Vorwarts

   flagship daily of the SPD. Founded as the Party organ of the Socialist Workers' Party in 1876, the early newspaper* was edited by Wilhelm Liebknecht and Wilhelm Hasenclever in Leipzig. Banned by Bismarck s anti-socialist laws, it was covertly published during 1884-1891 as the Berliner Volks-blatt—words added to the title when Vorwarts reappeared in 1891. Once Vorwärts formed its own firm in 1894, the SPD began printing books and evolved a superior publication apparatus. By 1927 Vorwarts was the most im-portant of 187 Party dailies that reached a total of 1.2 million subscribers.

   Before World War I Vorwarts was a forum for the internecine debates over tactics and Marxist revisionism. While the paper favored the SPD s vote for war credits in August 1914, it soon took an antiwar stance (and was regularly suspended by the censors). As this failed to conform with either SPD or trade-union* policy, it was seized from its editors in October 1916. Henceforth it was tightly controlled, and criticism of SPD policy was rarely expressed in its pages. Under the direction of Friedrich Stampfer,* editor during 1916-1933 (with Curt Geyer* from 1924), it supported the war until 1918.

   Vorwarts focused during the Weimar era on current events, reporting and analysis, and announcements of concern to Social Democrats. It featured sports, entertainment, a business section, and women s* issues. Its solid editorial board included Stampfer, Geyer, Richard Bernstein, Erich Kuttner, Ludwig Lessen, Viktor Schiff, and Josef Steiner; its art critic was Max Hochdorff. Although it was never radical during the Republic, it reflected opinion somewhat to the left of official Party sentiment. In the Armistice* period, for example, its distaste for the military made it difficult for Friedrich Ebert* and Gustav Noske* to cooperate with the army. After the Kapp* Putsch it rejected the claim that most of the Reichswehr* had stood with the Republic, and an article by Kuttner helped induce Noske s resignation. When it published an account of secret mil-itary dealings with the Soviets in December 1926, the news helped undermine Otto Gessler,* Noske s successor as Defense Minister. Although it generally opposed coalition endeavors that included the DVP, such opposition was half-hearted. While it condemned Heinrich Bruning's* Presidential Cabinet* (1930-1932) as a "concealed dictatorship," it came to view the unpopular Brüning as the last barrier against fascism; indeed, it was repeatedly suspended under Bru-ning's successor, Franz von Papen.* By late 1931 it had eased its attacks on the Soviets in the futile hope of forming a loose anti-Nazi alliance with the KPD.

   On 28 February 1933, in response to the Reichstag fire, the NSDAP banned Vorwarts. It reappeared as Neuer Vorwarts in Prague during 1933-1937 and in Paris during 1938-1940. After fleeing to the United States in 1940, Stampfer printed it in New York. In 1955 it was reestablished as a Party weekly under the title Neuer Vorwarts.

   REFERENCES:Fliess, Freedom ofthe Press; Hale, Captive Press; Richard Hunt, German Social Democracy; Schorske, German Social Democracy; Taddey, Lexikon.