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Gustav Landauer | |
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 Landauer circa 1910 | |
| Born | (1870-04-07)7 April 1870 |
| Died | 2 May 1919(1919-05-02) (aged 49) |
| Cause of death | Murdered byFreikorps |
| Education | |
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Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) was a German philosopher, writer, and a leading theorist ofanarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate ofsocial anarchism and an avowedpacifist.
Landauer's social thought, a blend ofromanticism,mysticism, andlibertarian socialism, centered on the concept ofGemeinschaft (community) as a means to achieve an anarchist society. He was a powerful critic ofcapitalism,militarism,bureaucratic authority, andorthodox Marxism. Landauer believed that the state could only be overcome by the creation of alternative, decentralized communities based on voluntary cooperation. His ideas influenced various left-wing communitarian circles in Germany, including figures likeMartin Buber.
During theGerman Revolution, Landauer became a prominent figure in theBavarian Soviet Republic, serving as Commissioner for Enlightenment and Public Instruction in the first Räterepublik. Following the violent suppression of the republic byFreikorps troops, he was arrested and brutally murdered in Munich'sStadelheim Prison.
Gustav Landauer was born inKarlsruhe, the capital ofBaden, on 7 April 1870, into a middle-classJewish family.[1] His parents, Hermann and Rosa (née Neuberger) Landauer,[2] originated from the rural and small-town milieu ofSwabia, a region in modernWürttemberg, to which Landauer developed a strong attachment through frequent childhood trips.[1] This Swabian background, similar in its social structure of free peasant proprietorship to the nativeBurgundy of the French anarchistPierre-Joseph Proudhon, likely influenced Landauer's later attraction to peasant traditionalism and decentralized social forms.[3] Although born Jewish, Landauer grew up in an environment largely indifferent to Judaism, receiving asecular education focused on German literature and culture, common for assimilatedGerman Jews of the era.[4]
His father, who owned a small shoe store in Karlsruhe, favored a technical education for Gustav.[4] However, Landauer excelled inhumanities rather than sciences at the Karlsruhe Realgymnasium and, against his father's wish for him to become a dentist, persuaded his father to allow him to switch to the classically oriented Bismarck Gymnasium to study modernphilology.[5] This early conflict with paternal authority fostered Landauer's concern for personal independence andautonomy, sentiments he expressed with diary entries like "I will be led by no one".[5] He cultivated an early love forromantic andmystical literature, finding his "real education" in books, music, and daydreaming rather than formal schooling.[6] By fifteen, he was deeply attached to Germanromantic music and literature, particularlyRichard Wagner and theNibelungenlied.[7] He later explored the philosophies ofBaruch Spinoza andArthur Schopenhauer, whoseThe World as Will and Representation appealed to his romantic and mystical inclinations.[7]
At the Bismarck Gymnasium (1886–1888), Landauer was exposed to the prevailingvölkisch ideology in German education, which emphasized a unique Germanic mission, the virtues of rootedness in theVolk (people/nation), and condemned modern urban industrialmaterialism.[8] In 1888, he won a silver medal for an essay on the medieval emperorFrederick Barbarossa, a theme dear to German romantics.[9] However, Landauer infused his essay with therevolutionary sentiments of thelibertarian romanticHeinrich Heine, to the dismay of his teachers, signaling an early tendency to cast the romantic tradition in an antiauthoritarian manner.[10] He later claimed this period marked an "unconscious anarchism"—a romantic rejection of rigid society and an insistence on personal independence, predating any formal socialist or anarchist theory.[11]
Between 1888 and 1890, Landauer studied at theUniversity of Heidelberg and then theUniversity of Berlin, showing little interest in formal studies but actively participating in student literary and philosophical societies.[12] His primary concern was personal autonomy rather than political or social issues.[13] During this time, he was profoundly influenced by the works ofHenrik Ibsen andFriedrich Nietzsche. Ibsen's dramas, particularlyAn Enemy of the People andGhosts, appealed to Landauer for their depiction of the creative individual struggling against a philistine bourgeois society.[14] Nietzsche's philosophy, which Landauer studied intensively at theUniversity of Strasbourg in the winter semester of 1890–1891, provided a crucial bridge from his earlier passive aestheticism to later activism.