Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund
Encyclopedia
The Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund ("International Socialist Militant League") was a socialist split-off from the SPD
during the Weimar Republic
and was active in the German Resistance
against Nazism
.
philosopher Leonard Nelson
and educator Minna Specht
. Nelson and Specht had previously founded the International Socialist Youth League (ISYL) in 1917 and was supported by Albert Einstein
. Nelson, a neo-Kantian
hochschule
teacher, had long wanted to teach at a university and also work politically. He advocated a brand of socialism
that was ethically motivated, anti-clerical and anti-Marxist, but also undemocratic and included strict vegetarianism
and a defense of animal rights
. Nelson decided to establish the ISK after members of the ISYL were expelled from the Communist Party
in 1922 and the Social Democratic Party
in 1925.
The ISK took over the ISYL's publishing label, Öffentliches Leben, which published the ISK newsletter beginning January 1, 1926. Beginning January 1929, an edition in Esperanto
was added, and in April, a small circulation quarterly in English was added as well. It was usually eight pages and editions ran an average of 5,000 to 6,000 copies. Nelson moved his main published works there as well, his philosophical and political series Öffentliches Leben and his 1904 treatises, "Abhandlungen der Fries
’schen Schule, Neue Folge", re-reasoned with mathematician
Gerhard Hessenberg
and physiologist Karl Kaiser, and which, after Nelson's death, was continued by Nobel Prize
winner Otto Meyerhof, sociologist
Franz Oppenheimer
and Minna Specht until 1937.
With the growing electoral success of the Nazis at the end of the Weimar Republic, the ISK founded the newspaper, Der Funke to confront the situation. Of particular note was the "Urgent Call for Unity
" (Dringender Appell für die Einheit) regarding the July 1932 federal election. It appeared in the newspaper and on placards all over Berlin
. Calling for unity and support of the SPD and the KPD
in order to thwart further gains by the Nazis, it was signed by 33 leading German intellectuals, including scientists Albert Einstein, Franz Oppenheimer, Emil Gumbel, Arthur Kronfeld
, the artist Kathe Kollwitz
, writers Kurt Hiller
, Erich Kästner
, Heinrich Mann
, Ernst Toller
and Arnold Zweig
and many others.
The ISK continued to work in the resistance
after the 1933 Nazi ban. The ISK had destroyed all written party records and until 1938, remained undetected, while the larger parties, the KPD and SPD, were being battered by massive arrests. The ISK was therefore able to continue its resistance work, helping political refugees leave the country, conducting sabotage
and distributing leaflets. In 1938, however, a wave of arrests hit the ISK. A main focus of the work was the attempt to build a clandestine trade union
, the Unabhängige Sozialistische Gewerkschaft ("Independent Socialist Union"), which also supported the Internationale Transportarbeiter-Föderation ("International Federation of Transport Workers"). The ISK's best known act of resistance was the sabotage of the opening of the Reichsautobahn on May 19, 1935. The night before Hitler's trip to inaugurate the new highway, ISK activists wrote anti-Hitler slogans, such as "Hitler = War" and "Down with Hitler", on all the bridges along the route between Frankfurt am Main and Darmstadt
, where he was to travel. The Nazi propaganda
film produced of the event had to be edited numerous times.
In exile, the ISK also published the Reinhart Briefe ("Reinhart Letters") and Sozialistische Warte, which were then smuggled into Germany. Because of their factual and unpolemical reporting, were valued by various members of the German Resistance. The ISK was linked with the Socialist Vanguard Group in England and the Internationale Militante Socialiste in France.
, the ISK was merged into the SPD on December 10, 1945 after talks between Willi Eichler
, chairman of the ISK and Kurt Schumacher
, then chairman of the SPD. Most of the former ISK members then joined the SPD.
