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Gustav Landauer Archive

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Landauer, Gustav, 1870-1919 (Creator of the archive)
  • Archive
Photograph by unknown, ca. 1918.

Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) was a Jewish German anarchist, author, translator and a radical thinker. Based on the influence of Peter Kropotkin he supported Communist anarchism and anarcho-pacifism and was one of the leading theorists and activists during the German empire. He was one of the editors of the German newspaper Der Sozialist, and founding member of the Volksbühne ('People's Theatre') in Berlin. He made his living as a teacher of political and social history for the working classes, and with his partner Hedwig Lachmann as translator of works, such as Shakespeare, etc. He was appointed Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction during the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1918, taking the office of the previous Royal Minister of School and Church, but was arrested and murdered by counterrevolutionary soldiers at its end on 2nd of May 1919. In the early 1920s, Martin Buber who had been a good friend of him, published Landauer’s essential works.

Reference Code
ARC. Ms. Var. 432
Dates
1848-1919
Consists of
1.0 m..
Languages
German;
Description
The archive includes writings by Landauer, correspondence with him, and items collected by him.;הארכיון כולל כתבים של לנדאואר, התכתבויות עמו ופריטים שנאספו על ידו.
location
  • The Archives Collection of the National Library of Israel The Archives Collection of the National Library of Israel
Title Gustav Landauer Archive.
Additional Titles כותרת בעברית: ארכיון גוסטב לנדאואר.
Notes The current order of the archive is not the final one. There is an inventory list for a first orientation. Any order of the materials after consultation with the archival staff only.
Copies/עותקים: The most of the archive is microfilmed: A263/I-VII.
Citation Note ARC. Ms. Var. 432, Gustav Landauer Archive, Archives Department, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem
Host Item Gustav Landauer Archive.
Former Call Number Ms. Var. 432
Level of Description Fonds Record
Copies The most of the archive is microfilmed: A263/I-VII.
Biographical summary Gustav Landauer was born as the son of a German-Jewish family from Karlsruhe on April 7, 1870. He studied German literature and language at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and Straßburg. In his later works the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Lew Tolstoi can be seen, also of the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and of the anarchist theories of Michail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. He lived for many years in Berlin, where he was exposed to the effects of modern industrial society, and this experience became the base of his interest in socialist politics. In the early 1890s he was a member of the so called Independents, a group of revolutionary socialists that had been thrown out of the German Socialist Party (SPD). At the international socialist workers' congress in August 1893 in Zurich he represented the Berlin anarchists and supported the idea of an "anarchist socialism", however the congress supported parliamentarism and excluded the anarchists from their organization. In October 1893 Landauer was arrested in Berlin for incitement and convicted for a two month, then nine month, prison sentence. In prison he wrote diaries and letters. In 1894 he married Margarethe Leuschner. Living in Berlin, he published the newspaper "Der Sozialist-Organ für Anarchismus-Sozialismus" between 1895 and 1899. He also championed the cooperative "Befreiung", one of the first cooperatives in Berlin which opened it first store in 1895. He earned his living also by giving lectures on anarchist and socialist topics, political history and philosophical history. In 1899 he moved to England with his partner Hedwig Lachmann, where they translated the works of Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and others. He also later translated the works of Proudhon. In 1914 he wrote against the war from an anarchist viewpoint. He divorced his first wife Margarethe and married Hedwig Lachmann in 1903. In 1916, due to financial constraints, the family was forced to move from Berlin to Krumbach in South Germany, where Hedwig Lachmann died. At the end of 1918 Landauer was appointed dramatic adviser at the theater of Düsseldorf. After the end of the war and at the beginning of the November revolution of 1918 Kurt Eisner invited Landauer to join the revolution in Bavaria. During the soviet republic of Bavaria Landauer became commissioner of enlightenment and public instruction, however after the takeover of the republic by the communist party in April 1919 he resigned from this position. During the counterrevolution and breakup of the republic by paramilitary regiments he was arrested on May 1st, 1919, taken to prison and the next day beaten and shot to death. Martin Buber collected the writings of Landauer in the following years and published some of his works in three separate volumes.
Ownership history The archive was received as separate gifts from R. David Greenberg & Marion Schneider, & includes items from the Martin Buber Archive.
Language Note The materials are in German.
Credits Gustav Landauer Archive, The National Library of Israel. Digitization and cataloguing of this fonds was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG / German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy - EXC 2176 'Understanding Written Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures', project no. 390893796. The research is conducted within the scope of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg. Sammlung Lindenmayr.
National Library system number 990026508640205171
Links תמונת ארכיון

When using this material, please acknowledge the source of the material as follows:

Gustav Landauer Archive, The National Library of Israel. Digitization and cataloguing of this fonds was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG / German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy - EXC 2176 'Understanding Written Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures', project no. 390893796. The research is conducted within the scope of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg. Sammlung Lindenmayr.

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Dichter, Ketzer, Aussenseiter : Essays und Reden zu Literatur, Philosophie, Judentum / Gustav Landauer ; herausgegeben von Hanna Delf.

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"Sei tapfer und wachse dich aus" : Gustav Landauer im Dialog mit Erich Mühsam : Briefe und Aufsätze / herausgegeben und bearbeitet von Christoph Knüppel.

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Gustav Landauer : sein Lebensgang in Briefen, unter Mitwirkung von Ina Britschgi-Schimmer herausgegeben von Martin Buber.

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Martin Buber : Werke über das Judentum.
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