[15] Nietzsche's emphasis onlife affirmation, the "will to power" (interpreted by Landauer asvoluntarism and self-transformation), and the critique of Schopenhauer's pessimism deeply resonated with him.[16] In an early 1891 article, "Die Religiöse Jugenderziehung" ("The Religious Education of Youth"), Landauer articulated a Nietzschean-influenced view where God is embodied in the ideals humans posit for themselves and strive to achieve through willed self-development.[17] While accepting Nietzsche's critique of socialist materialism at this point, Landauer could not embrace a purelyegoisticindividualism, already feeling the pull of humansolidarity and the romantic,völkisch idea of the individual rooted in community and nation.[18] His 1891 article stressed the connection of each individual with the "entire organic and inorganic world" and posited the ethical and spiritual elevation of all mankind as a solution to the "social problem", rather than mere economic improvement.[19]
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In April 1891, Landauer returned to the University of Berlin, drawn by its vibrantintellectual and literary life.[20] The Berlin he returned to was a city of rapid industrialization, markedsocial polarization, and a growing concern for the "social problem", especially after the lapse of theAnti-Socialist Law in 1890.[21] The literary scene was dominated by naturalism, which often focused on social outcasts and aimed to evoke social pity.[22] The Freie Volksbühne, founded in 1890 by the writer and socialistBruno Wille, aimed to provide working-class cultural education and became a hub for writers and socialists.[23]
Landauer, now more attuned to social issues, was deeply impressed by the working-class discontent and hardships in Berlin.[24] He settled inFriedrichshagen, a literary bohemian suburb and home to many figures from the Freie Volksbühne, including Wille, with whom he became close friends.[25] During the fall semester of 1891, Landauer associated with a group of radical, orthodoxMarxist students and received his first formal education in socialist theory.[25] He was asked to draft a statement for the International Socialist Student Congress inBrussels, as Prussian law prevented young people from direct political engagement.[26] In this statement, Landauer called for workers of all lands to pursue the class struggle and urged students to spread socialist ideas. However, his interpretation of Marxism was already voluntaristic, emphasizing the active struggle ofidealisticbourgeois intellectuals for theproletariat and humanity, rather than historical inevitability.[27]
Following his eclectic tendencies, Landauer did not reject Nietzschean ideas while engaging with Marxism.[28] He attempted to reconcile the two in his 1892 articles for theSocial Democratic Party (SPD) organ,Die Neue Zeit, and in his novelDer Todesprediger (The Preacher of Death, written largely in spring 1892).[29] In these writings, he argued for a socialism based on Nietzschean vitalism and life affirmation, rather than rationalistic predictions. Art, he contended, should not be merely representational (as in naturalism) but should be prophetic, expressing the artist's values and helping to create the future.[30]Der Todesprediger depicts a hero who moves from despair to a joyous affirmation of life and humanity, embracing a socialism rooted in deep emotional experience rather than cold reason.[31] This vitalistic life affirmation, Landauer held, was the sole basis for a meaningful socialism.[32]
Landauer's path from this voluntaristic Marxism to anarchism was shaped by his association with theBerliner Jungen (Berlin Youth), a group of dissident socialists critical of the SPD's reformism and bureaucracy.[33] The Jungen, many of whom were young intellectuals like Landauer, emerged in the late 1880s, particularly in industrial cities like Berlin where persecution under the Anti-Socialist Law had been strong.[34] They criticized the SPD leadership for abandoning revolutionary goals in favor of parliamentary tactics and vote-getting.[35] After the SPD representative Karl Grillenberger publicly disavowed the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in 1891, the Jungen's view that the party had abandoned revolution was strengthened, leading to personal attacks on party leaders.[36] At the SPD congress in Erfurt in 1891, five Jungen spokesmen were expelled, and in response, the entire Berlin opposition group withdrew from the party.[37]
