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Codes of Comradeship: Class, Leadership, and Tradition in Munich Social Democracy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
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In July 1923, the Munich chapter of the Social Democratic Security Troop (Sicherheitsabteilung, hereafter Socialist SA) staged a Festspiel in a suburban woods. The skit’s sylvan setting belied its combative leitmotif, echo of a wider German environment racked by occupation of the Ruhr, hyperinflation, unemployment, and threatening ultraright organizations. The drama aimed to convince its Social Democratic audience to join or support the Security Troop. In the opening scene, a “leader of the SPD” lamented proletarian disunity. As he resolved to quit politics, the “goddess of freedom” materialized and urged him to keep up the fight. To demonstrate that the masses were on the move against reaction, she pointed to a sky blanketed with flags born by members of the Security Troop.1 Four male mortals stepped forward: a former Independent Socialist, a Young Socialist, a Communist, and a “lumpenproletarian.” The Socialist exhorted the Communist to join the SPD but, instead, he lambasted its bureaucratic bosses and called for a council republic. Suddenly, the lumpen’s passivity aroused the group’s distrust. Unmasking him as a Nazi, they chased him offstage. As the Social Democrats went off to a meeting, the wife of the SPD leader told of her sacrifices for a husband and son who devoted themselves to the party. Yet she proclaimed her willingness to suffer “for the sake of proletarian freedom.” The men returned, disgusted that Nazis had busted up their conclave.
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References
I would like to thank the many colleagues who made enlightening comments on earlier drafts of this article: the anonymous readers for the CEH, Richard Bodek, Ramachandra Guha, Brian Ladd, Dieter Langewiesche, Eric Weitz and, especially, Wendy Goldman and Eva Segert-Tauger.
1. NSDAP Hauptarchiv (all citations are to this archive, unless otherwise noted) r94, f1905, Waldfest der Sicherheitsabteilung München Süd-Ost am Sonntag, 22 July 1923. In Northern Bavaria, SPD defense troops were called Sozialistische Ordnungsdienste.
2. I take the term “cultural narrative” from Maza, Sarah, “Stories in History: Cultural Narratives in Recent Works in European History,” American Historical Review 101, no. 5 (12 1996): 1493–1515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Weimar Festkultur, see Langewiesche, Dieter, “Politik-Gesellschaft-Kultur: Zur Problematik von Arbeiterkultur und kulturellen Arbeiterorganisationen Deutschlands nach dem 1. Weltkrieg,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte (henceforth: AfS) 22 (1982): 390.Google Scholar Also see Rebentisch, Dieter “‘Die treuesten Söhne der deutschen Sozialdemokratie…’: Linksopposition und kommunale Reformpolitik in der Frankfurter Sozialdemokratie der Weimarer Republik,” Archiv für Frankfurts Geschichte und Kunst 61 (1987): 299–354.Google Scholar
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4. See Winkler, Heinrich A., Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik (Bonn/Berlin, 1985–1987).Google Scholar Contemporary critiques included: Bieligk, Fritz et al. , Die Organisation im Klassenkampf (Berlin, 1931);Google ScholarMichels, Robert, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchic Tendencies in Modern Democracy (Glencoe, Illinois, 1949);Google ScholarNeumann, Sigmund, Die Parteien der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart, 1970).Google Scholar
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6. Most relevant is Pohl, Die Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, and Pohl, Karl Heinrich, “Die Sozialdemokratie in München 1890–1914: Zur Vorstellungswelt und sozialen Struktur der sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterbewegung in der bayerischen Landeshauptstadt (1890–1914),” Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 28, no. 3 (09, 1992): 293–319.Google Scholar Also see the literature on regional cases cited in n. 94 below. There is a similar trend against overly general conclusions about the Communist Party. Klaus-Michael Mallmann sees its milieus as the key to understanding Weimar Communism. See Mallmann, Klaus-Michael, “Milieu, Radikalismus und lokale Gesellschaft: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Kommunismus in der Weimarer Republik,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 21 (1995): 5–31;Google Scholaridem, Kommunisten in der Weimarer Republik: Sozialgeschichte einer revolutionärer Bewegung (Darmstadt, 1996).Google Scholar Also see Weitz, Eric, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990 (Princeton, 1997), 270–79.Google Scholar
7. See Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 199–203.
8. On the autocratic tendencies, see Ibid., 189–91, 197–98.
9. Schade, Franz, Kurt Eisner und die bayerische Sozialdemokratie (Bonn, 1961), 45–48, 50–53;Google Scholar Kritzer, Die bayerische Socialdemokratie, 22–23; Mehringer, Hartmut, “Die bayerische Sozialdemokratie bis zum Ende des NS–Regimes: Vorgeschichte, Verfolgung und Widerstand,” in Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol 5: Die Parteien KPD, SPD, BVP in Vefolgung und Widerstand, ed. Broszat, Martin and Mehringer, Hartmut (Munich/Vienna, 1983), 311–12;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMitchell, Allan, Revolution in Bavaria 1918–1919: The Eisner Regime and the Soviet Republic (Princeton, 1965), 76–81, 96–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In December, Social Democrats made up the majority of council delegates in Bavaria. See Mitchell, Revolution, 155, 159, 169, 200, 263.
