No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Election of Hugo Haase to the Co-chairmanship of the SPD and the Crisis of Pre-war German Social Democracy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2013
Extract
Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
The election of Hugo Haase to the Co-Chairmanship of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1911 was an event of immense importance for the future of German Social Democracy. It was Haase who served as the principal spokesman of the opposition to the cooperationist policies of the majority during World War I. It was he who led that opposition out of the SPD in 1917. After the war, as co-chairman both of the revolutionary government and of the Independent Social Democratic Party, he helped to insure that the German movement would remain permanently divided.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1968
References
page 175 note 1 Singer lost his father at the age of four ands thus grew up without enjoying many of the amenities of a middle class homelife. He was forced to become an apprentice in a drapers shop at the age of fourteen. At the age of twenty-five, however, he and his brother established their own shop and soon amassed a considerable fortune. For a brief biographical sketch, see Mehring, Franz, “Paul Singer”, in: Die Neue Zeit, XXIX, 1 (1910–1911), pp. 649ff.Google Scholar Haase was more fortunate in his youth. The eldest son of a shoemaker turned flax merchant, he was able to attend the Gymnasium at Rastenburg and then study law at Königsberg. Ernst Haase, Hugo Haase (Berlin: J. J. Ottens, 1929), pp. 1ff. Once admitted to the bar he devoted a considerable amount of time to defending the local party newspaper and individual party members without compensation. At the same time, however, he was able to establish a flourishing civil practice which allowed him both to maintain a comfortable home and to contribute substantially to the local party. Interview with Hans Haase (Hugo Haase's nephew) and telephone interview with Kurt Boenheim (later Hugo Haase's legal partner), August 1965. See also Marchionini, Karl, “Erinnerungen an Hugo Haase”, in: Leipziger Volkszeitung, No 251, 11 7, 1919.Google Scholar J. P. Nettl appears, therefore, to have been unjustified in listing Haase as one of those socialist lawyers whose work was “wholly confined to the defence of socialist interests” in his very interesting article, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model”, in: Past and Present, No 30 (1965), pp. 68–69.Google Scholar It certainly did not, as Nettl suggests, constitute a “socialist vested interest”.
page 175 note 2 It was, however, not unusual for a successful provincial party leader to rise to high party office. Nettl, , “The German Social Democratic Party…”, p. 77.Google Scholar
page 175 note 3 Haase's defeat in 1907 did not represent a major personal setback inasmuch as his fate was shared by a large number of his colleagues. The Social Democratic delegation was reduced from seventy-nine to forty-three members. Haase was again elected to the Reichstag in 1912.
page 175 note 4 See the excellent edition of these minutes recently published by the Kommission für Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien. Matthias, Erich and Pikart, Eberhard, eds, Die Reichstagsfraktion der deutschen Sozialdemokratie 1898 bis 1918 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1966).Google Scholar
page 176 note 1 Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, 1906, pp. 360ff. It should be noted, at least in passing, that Haase played a significant role at the 1908 congress where he served as chairman of a committee set up to work out a compromise on the explosive issue of how the party should deal with the growing socialist youth movement. Protokoll … 1908, pp. 226, 450f. See also Schorske, Carl, German Social Democracy 1905–1917 (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965), pp. 106ff.Google Scholar
page 176 note 2 The commission was set up by delegates attending the Copenhagen meeting of the International late in August. It arranged for some two hundred delegates to meet in Magdeburg immediately prior to the convention. This larger group then assigned to the commission the task of directing the counterattack on the budget issue. Wilhelm Dittmann, “Erinnerungen” (unpublished manuscript, typed transcription by Kotowski, Georg in the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam), pp. 273ff.Google Scholar It is interesting to note in this context that four members of the commission of seven later became leading figures in the Independent Social Democratic Party. In addition to Haase himself, these included Dittmann, Kurt Rosenfeld and Richard Lipinski.
page 176 note 3 Protokoll.… 1910, pp. 288ff. It should be noted that Haase and his friends were for a time willing to compromise on the issue. Under pressure from Bebel, they agreed to withdraw their stiffening amendment to the executive committee's resolution on condition that the party chairman would read a formal statement, worked out by Haase and Bebel, declaring that the executive committee agreed with the intent of the sponsors of the amendment and would interpret its own resolution in this light. Ibid., p. 360; Dittmann, pp. 287ff. This settlement was, however, shattered by the provocative response of the southerners. When Ludwig Frank taunted Haase and his friends for their “retreat” and declared that whether he and his colleagues voted for future budgets would depend entirely upon circumstances, Haase called for an immediate adjournment. Protokoll.…, 1910, pp. 366ff. When the meeting was reconvened, a new amendment was presented making the statement worked out by Haase and Bebel a formal resolution of the convention. When Haase and his associates insisted that this resolution be voted upon immediately a large number of the dissidents left the hall. Haase then made a short speech decrying Frank's remarks as “a slap in the face of the great majority of the convention….”, whereupon the amendment was passed by a substantial margin. Ibid., pp. 372ff.
page 177 note 1 Dittmann, for instance, reported that he was urged at that time by many of the radical leaders to seek a place on the executive committee. Dittmann, p. 297.
page 178 note 1 Toury, Jacob, Die politischen Orientierungen der Juden in Deutschland (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1966), p. 232.Google Scholar
page 178 note 2 Nettl, J.P., Rosa Luxemburg (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), I, pp. 445ff.Google Scholar
page 178 note 3 Protokoll.…, 1911, pp. 371f.