In November 1891, the Jungen formed the Verein Unabhängigen Sozialisten (Union of Independent Socialists). Their manifesto, while still nominally Marxist and committed to class struggle, revealed a strong suspicion of centralized authority and called for a decentralized movement structure.[38] Their weekly newspaper,Der Sozialist, launched soon after, reflected this antiauthoritarian stance, attacking the SPD for opportunism and advocating against parliamentary activity.[39] Landauer, already disillusioned with SPD passivity by early 1892,[40] found in the Jungen's experience and critique the theoretical materials for his anarchist development. He became involved with the Independents after mid-1892.[41]
His early articles forDer Sozialist in late 1892 show him attempting a qualified defense of Marx against his "epigones" who interpreted Marx's thought as a closed, deterministic science.[42] Landauer praised the libertarian socialist Eugen Dühring as a corrective to Marxist dogmatism, emphasizing Dühring's focus on individual creativity and autonomy.[43] Dühring's "force theory"—that social and political relations are based on compulsion—resonated with Landauer and the anarchist wing of the Independents, contrasting with Marx's view of political authority as a result of economic relations.[44]
By early 1893, Landauer, influenced by discussions with the anarchist theorist Benedikt Friedländer and the publication of Friedländer'sLibertarian Socialism in Opposition to the State Servitude of the Marxists, completed his shift to anarchism.[45] In April 1893, in articles forDer Sozialist titled "What Should We Call Ourselves?", he proclaimed that the program of the Independents was anarchism. He argued that the state is not something "external" to be overthrown by revolution but a condition rooted in human obedience; true socialism, therefore, must be anarchistic, realized without the use of authority.[46] This stance, drawing on Friedländer's critique of Marxist state socialism as a perpetuation of servitude, led to a split within the Independents. In May 1893, the anarchist group around Landauer and Bruno Wille outvoted the Marxist wing, and Landauer became editor-in-chief ofDer Sozialist.[47]
In the mid-1890s, Landauer began to frame his anarchosocialism in terms of romantic and idealist philosophy, shifting away from purely urban, proletarian concerns towardsvölkisch ideology, handicrafts, and peasant life.[48] This reorientation developed as an alternative to Marxist materialism and industrial urbanism.[48]
Anarchism in Germany was a relatively weak tradition compared to other European countries.[49] While figures likeMax Stirner existed in the 1840s, a significant movement only began to develop with dissidents from the SPD, likeJohann Most, in the 1880s.[50] By the early 1890s, theBerliner Jungen provided a new impetus.Der Sozialist, under Landauer, became the only anarchist newspaper in Germany, though its circulation was small.[51] Anarchism's appeal was strongest among pre-industrial sectors, but in increasingly industrialized Germany, it mainly attractedfreischwebende (free-floating) intellectuals and artists rebelling against regimentation.[52] Landauer, as a Jewish intellectual, occupied a marginal social position, a commonality among many Jewish leftists and anarchists in Central Europe who found in socialism or anarchism a path to integration or a universalist ethical vision.[53]
In his first phase of anarchist activity (1893–late 1894), Landauer attempted to compete with the SPD for the allegiance of the urban industrial labor movement, advocating foranarchosyndicalism: workers building trade unions as models for a nonauthoritarian, decentralized socialist society that would emerge after a revolutionary takeover of factories.[54] He opposed both parliamentary activity and anarchist terrorism.[54] At theZurich International Socialist Congress in July 1893, Landauer and Wilhelm Werner represented German anarchism.[55] Landauer prepared a report arguing that the SPD's large vote did not represent a gain for socialism, as they were merely reformist.[55] However, the anarchist delegates were expelled from the Congress after a motion by SPD leaderPaul Singer.[56] At a subsequent anarchist conference, Landauer spoke on thegeneral strike, emphasizing economic struggles leading to worker control of industry.[57]
Amidst a wave of anarchist terrorism in France (1892–1894), which led to repressive measures in Germany, Landauer was arrested in October 1893 for an article advocating "disobedience of the law" and sentenced to two months in prison.[58] Before completing this term, he was charged with agitating for violent overthrow and sentenced in December 1893 to another nine months.[58]Der Sozialist continually deplored terrorism, viewing it as contrary to anarchist principles of voluntary association.[59] While in prison (November 1893–October 1894), Landauer kept a diary expressing horror at terrorism but understanding its roots in wretched social conditions. He rejected violence based on a feeling of "oneness with the entire world", a concept he termed "free reconciliation" (freie Versöhnung).[60]