10. Mehringer, “Die bayerische Sozialdemokratie,” 313–14, 316; Hoegner, Wilhelm, Der schwierige Aussenseiter: Erinnerungen eines Abgeordneten, Emigranten und Ministerpräsidenten (Munich, 1959), 17–18;Google ScholarHoegner, Wilhelm, Flucht vor Hitler: Erinnerungen an die Kapitulation der ersten deutschen Republik (Munich, 1978), 87, 89–90;Google ScholarWinkler, Heinrich A., Von der Revolution zur Stabilisierung: 1918–1924, vol. 1, Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik (Bonn and Berlin, 1985), 184–88.Google Scholar On internal tensions in the Munich SPD, see Rosenberg, Arthur, Geschichte der Weimarer Republik (Frankfurt am Main, 1961), 68.Google Scholar
11. Winkler, Von der Revolution, 187; Kritzer, Die bayerische Sozialdemokratie. 184, 188, 195; Winkler, Von der Revolution, 188; Hoegner, Wilhelm, Die Verratene Republik: Geschichte der deutschen Gegenrevolution (Munich, 1958), 102.Google Scholar
12. Mehringer, “Die bayerische Sozialdemokratie” 315, 320, 317–18; Kritzer, Die bayerische Sozialdemokratie, 211. A decline in membership matched the electoral slide—in Upper Bavaria (where the Munich chapter weighed heavily), the figures ran: 29,741 (1914), 47,442 (1919), 33,350 (1921), 18,131 (1924). I have figures on Munich’s membership for only three dates: December 1920, 18,257; January 1930, 14,093; January 1931, 14,101 (r.92, f.1893, Auszug aus dem PND Bericht vom 9 June 21—Bezsrkskonferenz der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Bezirk Oberbayern-Schwaben am 4. und 5. Juni 1921; r93, f1901, general assembly, 23 February 1931).
13. r93, f1898, Schwabing-Ost, 13 February 1924 (140 present). For similar complaints, see newspaper report on the convention of the Bavarian SPD: “Sozialdemokratischer Landesparteitag Bayerns,” Bayerische Staatszeitung, 7 March 1922.
14. r93, f1898, Schwabing-Ost, 31 October 1922 (120 present); r92, f1897, Bezirksversammiung der V[ereinigten] SPD in Schwabingerbrauerei [Schwabing-Ost], 9 January 1923 (150 present); r93, f1898, Schwabing-Ost, 13 February 1924 (140 present). In 1927, Schwabing-Ost had 430 members.
15. r92, f1997, public rally, 23 February 1923.
16. r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 23 August 1923 (400 present); r92, f1897, Munich extraord. membership meeting, 6 October 1923 (1000 present).
17. r92, f1897, Schwabing-Ost, 9 January 1923 (150 present). Pubs remained the most common venue for branch meetings. The shift to Volkshäuser after 1918, discussed by Reck, did not occur in Munich. See Reck, Siegfried, Arbeiter nach der Arbeit (Giessen an der Lahn, 1977), 167.Google Scholar
18. r92, 11897, general assembly, 16 June 1924 (700 present).
19. r93, f1898, Nordend, 10 June 1924. (In 1924, Nordend had about 700 members.) Count Arco was wounded when he killed Eisner and recovered in the same hospital as Auer. The rumor that Auer honored him with a bouquet of flowers was so persistent that the leadership decided to “try” Auer at an internal hearing. Toni Pfülf presented the case against Auer; Wilhelm Hoegner defended him with the claim that Auer’s daughter was the (innocent) culprit. A majority of delegates found Auer “not guilty” but the charge kept resurfacing, nonetheless. See Hoegner, Aussenseiter, 18.
20. See, e.g., r94, f1905, 8 March 1923, Bericht an das Treffen des Würzburg SPD Vorstands; r93, f1898, 21 January 1926, meeting of section Schlachthaus.
21. r92, f1997, SPD public meeting, 23 February 1923; r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 16 December 1923 (1200 present).
22. r93, f1898, Schwabing-West, 9 May 1924. In 1927, Schwabing-West had 465 members.
