Gustav Landauer

Gustav Landauer (Karlsruhe, 1870 – Munich, 1919) was a German anarchist theorist, writer, translator and philosopher of Jewish background. As one of the leading figures of anarchism in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century, he championed a libertarian socialism that rejected both capitalism and Marxist historical materialism. His thought blended anarchism with romanticism and mysticism, and his vision of decentralised, self-governing communities makes him a key reference for communitarian socialism.

Born into a middle-class Jewish family, he studied philosophy, German literature and art history at Heidelberg, Strasbourg and Berlin. Around 1891 he settled in Berlin, where he broke with the Social Democrats over their rigid Marxism. He edited the weekly Der Sozialist, which became the country's main anarchist voice, and in 1893 published the novel The Preacher of Death. His writing and activism brought him several prison sentences. In 1908 he founded the Socialist League, a network of federated groups meant to prefigure a stateless society in practice. He was also a notable translator of Shakespeare, and together with Hedwig Lachmann he translated Wilde and Whitman.

His major philosophical work, Skepticism and Mysticism, grew out of a dialogue with Fritz Mauthner's critique of language. Landauer sought a form of spiritual experience that could go beyond scepticism. For him the state was not a thing to be destroyed by force but a social relationship that could be replaced by voluntary forms of life together. During the First World War he opposed the conflict and argued for a general strike as a means of stopping it.

During the German Revolution of 1918–1919 Kurt Eisner invited him to Munich, and he took part in the councils of the Bavarian republic, briefly serving as commissioner for education. After the republic fell he was arrested and beaten to death by soldiers in May 1919. His influence reached Martin Buber, who carried much of his legacy forward, and later currents of libertarian and communitarian socialism.