Gustav Landauer

Gustav Landauer
Landauer in 1892
Born(1870-04-07)7 April 1870
Died2 May 1919(1919-05-02) (aged 49)
SpouseHedwig Lachmann

Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism. As an avowed pacifist, Landauer advocated the principle of "non-violent non-cooperation"[1] in the tradition of Étienne de La Boétie and Leo Tolstoy.

In 1919, he briefly served as Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic during the German Revolution of 1918–1919.[2] He was murdered by right-wing paramilitary (Freikorps) soldiers when this republic was overthrown.[3]

Landauer is also known for his study of metaphysics and religion, and his translations of William Shakespeare's and Peter Kropotkin's works into German.

  1. ^ Bartolf, Christian; Miething, Dominique (2019), Kets, Gaard; Muldoon, James (eds.), "Gustav Landauer and the Revolutionary Principle of Non-violent Non-cooperation", The German Revolution and Political Theory, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 215–235, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-13917-9_11, ISBN 978-3-030-13917-9, retrieved 10 November 2023
  2. ^ Samuel Hugo Bergman and Noam Zadoff. "Landauer, Gustav". Jewish Virtual Library/Encyclopedia Judaica. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  3. ^ Brüning, Rainer (2019). "Die Ermordung von Gustav Landauer am 2. Mai 1919 in München. Ein Aktenfund im Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe". Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins. 167: 213–249.