One prominent member of the ISK, Ludwig Gehm, was later the national vice chairman of the Committee of Formerly Persecuted Social Democrats (Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemals verfolgter Sozialdemokraten) and a Frankfurt am Main city council member from the SPD. Eichler, who was chairman of the ISK for many years, represented the SPD in the Bundestag
from 1949 to 1953 and is considered one of the main authors of the Godesberg Program
. Alfred Kubel
was a member of the Lower Saxony
state government for many years and was Ministerpräsident from 1970 to 1976. Hamburger ISK member Hellmut Kalbitzer was elected to the Bundestag several times, served in the Hamburg
Bürgerschaft
and from 1958 to 1962, was vice president of the European Parliament
. Fritz Eberhard
, who was in the ISK until 1939, was a member of the Parlamentarischer Rat
("Parliamentary Council") and was involved in writing the postwar constitution
, including the right to conscientious objector status in the new laws
of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Eichler also published a monthly magazine from 1946 until his death in 1971, Geist und Tat, which was devoted to "rights, freedom and culture" and he had a publishing house, Europäische Verlagsanstalt until the 1960s.
The ISK never had more than 300 members, largely because of the strict requirements for membership. These members were organized into 32 local groups. However, its political work involved sympathizers, between 600 and 1,000 in 1933. A survey in 1929 revealed that 85% of ISK members were under 35 years of age.
Chairmen of the ISK (formerly, the ISYL)
From 1924 to 1933, the ISK (and its forerunner, the ISYL) maintained its rural school, the Walkemühle in the Adelshausen quarter of Melsungen
, Hesse
and from 1931 to 1933, its own newspaper, Der Funke, both of which were banned by the Nazis.
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
during the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
and was active in the German Resistance
German Resistance
The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
against Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
History
The Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (ISK) was a political organization founded by GöttingenGöttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
philosopher Leonard Nelson
Leonard Nelson
Leonard Nelson was a German mathematician and philosopher. He was part of the Neo-Friesian School and a friend of the mathematician David Hilbert, and devised the Grelling–Nelson paradox with Kurt Grelling...
and educator Minna Specht
Minna Specht
Minna Specht was a German educator, socialist and member of the German Resistance. She was one of the founders of the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund.- Early years :...
. Nelson and Specht had previously founded the International Socialist Youth League (ISYL) in 1917 and was supported by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
. Nelson, a neo-Kantian
Neo-Kantianism
Neo-Kantianism refers broadly to a revived type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, or more specifically by Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy in his work The World as Will and Representation , as well as by other post-Kantian...
hochschule
Hochschule
Hochschule is a German term with two meanings.The literal meaning of the word Hochschule is “high school” which is not appropriate as a translation.- Generic term :...
teacher, had long wanted to teach at a university and also work politically. He advocated a brand of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
that was ethically motivated, anti-clerical and anti-Marxist, but also undemocratic and included strict vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
and a defense of animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
. Nelson decided to establish the ISK after members of the ISYL were expelled from the Communist Party
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
in 1922 and the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
in 1925.
The ISK took over the ISYL's publishing label, Öffentliches Leben, which published the ISK newsletter beginning January 1, 1926. Beginning January 1929, an edition in Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
was added, and in April, a small circulation quarterly in English was added as well. It was usually eight pages and editions ran an average of 5,000 to 6,000 copies. Nelson moved his main published works there as well, his philosophical and political series Öffentliches Leben and his 1904 treatises, "Abhandlungen der Fries
Jakob Friedrich Fries
Jakob Friedrich Fries was a German philosopher from Barby .-Life and career:...
’schen Schule, Neue Folge", re-reasoned with mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
Gerhard Hessenberg
Gerhard Hessenberg
Gerhard Hessenberg was a German mathematician. He received his Ph.D from the University of Berlin in 1899 under the guidance of Hermann Schwarz and Lazarus Fuchs...
and physiologist Karl Kaiser, and which, after Nelson's death, was continued by Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner Otto Meyerhof, sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
Franz Oppenheimer
Franz Oppenheimer
Franz Oppenheimer was a German-Jewish sociologist and political economist, who published also in the area of the fundamental sociology of the state.-Personal life:...
and Minna Specht until 1937.
With the growing electoral success of the Nazis at the end of the Weimar Republic, the ISK founded the newspaper, Der Funke to confront the situation. Of particular note was the "Urgent Call for Unity
Urgent Call for Unity
The "Urgent Call for Unity" was an appeal by the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund to defeat the Nazis...
