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EARLY YEARS: THE EDITOR
Kurt Eisner was born in Berlin on May 14, 1867 to Emanuel Eisner and Hedwig Levenstein. Newspaper reports of his death identify Kurt Eisner as being born in the Kingdom of Galicia.
From 1892 to 1917, Eisner was married to painter Elisabeth Hendrich… with whom he had five children. After the couple divorced, Eisner then married Elise Belli, an editor. With her, he had two daughters.
Eisner studied literature and neo-Kantian philosophy with Hermann Cohen at the University of Marburg. In 1892, he published Friedrich Nietzsche und die Apostel der Zukunft (“Friedrich Nietzsche and the Apostle of the Future”). Eisner began his journalism career by working on the Frankfurter Zeitung (1892–93); later he wrote for several Berlin journals. During that same period, Eisner wrote an article attacking Kaiser Wilhelm II. For this, he spent nine months in prison.
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
Eisner was always an open republican as well as a Social Democrat. For tactical reasons, he joined the SPD in 1898. German Social Democracy, particularly in its later stages, cold-shouldered anything in the shape of republican propaganda. Consequently, he fought actively for political democracy as well as Social Democracy. He became editor of Vorwärts after the death of Wilhelm Liebknecht in 1900. During this period, the SPD was deeply divided over policy… and Kurt Eisner was a strong supporter of a fellow party member named Eduard Bernstein.
Bernstein became convinced that the best way to obtain socialism in an industrialized country was through trade union activity and parliamentary politics. He published a series of articles where he argued that the predictions made by Karl Marx about the development of capitalism had not come true. He pointed out that the real wages of workers had risen and the polarization of classes between an oppressed proletariat and capitalist, had not materialized. Nor had capital become concentrated in fewer hands. Bernstein’s revisionist views appeared in his extremely influential book Evolutionary Socialism (1899). His analysis of modern capitalism undermined the claims that Marxism was a science and upset leading revolutionaries such as Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
But August Bebel, leader of the SPD, disagreed with Bernstein’s ideas. Paul Frölich has argued:
“The SPD divided into three clear tendencies: the reformists, who tended increasingly to espouse the ruling-class imperialist policy; the so-called Marxist Centre, which claimed to maintain the traditional policy, but in reality moved closer and closer to Bernstein’s position; and the revolutionary wing, generally called the Left Radicals (Linksradikale).”
Eisner identified with the Left Radicals. Headed by Rosa Luxemburg it included Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, Franz Mehring, Karl Radek and Anton Pannekoek. This caused tension from within… and in 1905, Eisner was called upon to resign by a majority of the Vorwärts editorial board, which favored more orthodox Marxists.
After leaving Vorwärts, Eisner’s activities were confined mainly in Bavaria, though he toured other parts of Germany. From 1907 to 1910, he was chief editor of the Fränkische Tagespost in Nuremberg. After Eisner became a Bavarian citizen, he worked as a freelance writer in Munich.
THE REVOLUTIONARY
In the summer of 1914, Eisner opposed German aid to Austria-Hungary against Serbia. But when war spread across Europe, he initially supported the German government.
Friedrich Ebert (now the head of the SPD) ordered members in the Reichstag to support the war effort. Karl Liebknecht was the sole member who voted against Germany’s participation in the war. He argued:
“This war, which none of the peoples involved desired, was not started for the benefit of the German or of any other people. It is an Imperialist war, a war for capitalist domination of the world markets and for the political domination of the important countries in the interest of industrial and financial capitalism. Arising out of the armament race, it is a preventative war provoked by the German and Austrian war parties in the obscurity of semi-absolutism and of secret diplomacy.”
Kurt Eisner supported Ebert… until documents were published suggesting that Kaiser Wilhelm II was responsible for starting the conflict. In April 1917 left-wing members of the Social Democratic Party formed the Independent Socialist Party. Members included Eisner, Karl Kautsky, Rudolf Breitscheild, Julius Leber, Ernst Thälmann and Rudolf Hilferding.
In early 1918, Eisner was convicted of treason for his role in inciting a strike of munitions workers. He spent nine months in Cell 70 of Stadelheim Prison… but was subsequently released during the General Amnesty in October.
On the 28th of that month, Admiral Franz von Hipper and Admiral Reinhardt Scheer planned to dispatch the fleet for one last great battle against the British Royal Navy in the English Channel. But naval soldiers based in Wilhelmshaven refused to board their ships. The next day, the sailors’ rebellion spread to Kiel. Soon, the whole of the Imperial German Navy mutinied and set up councils based on the soviets in Russia. By November 6th, the revolution had spread to the Western Front and all major cities and ports in Germany.