By late 1894, disillusioned with the SPD's dominance over the proletariat, Landauer developed a new theory of authoritarianism. He now focused on the obedience and dependence of the working masses, rather than solely on the usurpation of authority by external institutions.[61] Capitalism, Social Democracy, and the state, he concluded, could not be attacked directly; their roots in mass dependency must first be eradicated. This led to a new tactic: building socialism outside the capitalist system through producer-consumer cooperatives, which would educate workers in self-help and economic cooperation.[61] His January 1895 article inMaximilian Harden'sDie Zukunft argued that culture's task is the "conscious, willed, purposive formation ... of communities", moving from unconscious historical development to conscious self-determination.[62] The state's power, he contended, stemmed from the "blind belief of the masses in authority".[62] This echoedImmanuel Kant's view of enlightenment as man's emergence from self-caused immaturity.[63]
After his release from prison, Landauer, facing financial difficulties asDer Sozialist closed in January 1895 due to police pressure, briefly considered medical studies.[64] By August 1895,Der Sozialist resumed publication, now focusing on cooperatives.[65] Landauer, with Wilhelm Weise, founded the Arbeiter-Kongsumgenossenschaft Befreiung (Workers' Consumer Cooperative Liberation) in April 1895, and Landauer wrote the pamphletEin Weg zur Befreiung der Arbeiterklasse (A Way to the Liberation of the Working Class) to promote it.[66] The pamphlet argued against violent overthrow, proposing instead the building of socialist reality "out of nothing" through cooperatives. Workers would first harness their consumer power, then achieve financial independence to become their own producers.[67] The Befreiung cooperative had modest success.[68]
This cooperative tactic marked Landauer's shift away from the mainstream proletarian labor movement.[69] From fall 1895, he began to formulate alternatives to Social Democracy, drawing on idealist, romantic, andvölkisch thought.[69] He was influenced by ethical reformers like the Ethical Culturists and Moritz von Egidy, both inspired by Kantian idealism.[70] Landauer'sanarchosocialism aimed to demonstrate the interdependence of anarchism (individual autonomy) and socialism (community integration).[71] He used the German romantic concept ofGemeinschaft (community as a living organism) against the mechanistic "sum of individuals" idea of society.[72] The individual, he argued, is indissolubly bound to humanity physically (through heredity) and spiritually.[73] This drew on Schopenhauer but emphasized the uniqueness of "individuality" (Individualität) as part of a larger organic whole, a core idea of early German romanticism.[74]
Landauer's focus shifted further with the decline of working-class militancy after the economic upswing of 1894.[75] He became involved with nonfactory workers, such as the Berlin needleworkers during their 1896 strike.[76] At the 1896London International Socialist Congress (from which anarchists were again expelled), Landauer emphasized the role of the peasantry in creating a free society, arguing for peasant cooperatives to prevent proletarianization.[77] This marked a turn towards an anti-industrial, antiurbanvölkisch romanticism.[78]
Increasing political isolation followed. Conflicts withinDer Sozialist between Landauer's intellectual approach and workers demanding simpler propaganda led to a split in 1897, with the rival paperNeues Leben drawing away readers.[79]Der Sozialist eventually ceased publication in 1899.[75] A 1897 speaking tour found audiences largely composed of "bourgeois" elements rather than working-class people.[80] Landauer withdrew into private study of literature and philosophy.[80]
This period of isolation (roughly 1898–1903) led Landauer to mysticism. His political isolation became a philosophical asset, as he argued that true community must first be discovered within the individual soul.[81] He was sentenced to six months in jail in March 1899 for libeling the Berlin police commissioner in an article defending Moritz von Egidy's campaign to free a man named Ziethen.[82] Shortly before imprisonment, he met and became infatuated with the poetHedwig Lachmann, who became his second wife in 1903 after his divorce from Grete Leuschner.[83] Hedwig's influence may have contributed to Landauer's mystical and romantic views.[84]