" (Dringender Appell für die Einheit) regarding the July 1932 federal election. It appeared in the newspaper and on placards all over Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Calling for unity and support of the SPD and the KPD
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
in order to thwart further gains by the Nazis, it was signed by 33 leading German intellectuals, including scientists Albert Einstein, Franz Oppenheimer, Emil Gumbel, Arthur Kronfeld
Arthur Kronfeld
Arthur Kronfeld was a German Psychiatrist.-1933 - 1941: Suppression and exile :...
, the artist Kathe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition in the first half of the 20th century...
, writers Kurt Hiller
Kurt Hiller
Kurt Hiller also known as Keith Lurr and Klirr was a German essayist of high stylistic originality and a political journalist from a Jewish family. A socialist, he was deeply influenced by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, despising the philosophy of G. W. F...
, Erich Kästner
Erich Kästner
Emil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known for his humorous, socially astute poetry and children's literature.-Dresden 1899–1919:...
, Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
, Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller was a left-wing German playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays and serving as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, for six days.- Biography :...
and Arnold Zweig
Arnold Zweig
Arnold Zweig was a German writer and anti-war activist.He is best known for his World War I tetralogy.-Life and work:Zweig was born in Glogau, Silesia son of a Jewish saddler...
and many others.
The ISK continued to work in the resistance
German Resistance
The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
after the 1933 Nazi ban. The ISK had destroyed all written party records and until 1938, remained undetected, while the larger parties, the KPD and SPD, were being battered by massive arrests. The ISK was therefore able to continue its resistance work, helping political refugees leave the country, conducting sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
and distributing leaflets. In 1938, however, a wave of arrests hit the ISK. A main focus of the work was the attempt to build a clandestine trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, the Unabhängige Sozialistische Gewerkschaft ("Independent Socialist Union"), which also supported the Internationale Transportarbeiter-Föderation ("International Federation of Transport Workers"). The ISK's best known act of resistance was the sabotage of the opening of the Reichsautobahn on May 19, 1935. The night before Hitler's trip to inaugurate the new highway, ISK activists wrote anti-Hitler slogans, such as "Hitler = War" and "Down with Hitler", on all the bridges along the route between Frankfurt am Main and Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, where he was to travel. The Nazi propaganda
Nazi propaganda
Propaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the NSDAP in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany...
film produced of the event had to be edited numerous times.
In exile, the ISK also published the Reinhart Briefe ("Reinhart Letters") and Sozialistische Warte, which were then smuggled into Germany. Because of their factual and unpolemical reporting, were valued by various members of the German Resistance. The ISK was linked with the Socialist Vanguard Group in England and the Internationale Militante Socialiste in France.
ISK members after 1945
After World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the ISK was merged into the SPD on December 10, 1945 after talks between Willi Eichler
Willi Eichler
Willi Eichler was a German journalist and politician with the Social Democratic Party of Germany .-Before 1945:Eichler was born in Berlin, the son of a postal worker. He attended Volksschule and then became a clerk...
, chairman of the ISK and Kurt Schumacher
Kurt Schumacher
Dr. Kurt Schumacher , was chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1946 and first Leader of the Opposition in the West German Bundestag parliament from 1949 until his death...
, then chairman of the SPD. Most of the former ISK members then joined the SPD.
One prominent member of the ISK, Ludwig Gehm, was later the national vice chairman of the Committee of Formerly Persecuted Social Democrats (Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemals verfolgter Sozialdemokraten) and a Frankfurt am Main city council member from the SPD. Eichler, who was chairman of the ISK for many years, represented the SPD in the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
from 1949 to 1953 and is considered one of the main authors of the Godesberg Program
Godesberg Program
The Godesberg Program was the party program outline of the political course of Germany's social-democratic party, the SPD. It was ratified on November 15, 1959, at an SPD party convention in the town of Bad Godesberg, which is today part of Bonn....