Kurt Eisner immediately called for a general strike. As Paul Frölich has pointed out:
“They (Eisner and his political supporters) were enthusiastic about the idea of the political strike especially because they regarded it as a weapon which could take the place of barricade-fighting, and it seemed a peaceable weapon into the bargain.”
Konrad Heiden wrote:
“On November 6, 1918, he (Kurt Eisner) was virtually unknown, with no more than a few hundred supporters, more a literary than a political figure. He was a small man with a wild grey beard, a pince-nez, and an immense black hat. On November 7 he marched through the city of Munich with his few hundred men, occupied parliament and proclaimed the republic. As though by enchantment, the King, the princes, the generals, and Ministers scattered to all the winds.”
Chris Harman, the author of The Lost Revolution (1982), has argued:
“On 7th November, 1918, the city was paralysed by the strike. Auer (the SPD leader) turned up to address what he expected to be a peaceful demonstration, to find the most militant section of it composed of armed soldiers and sailors, gathered behind the bearded Bohemian figure of Eisner and a huge banner reading Long Live the Revolution. While the Social Democrat leaders stood aghast, wondering what to do, Eisner led his group off, drawing much of the crowd behind it, and made a tour of the barracks. Soldiers rushed to the windows at the sound of the approaching turmoil, exchanged quick words with the demonstrators, picked up their guns and flocked in behind.”
On November 8th, Eisner led the large crowd into the local parliament building, where he made a speech declaring Bavaria a free state and socialist republic. He made it clear that this revolution was different from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and announced that all private property would be protected by the new government. He also explained that his program would be based on democracy, pacifism and anti-militarism.
As a result, Kurt Eisner became the first republican premier and minister of foreign affairs of the new People’s State of Bavaria.
In his new roles, Eisner wrote in a letter dated November 14, 1918 to Gustav Landauer:
“What I want from you is to advance the transformation of souls as a speaker.”
Others who arrived in the city to support the new regime included Erich Mühsam, Ernst Toller, Otto Neurath, Silvio Gesell, and Ret Marut. Landauer became a member of several councils established to both implement and protect the revolution.
Eisner had the support of the six thousand workers of the munitions factory in Munich that was owned by Gustav Krupp. Many of them had come from northern Germany and were much more radical than those of Bavaria. The city was also a staging post for troops withdrawing from the Western Front. It is estimated that the majority of the 50,000 soldiers also supported Eisner’s revolution. The anarcho-communist poet, Erich Mühsam, and the left-wing playwright, Ernst Toller, were other important figures in the rebellion.
On November 9, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated… and the Chancellor, Max von Baden, handed power over to Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the German Social Democrat Party. At a public meeting, one of Ebert’s most loyal supporters, Philipp Scheidemann, finished his speech with the words: “Long live the German Republic!” He was immediately attacked by Ebert, who was still a strong believer in the monarchy and was keen for one of the his grandsons to replace Wilhelm.
In Germany, elections were held for a Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution for the new republic. As a believer in democracy, Rosa Luxemburg assumed that her party would contest these universal, democratic elections. However, other members were being influenced by the fact that Lenin had dispersed by force of arms a democratically-elected Constituent Assembly in Russia. Luxemburg rejected this approach and wrote in the party newspaper:
“The Spartacus League will never take over governmental power in any other way than through the clear, unambiguous will of the great majority of the proletarian masses in all Germany, never except by virtue of their conscious assent to the views, aims, and fighting methods of the Spartacus League.”
Paul Frölich has argued:
“The enemies of the revolution had worked circumspectly and cunningly. On 10th November, Ebert and the General Army Headquarters concluded a pact whose preliminary aim was to defeat the revolution. During that month, there were bloody clashes between workers. During this month, there were bloody clashes between workers and returning front-line soldiers who had been stirred up by the authorities. On military drill-grounds special troops, in strict isolation from the civilian population, were being ideologically and militarily trained for civil war.”
On November 12th, King Ludwig III of Bavaria promulgated the Anif declaration, releasing his officials, officers, and soldiers from their oaths. Although he did not formally abdicate (some loyalists would continue to refer to Ludwig as king), the Anif declaration was interpreted by the Bavarian government as an abdication. Thus, Bavaria became a republic, ending 738 years of Wittelsbach rule.
Later that same month, Eisner leaked documents (dating back to July and August 1914) from the Bavarian plenipotentiary in Berlin. He believed that these papers proved that the Great War was caused by “a small horde of mad Prussian military” men as well as “allied” industrialists, capitalists, politicians, and princes.
On December 29, 1918, Friedrich Ebert gave permission for the publishing of a Social Democratic Party leaflet that attacked the activities of the Spartacus League, led by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Leo Jogiches, and Clara Zetkin:
“The shameless doings of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg besmirch the revolution and endanger all its achievements. The masses cannot afford to wait a minute longer and quietly look on while these brutes and their hangers-on cripple the activity of the republican authorities, incite the people deeper and deeper into a civil war, and strangle the right of free speech with their dirty hands. With lies, slander, and violence they want to tear down everything that dares to stand in their way. With an insolence exceeding all bounds they act as though they were masters of Berlin.”
