Editing Gustav Landauer

{{Short description|German anarchist, editor (1870–1919)}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox person
 |name          = Gustav Landauer
 |image         = Gustav Landauer (cropped).jpg
 |image_upright = yes
 |caption       = Landauer in 1892
 |birth_date    = {{birth date|1870|04|07|df=y}}
 |birth_place   = [[Karlsruhe]], Grand Duchy of Baden
 |death_date    = {{death date and age|1919|05|02|1870|04|07|df=y}}
 |death_place   = [[Munich]], Bavarian Soviet Republic
 |spouse        = [[Hedwig Lachmann]]
}}
{{Socialism sidebar|intellectuals}}

'''Gustav Landauer''' ({{IPA|de|ˈlandaʊɐ|lang}}; 7 April 1870&nbsp;– 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 "[[Nonviolent resistance|non-violent]] non-cooperation"<ref>{{Citation |last1=Bartolf |first1=Christian |title=Gustav Landauer and the Revolutionary Principle of Non-violent Non-cooperation |date=2019 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13917-9_11 |work=The German Revolution and Political Theory |pages=215–235 |editor-last=Kets |editor-first=Gaard |access-date=2023-11-10 |series=Marx, Engels, and Marxisms |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-13917-9_11 |isbn=978-3-030-13917-9 |last2=Miething |first2=Dominique |editor2-last=Muldoon |editor2-first=James|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_11828.html| author=Samuel Hugo Bergman and Noam Zadoff| title=Landauer, Gustav| publisher=Jewish Virtual Library/Encyclopedia Judaica| access-date=November 21, 2014}}</ref> He was murdered by right-wing paramilitary ([[Freikorps]]) soldiers when this republic was overthrown.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brüning |first=Rainer |date=2019 |title=Die Ermordung von Gustav Landauer am 2. Mai 1919 in München. Ein Aktenfund im Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe |url=https://d-nb.info/1267916605/34 |journal=Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins |volume=167 |pages=213–249}}</ref>

Landauer is also known for his study of [[metaphysics]] and religion, and his translations of [[William Shakespeare]]'s and [[Peter Kropotkin]]'s<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://anarchistischebibliothek.org/library/peter-kropotkin-gegenseitige-hilfe-in-der-tier-und-menschenwelt |title=Gegenseitige Hilfe in der Tier- und Menschenwelt |language=de |trans-title=Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902) |access-date=2024-12-10}}</ref> works into German.

== Life and career ==
Landauer was the second child of [[Jewish]] parents Rosa ({{nee|Neuberger}}) and Herman Landauer.<ref>''Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary People Discovered Their Pasts'', by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2010, p. 10.</ref> He supported anarchism by the 1890s. In those years, he was especially enthusiastic about the individualistic approach of [[Max Stirner]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], but also "cautioned against an apotheosis of the unrestrained individual, potentially leading to the neglect of solidarity".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Miething|first=Dominique|date=2016-04-02|title=Overcoming the preachers of death: Gustav Landauer's reading of Friedrich Nietzsche|journal=Intellectual History Review|volume=26|issue=2|pages=285–304|doi=10.1080/17496977.2016.1140404|s2cid=170389740|issn=1749-6977}}</ref>

He was good friends with [[Martin Buber]], influencing the latter's philosophy of dialogue.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Jordan|first=Patrick|date=8 June 2020|title=A Life of Dialogue: Martin's Buber's Path to a Believing Humanism|url=https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/life-dialogue|access-date=8 June 2020|website=Commonweal}}</ref> Landauer believed that social change could not be achieved solely through control of the state or economic apparatus, but required a revolution in interpersonal relations.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mendes-Flohr |first1=Paul |title=Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent |date=2019 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven and London |isbn=978-0-300-15304-0 |pages=53, 120–121}}</ref>

He felt that true socialism could arise only in conjunction with this social change, and he wrote, "The community we long for and need, we will find only if we sever ourselves from individuated existence; thus we will at last find, in the innermost core or our hidden being, the most ancient and most universal community: the human race and the cosmos."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Landauer |first1=Gustav |title=Durch Absonderung zur Gemeinschaft |journal=Journal of the Neue Gemeinschaft |date=1901 |issue=2 |page=48}}</ref> He also became a close collaborator with the leader of the People's State of Bavaria, [[Kurt Eisner]], until the latter's assassination, after which Landauer had no official position in the third ''Räterepublik''.{{sfn|Cohen-Skalli|Pisano|2020|pp=216-217,220}}

== Death==
Landauer was murdered on 2 May 1919.  He was being taken to [[Stadelheim Prison]], along with three other members of the [[Starnberg]] workers' soviets. Two officers suddenly called upon [[Freikorps]] soldiers in his escort to kill him, and they immediately beat and shot him to death. His last words reportedly were:"Kill me! Show me that you are men!"{{sfn|Cohen-Skalli|Pisano|2020|pp=184-185}}

==Descendants==
Landauer's second wife Hedwig Lachmann died in 1918, but his three daughters, Charlotte, Gudula, and Brigitte survived.{{sfn|Cohen-Skalli|Pisano|2020|pp=202,215,220-221}}

One of Landauer's grandchildren, with wife and author [[Hedwig Lachmann]], was [[Mike Nichols]], the [[United States|American]] television, stage and film director, writer, and producer.{{sfn|Weber|2014}}