. Alfred Kubel
Alfred Kubel
Alfred Kubel was a German politician; in his later career, he was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.In 1928, after attending Middle School, Kubel became an industrial clerk...
was a member of the Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
state government for many years and was Ministerpräsident from 1970 to 1976. Hamburger ISK member Hellmut Kalbitzer was elected to the Bundestag several times, served in the Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
Bürgerschaft
Hamburg Parliament
The Hamburg Parliament is the unicameral legislature of the German state of Hamburg according to the constitution of Hamburg. As of 2011 there were 121 members in the parliament, representing a relatively equal amount of constituencies...
and from 1958 to 1962, was vice president of the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
. Fritz Eberhard
Fritz Eberhard
Fritz Eberhard was a German journalist, anti-fascist and social democrat and fought in the German Resistance against Nazism. He was a member of the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund...
, who was in the ISK until 1939, was a member of the Parlamentarischer Rat
Parlamentarischer Rat
The Parlamentarischer Rat was the West German constitutional convention that created the current constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany...
("Parliamentary Council") and was involved in writing the postwar constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
, including the right to conscientious objector status in the new laws
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is the constitution of Germany. It was formally approved on 8 May 1949, and, with the signature of the Allies of World War II on 12 May, came into effect on 23 May, as the constitution of those states of West Germany that were initially included...
of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Eichler also published a monthly magazine from 1946 until his death in 1971, Geist und Tat, which was devoted to "rights, freedom and culture" and he had a publishing house, Europäische Verlagsanstalt until the 1960s.
Structure
The ISK never set out to amass a large membership, but rather to be come an active and hard-hitting organization. Membership requirements for prospective candidates included adherence to a certain ethical socialism that were more stringent than for the major parties.- Members were to abstain from nicotine, alcohol and meat, were to be absolutely punctual and orderly, and because of the anti-clerical position of the organization, withdrawal from church affiliation was mandatory
- Participation in a trade union, the ISK and the labor movement was general requirement for members (eliminating passive membership)
- Instead of a membership fee, there was a "Party tax," which all members with an income over 150 Reichsmarks had to pay
The ISK never had more than 300 members, largely because of the strict requirements for membership. These members were organized into 32 local groups. However, its political work involved sympathizers, between 600 and 1,000 in 1933. A survey in 1929 revealed that 85% of ISK members were under 35 years of age.
Chairmen of the ISK (formerly, the ISYL)
- 1922 - 1927, Leonard Nelson and Minna Specht
- 1927 - 1945, Willi Eichler and Minna Specht
From 1924 to 1933, the ISK (and its forerunner, the ISYL) maintained its rural school, the Walkemühle in the Adelshausen quarter of Melsungen
Melsungen
Melsungen is a small climatic spa in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, Germany.-Geography:Melsungen lies on the river Fulda in the North Hesse Highland. The brooks Pfieffe and Kehrenbach flow into the Fulda here...
, Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
and from 1931 to 1933, its own newspaper, Der Funke, both of which were banned by the Nazis.
External links
- Geschichten von der Walkemühle von Rudolf Giesselmann
- Gedenkartikel zur Mitbegründerin des ISK Minna Specht von Inge Hansen-Schaberg
- Der Internationale Sozialistische Kampfbund und seine Publikationen von Heiner Lindner
- Der Funke - Tageszeitung für Recht, Freiheit und Kultur Digitalisierter Bestand beim Archiv der sozialen Demokratie der Friedrich Ebert FoundationFriedrich Ebert FoundationThe Friedrich Ebert Foundation is a German political foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany , yet independent of it...
in BonnBonnBonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999.... - Plakat des "Dringenden Appells" des ISK. (Fotomech. Wiedergabe am Ende der Einleitung des Gedenkartikels für den Nelson-Schüler und -Freund Arthur KronfeldArthur KronfeldArthur Kronfeld was a German Psychiatrist.-1933 - 1941: Suppression and exile :...
, isolierte Darstellung hier, schärfer bei Vergrößerung) - Skandal bei Freigabe des 1. Reichsautobahnabschnittes 1935 von A. Pilz
- Zum ISK-Aktenbestand beim Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in BonnBonnBonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