page 179 note 1 Karl Kautsky to Hugo Haase, February 14, 1909, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (hereafter cited as IISG), Kautsky Nachlass (KC, No 429). Kautsky was at the time engaged in a conflict with the executive committee concerning its opposition to the continued publication of his very important pamphlet, Der Weg zur Macht. The executive committee based its objections in large measure on legal grounds, and Kautsky called upon Haase for technical advice. A significant part of the extensive correspondence relating to this matter, including the letter cited here, has been published in the International Review of Social History, XII (1967), No 3, pp. 432–477.Google Scholar
page 179 note 2 Hugo Haase to Karl Kautsky, June 5, 1909, IISG, Kautsky Nachlass (KD XII, No 10).
page 179 note 3 One of the earliest and most important of these cooperative efforts took place in 1907 when the two men, along with Georg Vollmar, worked out the final text of the anti-war resolution passed by the International in that year. Ernst Haase, p. 17.
page note 4 These letters are not available, but that they both had approached him is clear from Haase's letter to Kautsky of February 12, 1911, IISG, Kautsky Nachlass (KD XII, No 14).
page 180 note 1 Haase to Kautsky, February 12, 1911.
page 180 note 2 Ibid.
page 180 note 3 Klara Zetkin to Wilhelm Dittmann, February 12, 1911, in Dittmann, pp. 322f.
page 180 note 4 Dittmann, pp. 322f.
page 180 note 5 Ibid., p. 323.
page 180 note 6 Ibid.
page 181 note 1 Dittmann, p. 323.
page 181 note 2 August Bebel to Karl Kautsky, August 5, 1911, IISG, Kautsky Nachlass (KD III, No 183).
page 181 note 3 Ibid.
page 181 note 4 Ibid.
page 182 note 1 Rosa Luxemburg to Wilhelm Dittmann, June 17, 1911, Historical Archive of the SPD, Bonn, Nachlass Dittmann, “Photokopien vor 1918”, No 106. A letter of July 28 is more specific on this question. In it, Luxemburg lists Haase's candidacy as one of those concerning which all of their “friends” were agreed. Rosa Luxemburg to Wilhelm Dittmann, July 28, 1911, Historical archive of the SPD, Bonn, Nachlass Dittmann, “Photokopien vor 1918”, No 107.
page 182 note 2 Rosa Luxemburg to Wilhelm Dittmann, June 17, 1911, Historical Archive of the SPD, Bonn, Nachlass Dittmann, “Photokopien vor 1918”, No 106.
page 182 note 3 Hugo Haase to Wilhelm Dittmann, July 26, 1911, in Dittmann, pp. 324f.
page 183 note 1 Hugo Haase to Karl Kautsky, August 5, 1911, IISG, Kautsky Nachlass (KD XII, No 15).
page 183 note 2 Karl Kautsky to Hugo Haase, August 11, 1911, IISG, Kautsky Nachlass (KC, No 436).
page 183 note 3 Substantial agreement among Haase's supporters concerning the desirability of enlarging the executive committee had already emerged at Magdeburg. But when the commission of seven met with the executive committee to discuss a proposal to this effect they found little enthusiasm for it. According to Dittmann, Ebert, fearing that Dittmann himself might be elected to the committee, claimed that he was by no means overloaded with work and that therefore no expansion was necessary. Dittmann, p. 298.
page 183 note 4 Protokoll.…, 1911, pp. 160, 269f.
page 184 note 1 Dittmann, p. 336.
page 184 note 2 Protokoll.…, 1911, p. 371.
page 184 note 3 Ibid., pp. 371f.
page 184 note 4 Ibid., p. 372.
page 185 note 1 Protokoll.…, 1911, pp. 372f.
page 185 note 2 Ibid., p. 373.
page 185 note 3 Ibid., pp. 373f.
page 185 note 4 Ibid., p. 410.
page 185 note 5 Earlier in the convention Bebel had clashed with several of the leading representatives of the extreme left over Rosa Luxemburg's attacks on the executive committee for its handling of the Moroccan crisis of the previous summer. Ibid., pp. 204ff. Although the actual issues being debated could hardly be considered matters of principle, it was apparent that a serious break, which had long been brewing, had occurred in the left-center alliance which in the past had usually prevailed when crises arose at party conventions.
page 186 note 1 Dittmann, pp. 337f.
page 186 note 2 Kotowski, Georg, Friedrich Ebert (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1963), I, p. 217.Google Scholar
page 186 note 3 His practice in Berlin was devoted largely to criminal cases and was never as successful, at least from the financial point of view, as it had been in Königsberg. Interview with Hans Haase and telephone interview with Kurt Boenheim, August, 1965.
page 187 note 1 Kautsky, Karl to Adler, Victor, 05 21, 1913, in: Friedrich Adler, ed., Adler, Victor: Briefwechsel mit August Bebel und Karl Kautsky (Vienna: Verlag der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1954), pp. 564ff.Google Scholar
page 187 note 2 Karl Kautsky to Victor Adler, June 26, 1913, ibid., pp. 573f.
page 187 note 3 Scheidemann, Philipp, Memoiren eines Sozialdemokraten (Dresden: Carl Reissner, 1928), I, pp. 81f.Google Scholar
page 187 note 4 Ebert was not, however, elected to the co-chairmanship of the Reichstag delegation until January 1916 when he replaced Haase after his resignation from that position.
page 187 note 5 Karl Kautsky to Victor Adler, October 8, 1913, in: Adler, pp. 582ff.
You have
Access