Gustav Landauer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 in Karlsruhe, Germany2 May 1919 in Munich, Germany) was a German anarchist. Landauer is also known for his study and translation of William Shakespeare's works into German.

Contents

[edit] Biography

The son of Jewish parents, Landauer studied Philosophy, German studies, and the history of art at Heidelberg, Strasbourg, and Berlin. After breaking off his studies in 1893, he worked as a freelance journalist and public speaker.

His second wife, Hedwig Lachmann, was an accomplished translator, and they worked together to translate Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and other works into German.

Landauer spent much of his life involved in anarchist and socialist political groups, newspapers, and journals.

In 1919, he was one of the initial leaders of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, serving as its Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction in April of 1919, until the soviet republic was taken over by Communists under Eugen Leviné. After Munich was reconquered by the German army and Freikorps, Landauer was arrested and slain in Stadelheim Prison.

[edit] Works

  • Skepsis und Mystik (1903)
  • Die Revolution (trans. Revolution) (1907)
  • Aufruf zum Sozialismus (trans. Call to Socialism)(1911)
  • Editor of the journal Der Sozialist (trans. The Socialist) from 1893-1899
  • "Anarchism in Germany" (1895), "Weak Statesmen, Weaker People" (1910) and "Stand Up Socialist" (1915) are excerpted in Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas - Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939), ed. Robert Graham [1]

[edit] References

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Background resources

  • Thomas Esper. The Anarchism of Gustav Landauer. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961)
  • Gustav Landauer. Gesammelte Schriften Essays Und Reden Zu Literatur, Philosophie, Judentum. (translated title: Collected Writings Essays and Speeches of Literature, Philosophy and Judaica). (Wiley-VCH, 1996) ISBN 3-05-002993-5
  • Ruth Link-Salinger Hyman. Gustav Landauer: Philosopher of Utopia. (Hackett Publishing Company, 1977). ISBN 0-915144-27-1
  • Eugene Lunn. Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer. (Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1973). ISBN 0-520-02207-6
  • Charles B. Maurer. Call to Revolution: The Mystical Anarchism of Gustav Landauer. (Wayne State University Press, 1971). ISBN 0-8143-1441-4

[edit] External links