23. r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 16 December 1923 (1200 present). Clearly, Pfülf did not mean racial community nor did her critic take her to mean that. They did not yet see the term as the exclusive property of the völkisch Right. Social Democrats in the Saar referred to Volksgemeinschaft as late as 1927, while Communists avoided it because it implied social harmony. See Linzmayer, Ludwig, Politische Kultur im Saargebiet, 1920–1922: Symbolische Politik, verhinderte Demokratisierung, nationalisiertes Kulturleben in einer abgetrennten Region (St. Ingbert, 1992), 259.Google Scholar
24. Quote from: r93, f1900, Comm. of VSPD and branch leaders of SOD, Würzburg, 28 June 1923. On Auer, see Hoegner, Aussenseiter, 36, n. 5.
25. r92, f1898, Altstadt I, 21 October 1922 (100–130 present). In 1927, Altstadt I had 290 members. The Workers’ Marseillaise was written in 1864 by Jakob Andorf for Lassalle’s memorial service and became the most popular of various socialist songs written to this melody. See Lidtke, Vernon L., “Songs and Politics: An Exploratory Essay on Arbeiterlieder in the Weimar Republic,” AJS 14 (1974): 260.Google Scholar
26. r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 23 August 1923 (400 present). Also see r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 16 October 1923 (1000 present).
27. r92, f1898, Altstadt I and II, 22 November 1922 (150–200 present).
28. Before the war, proletarian gymnasts maintained order at Social Democratic festivals such as the Bavarian Sängefest in 1914. See Mosse, George, The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Moss Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (New York, 1975), 165.Google Scholar
29. For the description of such an incident, see r92, f1896, Polizeidirektion München, 28/29 September 1923.
30. I found only one comment from any level in the SPD in opposition to workers’ defense (r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 16 October 1923 [1000 present]). On the origins of the Socialist SA and SOD, see Ruck, Michael, Bollwerk gegen Hitler? Arbeiterschaft Arbeiterbewegung und die Anfänge des Nationalsozialismus (Cologne, 1988), 118, 127, 107–8;Google ScholarReiche, Eric G., The Development of the SA in Nürnberg, 1922–1934 (Cambridge, 1986), 23–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31. r94, f1905, functionary meeting, Nürnberg SPD, 10 November 1922.
32. Kritzer, Die bayerische Sozialdemokratie, 200. On the KPD, see Ruck, Bollwerk, 125–26. For a case of KPD pressure to form workers’ defense, see r92, f1897, SPD rally, 12 January 1923 (5000 present). Communists joined Security Troops in a number of small towns near Munich. The police noted that the KPD led in some locales, while left-wing Social Democrats did in others (r94, f1905, Bericht der Landespolizei, 9 May 1923).
33. r92, f1893, Denkschrift über die Organisation zum Schutz der Republik in München (von der Republikanischen süddeutschen Korrespondenz, Aufsätze für republikanische Politik u. soziale Wirtschaft, Hrsg. Dr. Hermann Schützinger) an den Sozialdemokratischen Verein München: Parteiausschüsse, Vorstand, Auer, [Carl] Landauer, Kirchmeyer, Buisson, 29 June 1922. On Schützinger’s background, see Ruck, Bollwerk, 126. In 1923, he became Dresden’s chief of police.
34. r94, f1905, [report of] 25 May 1923, Führersitzung des SOD, Unterbezirk Würzburg, on 22 may 1923; r92, f1895, Republikanische Bewegung, 21 February 1923.
35. r94, f1905, Der Vorstand des Bezirksamts Nördlingen an das Polizeidirektorat München, 6 November 1923; Landauer, Carl, “Erinnerungen an die Münchner Sozialdemokratie,” in Von Juden in München, ed. Lamm, Hans (Munich, 1958), 312–14.Google Scholar Jacob Toury discusses relations between the Jewish community and the organizers of the Reichsbanner, arguing that the reluctance to be publicly associated with each other was mutual. In “Die Judenfrage in der Entstehungsphase des Reichsbanners Schwarz-Rot-Gold,” in Juden und deutsche Arbeiterbewegung bis 1933: Soziale Utopien und religiös-kulturelle Traditionen, ed. Heid, Ludger and Paucker, Arnold (Tübingen, 1992), esp. 226–29.Google Scholar
36. Ruck, Boliwerk, 107–8.
37. As it turned out, the Bavarian regime outlawed left-wing defense organizations on 1 October. They did not play a role in defeating the 9 November putsch. The Munich SPD was “completely surprised” by the Hitler putsch (r92. f1895, police report of 15 June 1924).
38. r94, 11905, #72, Auszug, 1 February 1923, Würzburg SPD; r92, f1897, #109, Auszug of 13 march 1923; r92, f1895, Aus der Linksbewegung, 24 March 1923; r92, f1897, police report, 8 September 1923. Peter Kritzer gives the number of 7000. See Bayerische Sozialdemokratie, 202, 208. The SPD’s own estimates of membership were higher: 5000 members in Munich and 5000 in Nuremberg in May 1923; (r94, f1905, Führersitzung des S[ozialdemokratischen] O[rdnungs]D[ienstes], Unterbezirk Würzburg, 22 May 1923); 2500 in Bamberg in June (r94. f1905, Sitzung des Ausschusses der USPD und der Bezirksführer des SOD [Wurzburg], 28 June 1923 [report dated 30 June 1923]; 2000 in Würzburg in August, (r94, f1905, Auszug aus dem Würzburg Bericht, 25 August 1923).
