Gustav Landauer

This is the most comprehensive collection of Landauer's writing in English and a celebration of one of the most important agitators in the revolutionary movement. The collection includes his major work, Revolution, alongside 30 additional essays, articles and correspondence. The texts cover his entire biography, from the early Anarchism of the 1890s to his philosophical reflections at the turn of the century and his tireless agitation against the war. Presented with an extensive introduction compiled by the editor and translator, Gabriel Kuhn.

A Political Reader

Revolution and Other Writings

Die Briefe und Tagebücher dokumentieren Gustav Landauers Entwicklung zum Schriftsteller und Propagandisten des Anarchismus. Bekannte Adressaten seiner Briefe sind Fritz Mauthner, Paul Schlenther, Wilhelm Bölsche, Eugen Diederichs, Stefan Großmann und Joseph Bloch. Im Mittelpunkt stehen allerdings Briefe an Frauen, in die er sich verliebt hatte, darunter seine beiden Ehepartnerinnen, die Schneiderin Grete Leuschner und die Dichterin Hedwig Lachmann. Ihnen, aber auch seinen gleichaltrigen Verwandten und Freunden gegenüber offenbart Landauer, der im Oktober 1889 aus Baden in die Reichshauptstadt Berlin zog, mit bemerkenswerter Offenheit sein Fühlen und Denken. Leidenschaftlich kritisiert er die "Philister", die nicht nur in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, sondern auch in der sozialdemokratischen Partei den Ton angeben, und setzt der Enge der jüdisch-christlichen Moralvorstellungen das Ausleben der eigenen Individualität entgegen. Die umfangreiche Kommentierung der Briefe und Tagebücher erhellt die privaten Beziehungen und literarischen Beeinflussungen Gustav Landauers. Darüber hinaus entsteht ein Panorama der maßgeblich von der Nietzsche-Rezeption geprägten Kulturgeschichte um 1900. Christoph Knüppel annotates letters from Landauer in which he woos Hedwig Lachmann. These letters, addressed to his friends Ida Wolf and Clara Tannhauser and sent to the address of his first wife Grete Leuschner, show Landauer vacillated between amoral actions and the quest for the humanisation of the world beyond religious and teleological certainties. Landauer, speaker and editor of the weekly journal "Der Sozialist" and its literary supplement, shaped the anarchist workers' movement from 1892 onwards. In his view, literary writing and social commitment were always closely connected. The letters provide an authentic insight into the thoughts and perceptions of a political and cultural actor who maintained a "revolutionary passion" till the end of his life.

Band 1: Briefe und Tagebücher. Band 2: Kommentar

Briefe und Tagebücher 1884–1900

Gustav Landauer gehört als Briefautor zur Briefkultur des späten 19. Jahrhunderts. Er korrespondierte mit Wilhelm Bölsche, Else Lasker-Schüler, Martin Buber, Erich Mühsam, Fritz Mauthner, Hugo von Hofmannsthal und Petr Kropotkin. Der Brief als Medium bürgerlicher »Gesprächskultur« fungiert hier nicht nur als Rettungsnetz der Lebensbewältigung, sondern wird zugleich ein hochproduktives Arbeitsmittel für den Übersetzer, Journalisten, Theatermann und politischen Denker Landauer. Als persönliche Zeugnisse hohen Rangs werden seine umfangreichen Briefschaften zu Dokumenten der Zeitzeugenschaft für eine deutsch-jüdische Briefkultur, die in oppositionelle Zirkel des Kaiserreichs ebenso hineinragt wie in die ästhetische und philosophische Moderne. Gustav Landauer's letters are part of the letter writing culture of the late 19th century. He exchanged letters with Wilhelm Bölsche, Else Lasker-Schüler, Martin Buber, Erich Mühsam, Fritz Mauthner, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Petr Kropotkin. The letter as a medium of bourgeois "conversation culture" not only serves as a lifeline but also as a highly productive tool for the interpreter, journalist, dramatic adviser and political thinker that he was. These highly treasured personal testimonies are comprehensive witnesses of the German-Jewish letter writing culture, which influenced both the oppositional circles of the German Empire as well as the aesthetic and philosophical modern times.

Briefe 1899–1919

“Landauer is the most important agitator of the radical and revolutionary movement in the entire country.” This is how Gustav Landauer is described in a German police file from 1893. Twenty-six years later, Landauer would die at the hands of reactionary soldiers who overthrew the Bavarian Council Republic, a three-week attempt to realize libertarian socialism amidst the turmoil of post-World War I Germany. It was the last chapter in the life of an activist, writer, and mystic who Paul Avrich calls “the most influential German anarchist intellectual of the twentieth century.” This is the first comprehensive collection of Landauer writings in English. It includes one of his major works, Revolution, thirty additional essays and articles, and a selection of correspondence. The texts cover Landauer’s entire political biography, from his early anarchism of the 1890s to his philosophical reflections at the turn of the century, the subsequent establishment of the Socialist Bund, his tireless agitation against the war, and the final days among the revolutionaries in Munich. Additional chapters collect Landauer’s articles on radical politics in the US and Mexico, and illustrate the scope of his writing with texts on corporate capital, language, education, and Judaism. The book includes an extensive introduction, commentary, and bibliographical information, compiled by the editor and translator Gabriel Kuhn as well as a preface by Richard Day.

Gustav Landauer

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