In Bavaria, Eisner was forced to form a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party. During this period, the living conditions of the Munich workers and soldiers were rapidly deteriorating. When elections were held on January 12, 1919 in Bavaria, Eisner and the Independent Socialist Party received only two and a half per cent of the total vote!
In order to keep his grip on power, Eisner granted concessions to the SPD. This included agreeing to the establishment of a regular security force to maintain order. As Chris Harman pointed out:
“In office without any power base of his own, he was forced to behave in an increasingly arbitrary and apparently irrational manner”.
At the Berne, Switzerland Conference of Socialists in early February 1919, Eisner attacked the moderates for their refusal to acknowledge Germany’s part in bringing about the First World War. For that speech and for his uncompromising hostility to Prussia, Eisner became bitterly hated by large sections of the German people!
DEATH AND LEGACY
On February 21, 1919, the fifty-one year old Bavarian premier and minister of foreign affairs decided to resign. But on his way to the parliament in Munich, Eisner was assassinated by Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley. It is claimed that before Anton Arco-Valley killed the leader of the ISP, he said:
“Eisner is a Bolshevist, a Jew; he isn’t German, he doesn’t feel German, he subverts all patriotic thoughts and feelings. He is a traitor to this land.”
Konrad Heiden wrote in his biography of Adolf Hitler:
“Like Lenin, he had the peasants and workers on his side, but all the educated classes, the officers, officials, students, against him; in such a case there is no difference between Christian and Jew. Belatedly the intellectuals grew ashamed of their cowardice; they grew ashamed when they perceived that there was no danger. Their radical hatred found its embodiment in leagues like the Thule Society. While the Rosenbergs, the Hesses, the Eckarts, and others whose names have been forgotten were still planning – such an act, after all, was dangerous – a man whom they had insulted and cast aside got ahead of them. The League had rejected Count Anton Arco-Valley, a young officer, for being of Jewish descent on one side. Determined to shame his insulters by an example of courage, he shot Eisner down in the midst of his guards on the open street. A second later he himself lay on the ground, with a bullet through his chest. Eisner’s secretary, Fechenbach, sprang forward and saved the assassin from being trampled by the boots of the infuriated soldiers. A mass insurrection broke out, a soviet republic was proclaimed.”
The novelist, Heinrich Mann, a supporter of the Independent Socialist Party, spoke at Eisner’s funeral and at his memorial three weeks later. Thomas Mann, who was deeply opposed to socialism, commented that Heinrich claimed that:
“Eisner had been the first intellectual at the head of a German state… in a hundred days he had had more creative ideas than others in fifty years, and… had fallen as a martyr to truth. Nauseating!”
The assassination of Kurt Eisner resulted in the elected government of the People’s State of Bavaria fleeing Munich. To fill the void, the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic and parliament was established.
When the Passau labor union tried to stage a play about Eisner at the bishopric theater in 1920, Reichswehr soldiers and high school students sabotaged it, using weapons from the military arsenal (including eleven machine guns). The incident, dubbed the Passau Theater Scandal, triggered media headlines and a variety of judicial procedures.
Kurt Eisner was buried in the Munich Ostfriedhof. On May 1, 1922, the Free Trades Unions of Munich (Münchner Freien Gewerkschaften) commissioned a monument dedicated to “the dead of the Revolution”. The urn containing Eisner’s ashes was walled into its pedestal. Shortly after the National Socialists took power (June 22, 1933), the Monument to the Revolution was destroyed, and the urn with Eisner’s ashes was moved to the New Jewish Cemetery, where it is still buried. The monument in the Ostfriedhof was re-created after World War II by the artist Konstantin Frick as a faithful copy of the original.
In 1989, a monument was installed in the pavement at the site of Eisner’s assassination. It reads:
Kurt Eisner, der am 8. November 1918 die Bayerische Republik ausrief, nachmaliger Ministerpräsident des Volksstaates Bayern, wurde an dieser Stelle am 21. Februar 1919 ermordet.
(“Kurt Eisner, who proclaimed the Bavarian republic on 8 November 1918 – later Prime Minister of the Republic of Bavaria – was murdered here on 21 February 1919″)
WORKS
Eisner was the author of various books and pamphlets, including:
– Psychopathia Spiritualis (1892, “Spiritual Psychopathy”)
– Eine Junkerrevolte (1899, “A Junker revolt”)
– Wilhelm Liebknecht (1900)
– Feste der Festlosen (1903, “Fortress of those without feasts”)
– Die Neue Zeit (1919, “The New Age”)