39. r92, f1893, Schützinger, Denkschrift. (See n. 32).
40. See the remarks to this effect by Johannes Wimmer, chairman of the Munich SPD, at a functionary meeting (r92, f1897, Sozialistische Bewegung, 9 November 1922) and by a Regensburg trade union secretary (r92, f1897, Regensburger Bericht vom 25 November 1923).
41. r93, f1904, Auszug aus dem Bericht Nr. 10/26, 15 November 1926, Reichsbanner; r94, f1905, Führersitzung des SOD, Unterbezirk Würzburg am 22 May 1923. The speaker was the leader of the SOD-Franken.
42. On the influence of bourgeois individual and humanist ideals on Social Democratic cultural organizations, see Lidtke, Vernon, “Die kulturelle Bedeutung der Arbeitervereine,” in Kultureller Wandel im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Wiegelmann, Günter (Göttingen, 1973);Google ScholarScholing, Michael and Walter, Franz, “Der ‘Neue Mensch’: Sozialistische Lebensreform und Erziehung in der sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterbewegung,” in Solidargemeinschaft und Klassenkampf, ed. Saage, Richard (Frankfurt am Main, 1986).Google Scholar On the confluence of cultural styles in the 1920s, see Hauk, Gerhard, “Armeekorps auf dem Weg zur Sonne’: Einige Bemerkungen zur kultureller Selbstdarstellung der Arbeiterbewegung,” in Fahnen, Fäuste, Körper: Symbolik und Kultur der Arbeiterbewegung, ed. Petzina, Dietmar (Essen, 1986), 86–89. In discussing Saarbrücken’s May Day celebration in 1920, Linzmayer, Saargebiet, notes the fusion of old and new, national and proletarian styles (pp. 96–107).Google Scholar
43. In 1928, its vote reached 32.7 percent, but in 1912 the Munich SPD had scooped up 54 percent! See Thränhardt, Dieter, Wahlen und politische Strukturen in Bayern 1848–1953 (Düsseldorf, 1973), 173.Google Scholar
44. Klenke and Walter note that the press, festivals, etc. of the Proletarian Choral Society became less political and more cultural, yet clung to the language of class struggle. See Klenke, Dietmar and Walter, Franz, “Der Deutsche Arbeiter-Sängerbund,” in Arbeitersänger und Volksbühnen in der Weimarer Republik, ed. Klenke, Dietmar, Lilije, Peter, Walter, Franz (Bonn, 1992), 233.Google Scholar
45. Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 203, 198, 192.
46. Lösche, Peter and Walter, Franz, “Auf dem Weg zur Volkspartei? Die Weimarer Sozialdemokratie,” Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 19 (1983): 102, 105–7.Google Scholar Also see Potthoff, Heinrich, “Freie Gewerkschaften und sozialistische Parteien in Deutschland,” AfS 26 (1986): 54.Google Scholar See the Left Opposition’s attack at the Kiel congress on membership in the DBB and Otto Wels’s defense of the DBB, Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Sozialdemokratischer Parteitag 1927 in Kiel: Protokoll mit dem Bericht der Frauenkonferenz (Bonn-Bad Godesberg, 1927, repr. 1974), 37–38, 76, 80–82. On the vote in Munich, see r92, f1897, general assembly, 11 04 1927 (420 present).Google Scholar
47. Quote from r93, f1901, (police report of 28 March 1930), general assembly, 24 march 1930.
48. “Die Kluft in der Münchner SPD,” Die Neue Zeit, 28 March 1930, no. 72 (Communist Party newspaper in Munich).
49. Leaders of some party districts did succumb to such pressure. Lösche and Walter, “Auf dem Weg?,” 106.
50. r93, f1903, police report, 18 July 1924; r93, f1898, Schlachthausviertel, 21 October 1926; r92, f1898, Altstadt, I, 20 March 1930; r93, f1901, report dated 28 March 1930, on Munich general assembly, 24 March 1930.
51. r93, f1902, police report, 14 April 1930. On working-class participation in bourgeois sport leagues and the insistence on separation on the part of Social Democratic athletic organizations, see Überhorst, Horst, “Bildungsgedanke und Solidaritätsbewusstsein in der deutschen Arbeitersportbewegung z.Z. der Weimarer Republik,” AfS 14 (1974): 280;Google Scholar Linsmayer, Saargebiet, 378, 404–5.
