Landauer, Gustav

(1870-1919)

   philosopher and politician; Cultural Minister in Munich's short-lived Räterepublik. Born in Karlsruhe to a middle-class Jewish family, he pursued university studies without completing a degree. In 1891 he joined several young socialists centered on Berlin's* newly founded Freie Volksbuhne (Free People's Stage); when a feud arose over the Marxist program issued by the SPD, he entered a rival group of anti-Marxist socialists. He wrote concurrently for Der Sozialist, a paper founded by exiles from the SPD, and became editor in 1893. For twenty years, in and out of prison, he struggled to support himself. Attracted to anarchism, he was also increasingly steeped in pacifism and mysticism. His major work, Aufruf zum Sozialismus (Call to socialism, 1911), rejected scientific Marxism. By 1911 he was working with Erich Mühsam* and Martin Buber*; the latter's concept of man as God's agent working to perfect humanity was crucial to his thought. He emphasized struggle as essential to spiritual regeneration; his ideas were anathema to many colleagues. Because of his utopian anarchism and his distaste for structure, every Party affiliate refused him membership.

   After several years as a critic and translator, Landauer returned to active politics in 1908 by founding the Socialist Bund and reintroducing a defunct Sozialist, but the outbreak of war isolated him from old friends. He continued publishing antiwar opinions until April 1915, when economic constraints forced closure of Der Sozialist. Powerless to control the present, he grew increasingly preoccupied with shaping the future. Declaring before the November Revolu-tion* that the "poet is the leader of the chorus," he likened his position to that of Goethe a century earlier. Landauer's wife, the former Hedwig Lachmann, a poet and translator, was his closest companion and often the only person to fathom his mystical notion of socialism. Her sudden death in February 1918 was a blow from which he never recovered.

   Esteemed as a scholar and idealist, Landauer was invited to Bavaria* by Kurt Eisner* in November 1918 to assist "in the reformation of Geist." Seeing within the council system a means for realizing his dreams, he opposed the formation of a National Assembly* and thereby fell out of favor with Eisner (Eisner was ambivalent). Drawn to Munich's more radical elements, he championed an autonomous Raterepublik. From 7 April 1919, without KPD participation, he served six days as Commissar for Enlightenment in Munich's so-called pseudo-Soviet Republic. When the regime, which induced disorder and bewilderment, was replaced by hardline Communists, Landauer distanced himself from the new leaders but remained in Munich. The decision proved fatal; captured by Frei-korps* troops, he was beaten and murdered on 2 May. His grave, in Munich's Waldfriedhof, was later destroyed by the NSDAP.

   REFERENCES:Liptzin, Germany's Stepchildren; Lunn, Prophet of Community; Maurer, Call to Revolution; Mitchell, Revolution in Bavaria; NDB, vol. 13; Wurgaft, Activists.