Biography Gustav Landauer

27 January 2015 - 16:06

Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) is known in a small circle as anarchist theorist, writer and translator of Shakespeare. He was also minister of propaganda in the short-lived Bavarian Council Republic of 1919.

A post in which he issued a ban on history education. Landauer was also murdered at the violent end of the republic.

'Actual' is Landauer, especially because of his participation in Potsdamer Forte Kreis, a utopian community of intellectuals from all sorts of European countries - Frederik van Eeden and Martin Buber were part of it - who carried out world peace in a rather pompous way during the First World War. 'Modern' is Landauer's correspondence with Swiss activist Margarethe Faas-Hardegger. The two loved each other out of wedlock.
The paper legacy of this passionate life lies for the most part at the IISH in the Landauer archives.

Tilman Leder has succeeded in combining biographical study and classic source publication of Landauer's writings with the two-part Die Politik eines "Antipolitikers". Eine Politische Biographie Gustav Landauers (Hessen, Verlag Edition AV, 2014). Together the two parts count 839 pages, with many illustrations (from Uwe Rausch) and solid footnotes.

  • Die Politik eines “Antipolitikers”. Eine politische Biographie Gustav Landauers (Hessen, Verlag Edition AV, 2014).
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