==Legacy==
Soon after his death, Landauer was almost completely forgotten by European socialists and anarchists though his heroic example and thinking enjoyed a revival, thanks to [[Martin Buber]], in [[Zionism|Zionist]] and [[kibbutz]]nik circles.{{sfn|Cohen-Skalli|Pisano|2020|p=227, n.123}} In [[Philip Kerr]]'s novel ''Prussian Blue'', [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] is imagined to be one of the Freikorps militants who murdered Landauer, and gloated as a photo was taken at the scene.{{sfn|Kerr|2017|pp=538-540}}

In 2002, a street in [[Munich]] was named after him.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gustav-Landauer-Bogen |url=https://stadt.muenchen.de/infos/gustav-landauer-bogen.html |access-date=}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Anarchism in Germany]]
* [[List of peace activists]]

== Works ==
{{refbegin}}
* ''Skepsis und Mystik'' (1903)
* ''Die Revolution'' (trans. ''Revolution'') (1907)
* ''Aufruf zum Sozialismus'' (1911) (trans. by David J. Parent as ''For Socialism''. Telos Press, 1978. {{ISBN|0-914386-11-5}})
* 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 (300 CE–1939)'', ed. [[Robert Graham (historian)|Robert Graham]]. [[Black Rose Books]], 2005. {{ISBN|1-55164-250-6}}
* 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}}
* Gustav Landauer. ''Anarchism in Germany and Other Essays''. eds. Stephen Bender and [[Gabriel Kuhn]]. Barbary Coast Collective.
* Gustav Landauer. ''Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader'', ed. & trans. Gabriel Kuhn; [[PM Press]], 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-60486-054-2}}
{{refend}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite journal | title = Farewell to Revolution! Gustav Landauer's Death and the Funerary Shaping of His Legacy
 | last1 = Cohen-Skalli | first1 = Cedric
 | last2 = Pisano | first2 = Libera
 | journal = The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy
 | year = 2020 | volume = 28 | issue = 2 | pages = 184–227
 | url = https://bucerius.haifa.ac.il/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Farewell-to-Revolution-Gustav-Landauers-Death.pdf
 | doi = 10.1163/1477285X-12341309 | s2cid = 234681366
}}
*{{cite book| title = Prussian Blue
 | last = Kerr | first = Philip | year = 2017
 | author-link = Philip Kerr
 | publisher = [[Quercus (publisher)|Quercus]]
 | isbn = 978-1-784-29651-3
}}
*{{cite news| title = Mike Nichols, 83, Acclaimed Director on Broadway and in Hollywood, Dies
 | last = Weber | first = Bruce
 | newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/movies/mike-nichols-celebrated-director-dies-at-83.html
 | date = 20 November 2014
}}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite journal
 | title = Review: Christoph Knüppel (ed.), Gustav Landauer, Briefe und Tagebücher 1884–1900
 | last = Altena
 | first = Bert
 | journal = Anarchist Studies
 | year = 2018
 | volume = 26
 | number = 2
 | url = https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/anarchist-studies/26-2/reviews
 | issn = 0967-3393
 | ref = none
 | access-date = 12 December 2019
 | archive-date = 18 September 2020
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200918113857/https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/anarchist-studies/26-2/reviews
 | url-status = dead
 }}
*{{cite book| chapter = The Martyrdom of Gustav Landauer
 | last = Avrich | first = Paul | year = 1988
 | author-link = Paul Avrich
 | title = Anarchist Portraits
 | title-link = Anarchist Portraits
 | publisher = [[Princeton University Press]] | location = Princeton
 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/anarchistportrai00avri/page/247 247–254]
 | isbn = 978-0-691-04753-9 | oclc = 17727270
 | ref = none
}}
*{{Cite book| title = Paths in Utopia
 | last = Buber | first = Martin | year = 1949
 | publisher = Routledge & Kegan Paul | location = London
 | ref = none
}}
*{{Cite book| title = The Anarchism of Gustav Landauer
 | last = Esper | first = Thomas | year = 1961
 | publisher = University of Chicago Press | location = Chicago
 | ref = none
}}
*{{Cite book| title = Gustav Landauer: Philosopher of Utopia
 | last = Hyman | first = Ruth Link-Salinger | year = 1977
 | publisher = Hackett Publishing Company
 | isbn = 0-915144-27-1
 | ref = none
}}
*{{Cite book| title = Redemption & Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe, a Study in Elective Affinity
 | last = Löwy | first = Michael | year = 1992
 | others = Translated by Hope Heaney
 | publisher = Stanford University Press
 | isbn = 978-080471776-2
 | ref = none
}}
*{{Cite book| title = Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer
 | last = Lunn | first = Eugene | year = 1973
 | publisher = Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company
 | isbn = 0-520-02207-6
 | ref = none
}}
*{{Cite book| title = Call to Revolution: The Mystical Anarchism of Gustav Landauer
 | last = Maurer | first = Charles B. | year = 1971
 | publisher = Wayne State University Press
 | isbn = 0-8143-1441-4
 | ref = none
}}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category}}
* [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/landauer/landauerbioHorrox.html Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) by James Horrox]
* {{OL author}}
* {{Gutenberg author|id=38653}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Landauer, Gustav|name=Gustav Landauer|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sopt=t}}
* [https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb94562426 German Tragedies: Robert Nichols Remembers]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Landauer, Gustav}}
[[Category:1870 births]]
[[Category:1919 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century anarchists]]
[[Category:20th-century German Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century German male writers]]
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[[Category:Anarchist theorists]]
[[Category:Anarcho-communists]]
[[Category:Anarcho-pacifists]]
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[[Category:Assassinated German people]]
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[[Category:Critics of religions]]
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[[Category:Jewish pacifists]]
[[Category:Libertarian socialists]]
[[Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Baden]]
[[Category:People murdered in Germany]]
[[Category:Writers from Karlsruhe]]