52. r93, f1902, police report, 14 April 1930; r93, f1901, police report (dated 28 March 1930) on general assembly, 24 March 1930. Hedwig Kämpfer was married to the “Herr Kämpfer” mentioned earlier.
53. r92, f1894, police report, 22 February 1926; r92, f1897, functionary meeting, 11 October 1926; r93, f1901, police report dated 28 March 1930, on Munich general assembly, 24 March 1930; r92, f1898, Altstadt I, 20 May 1930; r93, f1898, Sitzung des Ausschusses, Sektion Nordend, 7 October 1930 (12 present).
54. Meetings taken up with the Hubertus affair were: r93 f1901, (police report of 28 March 1930), general assembly, 24 March 1930; r92, f1898, Altstadt I, 20 May 1930; r93, f1898, Sitzung des Ausschusses, Sektion Nordend, 7 October 1930; r93, f1898, Nordend, 14 October 1930 (65 present); r93, f1898, Nordend, 11 November 1930 (80 present); r93, f1901, Sitzung des Sozialdemokratischen Vereins München im Gewerkschaftshaus, 8 March 1931. One notes with interest that Auer’s membership in imperialist organizations such as “Safari” and the “German Colonial Society” did not provoke the particularly-focused fury that his participation in a bourgeois shooting society did.
55. See, e.g., r93, f1902, Reichsbanner Kameradschaftsabend, Bezirk Nordwest, 10 May 1930.
56. r93, f1898, Nordend, 11 November 1930. Auer’s membership in the (presumably Catholic) Miramundum Club “with its many reactionary members” also provoked much anger (see r92, f1894, SPD Opposition, 22 February 1926; r92, f1897, functionary meeting, 11 October 1926 [350 present]). Auer claimed that “people” signed him up in various clubs without his knowledge and even against his will (r93, f1901, [police report of 28 March 1930] general assembly, 24 March 1930).
57. r92, f1898, Altstadt I, 20 May 1930.
58. All-city membership assembly, r92, f1897, 11 April 1927. Such efforts recalled the successful demand of a prewar assembly that members, not party higher-ups, choose delegates for the Reichstag and Bavarian parliament, an example, Pohl points out, of a newly-won democratic right, not a gradually lost one (Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 203–5).
59. r93, f1901, general assembly, 21 March 1927 (600 present). Frau Höreth’s first name was not recorded. For similar remarks, see Munich membership assembly, r92, f1897, 16 December 1923; r92, f1897, 30 June 1924.
60. See Dr. [Aloys] Wenzl’s criticism of the handling of the “Winter-Kämpfer” opposition and the “unadulterated personality cult” in Munich (r92, f1897, general assembly, 16 June 1924 [700 present]). Dr. Wenzl later became vice-chancellor of Munich university (Hoegner, Aussenseiter, 14). Toni Pfülf attacked Auer’s “cult of personality” at a Schwabing-West meeting (r93, f1898, 9 May 1924). Peschl criticized Auer and other leaders on various occasions (r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 11 April 1927; r93, f1901, general assembly, 24 March 1930 [police report dated 28 March 1930] r92, f1894, SPD Opposition, 20 December 1926).
61. Archiv des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, ADGB Restakten, reel no. 23/1, #023, Verfassung der Loge Weltbund (altered on 12 July 1925).
62. ADGB Restakten, reel no. 23/1: #912, Otto Loges an Paul Bergmann, 21 May 1926; #013, Loges an Bergmann, 3 December 1926; #003, Loges an den Bundesvorstand (des ADGB), 30 December 1926; #005, Loges an den Bundesvorstand, 12 February 1927; #024, Loges an Otto Wels, 1 August 1927; (quote from) #029, (Sozialdemokratischer Bezirkssekretär Niederschlesien) Otto Buchwitz an O. Wels, 28 October 1927.
63. ADGB Restakten, reel no. 23/1: #014 Paul an Otto Loges, 4 December 1926; #017, Wm. Dittmann an O. Loges, 29 December 1926; 3004; [ADGB] Bundesvorstand (Peter Grassmann) an O. Loges, 7 January 1927; #008, [ADGB] Bundesvorstand an O. Loges, 21 February 1927; #009, Otto Wels an P. Grassmann, 23 September 1927, #010, Grassmann an Wels, 29 September 1927; #019, Leipart an H. Kaufmann, Hamburg, 14 October 1927; #031, Bayerer (Bezirk Oberpfalz-Niederbayern-Regensburg) an [SPD] Parteivorstand, 31 October 1927; #040, meeting of Wels, Vogel, Leipart, Grassmann, Müller, with Winter, Wiesich-Breslau, Müller-Nürnberg, Bock-Hamburg, 3 December 1927; #043, Wels, an Leipart, 7 March 1928.
64. ADGB Restakten, reel no. 23/1: #031, Bayerer (Bezirk Oberpfalz-Niederbayern-Regensburg) an [SPD] Parteivorstand, 31 October 1927. According to Bayerer, the Lodge was formed in 1920 after the Kapp putsch.