In prison (1899–1900), Landauer studied and translated the sermons of the medieval German mysticMeister Eckhart.[85] Eckhart's teaching that God and truth are found within the soul, through withdrawal from the external world, provided a comforting view for the isolated Landauer.[86] He also worked on arranging the manuscripts of his friendFritz Mauthner's studies on language, which would provide an epistemological framework for his own major philosophical work,Skepsis und Mystik: Versuche im Anschluss an Mauthners Sprachkritik (Skepticism and Mysticism: Essays in Connection with Mauthner's Language Criticism, 1903).[87]
Skepsis und Mystik utilized Mauthner's critique of language (language as thought is useless for perceiving reality; concepts like "state" are word fetishisms) but went beyond Mauthner's skepticism.[88] Landauer argued that if skepticism clears the ground of old illusions, new self-created "illusions" (mysticism) are necessary for life.[89] Drawing on Kant'sCritique of Practical Reason, he asserted that ethics stem from man's autonomous will.[90] The feeling of individual isolation, he posited, is a misperception; true reality is the "World-I", a community with the world experienced internally.[91] Unlike Schopenhauer's timeless World Will, Landauer's "world within" was an "eternally alive", developing, temporal process.[92] He argued that space is a subjective construct derived from the sense of time inherent in the soul.[93] This mystical consciousness of the indwelling Weltall (universe) was a consciousness of the individual's rootedness in inherited, developing communities (Volk, humanity).[94] Landauer's communitarianism focused on a mystic growth of consciousness accessible to all, contrasting with racistvölkisch thought based on fixed biological makeups.[95] The artist, he believed, was peculiarly equipped to express this mystic awareness and create the mythos for a newVolk.[96]
From 1900, Landauer participated in theNeue Gemeinschaft (New Community) circle in Berlin, with intellectuals likeHeinrich and Julius Hart, and the youngMartin Buber.[97] These discussions about creatingSiedlungen (settlements) away from the modern city influenced Landauer's developingvölkisch socialism.[98] He also became involved with the Deutsche Gartenstadt Gesellschaft (German Garden City Association) in 1903, which advocated for model cities integrating small workshops with agriculture, though he found its appeal limited to the middle classes.[99]
In the decade before the Bavarian Revolution, Landauer articulated his mature synthesis of romantic and socialist thought, producing his most substantial works.
Between 1902 and 1908, Landauer largely withdrew from public activity into private study, his social circle small but intellectually rich.[100] His friendships with figures likeFritz Mauthner andConstantin Brunner were central during this period.[101] His major historical work,Die Revolution (1907), was influenced byPeter Kropotkin'sMutual Aid (which Landauer translated in 1904) and Brunner'sDie Lehre von den Geistigen und vom Volke.[102] Kropotkin provided a historical account of voluntary cooperation, especially in the medieval cityguilds, as a counter-tradition to centralized authority.[103] Brunner's denigration of theMiddle Ages spurred Landauer to present a contrasting romantic medievalist view, seeing the period as an age ofGeist (spirit) and organic community, which was later destroyed by the modern emphasis on the state and social atomization beginning around 1500.[104] For Landauer, the Middle Ages represented a "society of societies", not a centralized state, with a vibrantvölkisch communal art.[105] TheReformation, he argued, completed the separation of life from belief, leading to "infamous isolation" and "stupid force".[106] However, the spirit of community (Geist) survived as a subterranean countercurrent.[107]
In January 1907, Landauer published "Volk and Land: Thirty Socialist Theses" inDie Zukunft, which laid the groundwork for the Socialist Bund (Sozialistischer Bund).[108] He argued that a newVolk organism must emerge outside the state, based on localGemeinden (communities).[109] The Socialist Bund was launched in June 1908, with Landauer outlining its "Twelve Articles", aiming to begin immediate socialist construction in enclaves outside the capitalist state.[109] The Bund, composed of decentralized groups, aimed to establish settlements where members would place their work in the service of their consumption, exchanging products through a bank of exchange.[110]Der Sozialist was revived in January 1909 as the Bund's organ, with Landauer as sole editor.[111] The Bund attracted mainly middle-class intellectuals, including Martin Buber andErich Mühsam, but struggled to gain broader appeal, especially among industrial workers or peasants.[112] Its projects, like founding "free schools" or communitarian colonies, largely remained unimplemented.[113]
