Guests at a ‘Witches’ Sabbath’
The Travels of the German Social Democrats Karl Liebknecht and Carl Legien in America
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25365/oezg-2011-22-1-4Keywords:
travel, Germany, USA, political history, social history, anti-Americanism, labour movement, Carl Legien, Karl LiebknechtAbstract
In the years preceding the First World War, Carl Legien and Karl Liebknecht represented two opposing wings of the German Social Democratic Party: Liebknecht was a prominent left-wing activist, urging the party to stay true to its revolutionary ideals, while Legien, a leading trade unionist, fought for a course of strictly practical social reform. In 1910 and 1912 respectively, these two men travelled extensively in the United States of America, lecturing in public on political matters. In looking closely at Liebknecht’s and Legien’s experiences and public statements, the paper discusses the relevance of international contacts between like-minded political movements for their respective development. It also contributes to the history of European anti-Americanism by showing how two German Social Democrats, who had been invited to America in order to foster the cause of socialism in the USA, each failed to comprehend in the course of their travels even the most basic characteristics of American society.