65. r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 27 February 1928; r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 5 March 1928 (600 present). In October, according to Theodor Leipart (chairman of the ADGB), an investigative committee had been created in Munich that planned to hold a hearing on the Loge Weltbund. According to him, party leaders there were preparing a brief that argued that the Lodge was “not damaging to the party,” DGB Archiv, ADGB Restakten, reel no. 23/1: #019, Leipart an H. Kaufmann, 14 October 1927. Sterr’s revelations created a stir in early 1928, although the issue was evidently already under investigation in the fall of 1927.
66. Auer’s comments to Nordend (ca. 80 present) on 11 November 1930 (r93, f1898). One section pressed its treasurer to gather statistics on the school attendance of comrades’ children to make sure that all were enrolled at the nondenominational schools that had been created in 1918. See r92, f1897, “SPD,” 29 March 1927.
67. Winkler, Heinrich A., Der Schein der Normalität: Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik 1924 bis 1930, vol. 2 (Bonn/Berlin, 1985), 322.Google Scholar
68. Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 85, 88–89; Pohl, “Sozialdemokratie in München,” 306–11.
69. r92, f1894, Sitzung der SPD-München, 22 August 1927.
70. See Comments against the Graf-Höreth opposition by the chairman of the electoral commission created to consider ways of revising the process of candidate selection, r93, f1901, general assembly, 21 March 1927 (600 present).
71. Even anger over leaders’ corruption of Social Democratic ideals enjoyed a venerable history. In the 1890s, workers in Hamburg, for example, had complained that the SPD was “no longer” a “purely workers’ party” and charged that SPD bureaucrats had become “bourgeois.” See Evans, Kneipengespräche, 271–72, 257–63; Evans, Richard J., “Proletarian Mentalities,” in idem, Proletarians and Politics: Socialism, Protest, and the Working Class in Germany before the First World War (New York, 1990), 141.Google Scholar
72. Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 23–25, 174–75.
73. Mehringer, “Die bayerische Sozialdemokratie,” 304–6, 309–10, 301; Pohl, “Sozialdemokratie in München,” 315–18. In 1907, 32.6 percent, and in 1925, 30 percent of Munich SPD members were self-employed. See Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 78.
74. See, e.g., r94, f1905, Auszug aus Nr.3887, 13 November 1992, meeting of trade union and party functionaries. Mehringer has analyzed data (from Gestapo records) on SPD members in Lower Franconia that confirm the impression gained from the unsystematic information on Munich leaders and members in the Bavarian police files (Mehringer, 328, 336). Statistics from: Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 78.
75. Mitchell, Revolution, 22–23; Feuchtwanger, E. J., From Weimar to Hitler: Germany, 1918–1933 (London, 1993), 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
76. Hillmayr, Heinrich, “München und die Revolution von 1918/1919,” in Bayern im Umbruch, ed. Bosl, Karl (Munich, 1969), 460–62;Google ScholarSchnorbus, Axel, Arbeit und Sozialordnung in Bayern vor dem ersten Weltkrieg (1890–1914) (Munich, 1969), 112;Google ScholarZorn, Wolfgang, “Bayerns Gewerbe, Handel und Verkehr (1806–1970),” in Handbuch der Bayerischen Geschichte, 4, no. 2, ed. Spindler, Max (Munich, 1975), 820–22.Google Scholar On the general economic development of Bavaria, see Erker, Paul, “Keine Sehnsucht nach der Ruhr: Grundzüge der Industrialisierung in Bayern 1900–1970,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 17 (1991): 480–511.Google Scholar
77. The occupations of executive members are listed in Krall, Herbert, Die Landespolitik der SPD in Bayern von 1924 bis 1933 (Munich, 1985), 19. See the remark by Wilhelm Hoegner that most SPD candidates in Bavaria began as “craft workers,” r93, f1898, Section Nordend, 21 October 1924.Google Scholar
78. The list of leaders of the Munich SPD is probably from early 1922, r92, f1897.
79. r92, f1897, Munich extraordinary membership meeting, 16 October 1923 (1000 present).
80. Among dissidents were the section leaders of Giessing in 1926, r92, f1894, “SPD Opposition,” 1 December 1926, Nordend in 1927, r93, f1898, 8 January 1927, Alstadt II in 1930, r92, f1898, 27 May 1930 and Nymphenberg in 1931, r93, f1901, 23 February 1931. A “party secretary” attended meetings of a small dissident group in 1926, r92, f1894, “SPD Opposition,” 1 December 1926.
