Gustav Landauer Add a review

Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) was a German philosopher, writer, and a leading theorist of anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism and an avowed pacifist.

Landauer's social thought, a blend of romanticism, mysticism, and libertarian socialism, centered on the concept of Gemeinschaft (community) as a means to achieve an anarchist society. He was a powerful critic of capitalism, militarism, bureaucratic authority, and orthodox Marxism. Landauer believed that the state could only be overcome by the creation of alternative, decentralized communities based on voluntary cooperation. His ideas influenced various left-wing communitarian circles in Germany, including figures like Martin Buber.

During the German Revolution, Landauer became a prominent figure in the Bavarian Soviet Republic, serving as Commissioner for Enlightenment and Public Instruction in the first Räterepublik. Following the violent suppression of the republic by Freikorps troops, he was arrested and brutally murdered in Munich's Stadelheim Prison.