Landauer's major theoretical work of this period,Aufruf zum Sozialismus (Call to Socialism, written 1908–1911, published 1911), further elaborated his critique of Marxism.[114] He rejectedhistorical materialism and "scientific socialism", arguing that socialism arises from human will and ethical necessity, not from objective economic laws or the inevitable collapse of capitalism.[115] Capitalism, he contended, was not a progressive stage towards socialism but its antithesis; its mode of production (centralized, mass factory system) was as inimical to true socialism as private ownership.[116] He criticized Marxists for envisioning state capitalism rather than genuine socialism.[117] Landauer argued that industrial workers, acclimatized to capitalism through trade unionism, had lost revolutionary desire. True socialism required a withdrawal from the capitalist system into decentralized, rural, mutual-aid settlements integrating agriculture and craft industries, drawing on Proudhonian mutualism and Kropotkin's ideas on integrated labor.[118] The state, he reiterated, is not an external force to be overthrown, but a "condition, a certain relationship between human beings"; it is destroyed by "contracting other relationships, by behaving differently".[119]
The period from 1911 to 1918 saw Landauer's preoccupations shift towards the national question and the threat of war, particularly after thesecond Moroccan crisis in 1911.[120] He developed a humanitarian and pacifist conception of the nation (Volk), drawing on the cosmopolitan cultural nationalism of early German romantics likeJohann Gottfried Herder andJohann Gottlieb Fichte.[121] EachVolk, he insisted, is a unique reflection of and contributor to universal humanity, a community of peace distinct from the state, which is a structure of force and violence.[122]
Landauer initially blamed Germany's authoritarian nature and the passivity of its masses for its diplomatic isolation and the drive towards war.[123] After 1911, he became a vocal opponent of militarism, prophesying a European war if the "armed peace" continued.[124] He championed national self-determination for allVölker but stressed that this should lead to a united humanity of diversified peoples, not chauvinism.[125] He criticized the SPD for not effectively opposing war and for its potential complicity with the state.[126] He advocated for a politicalgeneral strike, inspired byGustave Hervé, to prevent war, calling for grass-roots organization of workers.[127] His 1911 pamphlet,The Abolition of War through the Self-Determination of the Volk, which outlined this, was confiscated by Berlin police.[128]
DuringWorld War I, Landauer opposed the war on moral grounds, viewing it as a crime against both humanity and theVölker.[129] He usedDer Sozialist (until its cessation in April 1915 due to the drafting of its printer) to promote humanitarian cultural nationalism, publishing selections from Herder and Fichte to counter their right-wing appropriation by war propagandists.[130] He emphasized that theVolk or nation is an older, more genuine "illusion" (a necessary, life-giving mythos in the Nietzschean sense) than the "lie" of the state.[131] He felt increasingly isolated as friends like Fritz Mauthner supported the war effort, and even had a temporary falling out with Martin Buber over Buber's robust defense of the German mission in the war, which Buber published in the editorial "Die Losung" in the inaugural issue of Buber's periodicalDer Jude in April 1916.[132][133]
Landauer was active in pacifist circles like the Aufbruchkreis (1915–1916) with figures fromExpressionism and the left-wing of the youth movement, such asKurt Hiller and Ernst Joël.[134] His literary lectures during the war (onJohann Wolfgang von Goethe,Friedrich Hölderlin,Georg Kaiser,William Shakespeare) often contained veiled political criticism, distinguishing German cultural contributions from its political actions.[135] He lauded Kaiser's pacifist dramaDie Bürger von Calais and saw Shakespeare's plays as explorations of personal isolation and the destructive drive for power.[136] His cultural nationalism remained cosmopolitan and antiauthoritarian, rejecting racism andanti-Semitism, and affirming his identity as a "German, a south German, and a Jew".[137] He actively defended Eastern European Jews and argued for a Jewish identity rooted in universalist tasks rather than narrow statism.[138]
In therevolutionary situation inMunich from November 1918 to April 1919, Landauer saw an opportunity to implement his ideas, particularly through theworkers' and soldiers' councils (Räte).[139] He hoped for a federalized Germany based on local, grass-roots democracy.[139]