81. See remarks of Dr. Esskuchen, r93, f1898, Schwabing-Ost (120 present) 31 October 1922; Dr. Schlittenbauer, r92, f1897, public meeting (2000 present), 23 February 1923. Drs. Benario, Wenzl, and Maurenbrecher spoke at r93, f1898, Nordend (55 present, of 700 members!), 21 October 1924, and at Nordend (60 present), 13 January 1925, and at Nordend and Briennerviertel I and II, 17 March 1925; Drs. Wenzl and Maurenbrecher at a general assembly, 23 June 1924, r92, f1897. Carl Landauer organized a “Gruppe für geistige Arbeit” in the early 1920s. Besides Wilhelm Hoegner, Wenzl joined this “group for intellectual labor” as did probably the other academics cited here. Most of them dropped out “later.” See Hoegner, Aussenseiter, 14.
82. See, e.g., Dr. Hoegner, r93, f1898, Nordend, 21 October 1924, and Dr. Carl Landauer, r93, f1898, Schwabing-West, 6 July 1923.
83. On proletarian antifeminism, see Thönnessen, Werner, The Emancipation of Women: The Rise and Decline of the Women’s Movement in German Social Democracy 1863–1933 (London, 1973);Google ScholarHagemann, Karen, Frauenalltag und Männerpolitik: Alltagsleben und gesellschaftliches Handeln von Arbeiterfrauen in der Weimarer Republik (Bonn, 1990).Google Scholar Calculating from data on 14 of 45 chapters in Munich, its female membership was 23 percent in 1928. See Sozialdemokratischer Münchens, Verein, ed. Geschäftsbericht 1927–1928 (Munich, 1929).Google Scholar The proportion of women in the Upper Bavarian district (including Munich) was 25 percent; the percentage in the national SPD was 21 percent. See SPD, Vorstand, , ed. Jahrbuch der deutschen Sozialdemokratie für das Jahr 1928 (Berlin, 1929), 140.Google Scholar
84. Kämpfer and Höreth were married to male dissidents; Pfülf was single.
85. The antialcohol, anticlerical Pfülf managed to win the confidence of a rural Reichstag district in the Palatinate after being relegated to this backwater in 1924 by her enemy, Auer. See Hoegner, Flucht vor Hitler, 48. Höreth emerged as a leading oppositionist in 1926 before Auer attacked her “corrupt” practices in Workers’ Welfare. Despite the gag rule imposed on her, she continued to enjoy a “particularly large circle of followers.” See r92, f1897, Munich membership meeting, 5 March 1927. Kämpfer was elected to a section’s executive committee, r92, f1898, Innere Stadt, 23 October 1924.
86. I address gender issues in more detail in: “Women Activists in the Munich SPD: Class Solidarity and Gender Equality,” a paper delivered at the meetings of the American Historical Association, January 1996.
87. In 1930, in all of Germany, roughly 75 percent of SPD members lived in working-class households, compared to 90 percent in 1914; 60 percent were workers, compared to 73 percent just four years earlier. In 1922, only 43 percent of members in the great industrial center of Berlin were industrial workers. See citations in Harsch, Donna, German Social Democracy and the Rise of Nazism, 1928–1933 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993), 28, notes 81–83.Google Scholar
88. r92, f1894, SPD Opposition, 22 February 1926; r92, f1897, general assembly, 5 March 1928.
89. In 1928, Toni Pfülf ran in the Palatinate, so no woman was among the top three candidates in Upper Bavaria. As it was widely recognized that the fourth-place candidate was unlikely to win a seat, placing a woman in this slot was a mere nod toward the advancement of women in the party. See r92, f1897, 20 March 1928, extraord. general assembly, 20 March 1928.
90. r93, f1898, Schwabing-West, 9 May 1924.
91. Those who benefited professionally from allegiance to Auer also enjoyed his largesse in more convivial settings. In 1926, he invited a select group of SPD city councillors, Landtag deputies, section leaders, and secretaries to a Bierabend. Seventy men showed up to drink and sing. While playing cards, they were regaled with sarcastic jokes about the Alkoholfrage (i.e., at the expense of temperance reformers in the SPD). The fete’s goal was “to help comrades get to know and understand each other.” See r92, f1897, Bierabend im Hofbräuhaus, 27 April 1926. On Auer’s proclivity for drink, see Hoegner, Aussenseiter, 17.
92. See, e.g., the description of a very heated argument among “older” and “younger” party members in 1927. See r93, f1901, SPD, Republikanische Bewegung (1927).
93. Pohl thinks the growing core of metal workers in big concerns had already contributed to a “latent opposition” whose existence “can help explain the origins of the strong radicalization in Munich at the end of the war and in the Weimar Republic,” Pohl, Münchener Arbeiterbewegung, 199.
