, 2006.
  11. ↑ “There are journeymen here without a fatherland”. Article in the Nordwest-Zeitung of June 24, 2006. Accessed July 14, 2015.