Following the death of his wife Hedwig Lachmann in February 1918 from influenza, Landauer was in a state of deep personal crisis.[140] However, by October 1918, with German military collapse imminent, he became more confident about playing a role in the future.[141] He was called to Munich byKurt Eisner, leader of theIndependent Socialists (USPD) in Bavaria, who proclaimed theBavarian Republic on 8 November.[142] Landauer, a lifelong federalist, initially saw the Bavarian events as part of a wider wave of decentralized revolts against the centralized German state.[143]
Landauer joined the radical Revolutionary Workers' Council (Revolutionäre Arbeiterrat, RAR) in Munich, led byErich Mühsam, which advocated for a socialist democracy based on councils and opposed parliamentary elections.[144] He attempted to broaden the definition of "worker" to include all active members of the community and called for the "abolition of the proletariat" as a distinct class, advocating for a participatory democracy from below.[145] In his pamphletThe United Republics of Germany and Their Constitution, he outlined a plan for a federal union of autonomous German republics, each controlled by constituent councils, with Prussia to be dissolved into smaller units.[146]
However, parliamentarism gained ground. Eisner set elections for theBavarian Landtag for January 1919.[147] Landauer grew increasingly despondent as his hopes for a council-based democracy faded.[148] He ran for a Landtag seat inKrumbach at Eisner's request, but received few votes.[149] After the elections, which the SPD andBavarian People's Party dominated, Landauer criticized Eisner for compromising with the SPD.[150] He argued that the state, being a reflection of popular servitude, could only be overcome by building autonomous institutions and ignoring the counter-revolutionary National Assembly in Berlin.[151] Despite the setbacks, Landauer participated in the Munich Rätekongress in February 1919, arguing for the Räte to be agents for developing real communities in rural and urban areas, a partial compromise with his earlier antiurbanism.[152]
The assassination of Kurt Eisner on 21 February 1919, exactly one year after Hedwig's death, plunged Munich into chaos and created a power vacuum.[153] This led to the proclamation of a first, short-livedBavarian Räterepublik (Council Republic) on 7 April 1919, by anarchists and Independent Socialists, including Landauer, who served as Commissioner for Enlightenment and Public Instruction.[154] He attempted educational reforms, envisioning universities as libertarian cooperative societies and promotingWalt Whitman as a cornerstone of education.[155] He also resisted authoritarian measures and the use of force by the regime.[156] This "Coffee House Anarchists" government lasted only a week before being replaced by a second, Communist-led Räterepublik on 13 April, following an attempted putsch.[157] Landauer initially offered to assist the new regime against counter-revolution but soon withdrew, deploring their methods.[158]
On 1 May 1919, asFreikorps andReichswehr troops sent by the SPD government in Berlin began to crush the Munich Räterepublik, Landauer was arrested.[159] On 2 May, he was taken toStadelheim Prison and brutally beaten to death by soldiers. His last reported words were, "Kill me then! To think that you are human!"[160] His murder was part of a wider terror in which many were killed.[161] Landauer's decision not to flee, despite pleas from friends, has been attributed to his deep despondency over personal and political tragedies, and a will for self-sacrifice.[162] A monument erected to him in Munich'sWaldfriedhof in 1925 was destroyed by theNazis in 1933.[163]
Gustav Landauer's primary importance lies in his synthesis of a pacifist, humanitarian, and democratic version ofanarchosocialism with the outlook ofvölkisch romanticism.[164] His work serves as an antidote to simplistic views that equatevölkisch thought solely with its later racist and imperialist interpretations, or socialism exclusively withMarxism. Landauer represented a radical democratic and communitarian strand within the broader romantic reaction against industrial modernity.[165]
His ideas resonated with various left-wing communitarian circles in Germany, including the socialist wing of the youth movement, Zionist socialists likeMartin Buber, andExpressionist writers such asErnst Toller andGeorg Kaiser.[166] Landauer's emphasis onGemeinschaft, spiritual renewal, and decentralized, cooperative living, while ultimately failing to gain mass political traction in his lifetime, prefigured later concerns about the crisis of metropolitan centers and the search for alternative models of community.[167] According toSol Liptzin, Landauer's panhumanist form of Zionism, which saw Jewish identity as a unique contribution to a diverse humanity, also had a notable influence on Jewish National Humanists in Central Europe.[168]