94. Because the question of the new mass culture did not arise in the Munich evidence, I have not considered its impact. For a recent, insightful discussion of its impact (which also cites the relevant literature), see Langewiesche, Dieter, “Das neue Massenmedium Film und die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik,” in Von der Arbeiterbewegung zum modernen Sozialstaat: Festschrift für Gerhard A. Ritter zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Kocka, Jürgen, Puhle, Hans-Jürgen, and Tenfelde, Klaus (Munich/New Providence/London/Paris, 1994).Google Scholar
95. Langewiesche too emphasizes the ambiguous characteristics of Arbeiterkultur. See his “Politik-Gesellschaft-Kultur,” 373–74, 381, 392–93, 402; “Zur Geschichte der Arbeiterkultur in Deutschland,” in Trotz Alledem! Arbeiteralltag und Arbeiterkultur zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik in Duisburg, published by the City of Duisburg, ed. Pojana, Manfred and Will, Martina (Duisburg, 1992).Google Scholar
96. Case studies of other cities suggest that the preoccupations of the Munich SPD were variations on a broader pattern. On the Frankfurt SPD, see Rebentisch, , “‘Die treuesten Söhne,’” and James Wickham, “Working-Class Movement and Working-Class Life: Frankfurt an Main in the Weimar Republic,” Social History 8 (10. 1983): 325–43.Google Scholar Also see Klenke, Dietmar, Die SPD Linke in der Weimarer Republik (Münster, 1983);Google Scholar Linzmayer, Saargebiet; Klaus Tenfelde, “Proletarische Provinz”; Bodek, Richard, “Red Song: Social Democratic Music at the End of the Weimar Republic,” Central European History 28, no. 2 (1995): 209–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
97. Lösche, Peter and Walter, Franz, “Zur Organisationskultur der sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimer Republik,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 15 (1989);Google Scholar idem, “Auf dem Weg.” Other historians have produced important work in this area. Scholors who more or less agree with Lösche and Walter are: Reck, Arbeiter, 169–73; Van der Will, Wilfried and Burns, Robert, Arbeiterkulturbewegung in der Weimarer Republik: Eine historisch-theoretische Analyse der Kulturellen Bestrebungen der deutschen Arbeiterschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1982), 104;Google ScholarMcElligott, Anthony, “Workers’ culture and workers’ politics on Weimar’s new housing estates: A response to Adelheid von Saldern,” Social History 17 (12. 1992): 101–14;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Peter Friedemann, “Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der Arbeiterkultur,1891–1933,” in Fahnen, ed. Petzina, 106–7. Other historians have argued that Social Democratic Arbeiterkultur became less distinguishable from bourgeois values and activities. See, especially, Wunderer, Arbeitervereine, 30, 37, 74–75, 221, 223–24. But also see Ritter, Gerhard A., “Einleitung”, in Ritter, Gerhard A., Arbeiterkultur (Königstein, 1979), 7–9.Google Scholar Another group emphasizes the significance of a competative Communist workers’ culture: Winkler, Schein, 122, 126; Geary, Dick, “Unemployement and Working-Class Solidarity: the German Experience 1929–,” in The German Unemployed, ed. Evans, Richard J. and Geary, Dick (New York, 1987), 266–69.Google Scholar A final tendency contends that political and cultural, but not social, integration occured. See von Saldern, Adelheid, “Arbeiterkulturbewegung in Deutschland in der Zwischenkriegszeit,” in Arbeiterkulturen zwischen Alltag und Politik: Beiträge zum europäischen Vergleich in der Zwischenkriegszeit, ed. Boll, Friedhelm (Vienna/Munich/Surich, 1986), 39–40;Google Scholaridem, “The workers’ movement and cultural patterns on urban housing estates and in rural settlements in Germany and Austria during the 1920s,” Social History 15 (10. 1990): 333–54;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Überhorst, “Bildungsgedanke,” esp. 291.
98. Lösche and Walter, “Organisationskultur,” 528; Lösche and Walter, “Auf dem Weg?” 107.
99. On discontent and pleas to address workers, see, e.g., r92, f1894, police report, 12 July 1931; r93, f1898, Tagung der Sektionsleitungen München, 8 June 1931; r93, f1898, Nordend, 10 May 32 (45 present); r93, f1898, Alstadt II (25 present). r93, f1898, Verfassungsfeier, Gärtnerplatz and Alstadt II, 10 August 32 (100 present). For details on the salary dispute, see citations in Harsch, German Social Democracy 143, n. 111.
100. On Solidargemeinschaft, see Lehnert, Detlef, “‘Staatspartei der Republik’ oder revolutionäre Reformisten’? Die Sozialdemokratie.” in Politische Identität und Nationale Gedenktage. ed. Lehnert, Detlef and Megerle, Klaus (Opladen, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a critical appraisal of the term, see Hartmann Wunderer, “Noch einmal: Niedergang der Klassenkultur oder solidargemeinschaftlicher Höhepunkt? Anmerkungen zu einem Beitrag von Peter Lösche and Franz Walter in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 15 (1989), Geschichte und Gesellschaft 18 (1992).