![Peter Pistorius (2024): Rudolf Breitscheid 1874–1944. Kampf um Wahrheit und Macht. [The fight for truth and power.]](https://journalistik.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/cropped-journalistik-hintergrund-groß.png)
Reviewed by Gunter Reus
Difficult as it may be to believe, it was back in 1968 that the 29-year-old doctoral candidate Peter Pistorius handed in his dissertation entitled Rudolf Breitscheid 1874–1944. Ein biografischer Beitrag zur deutschen Parteiengeschichte [A biographical contribution to the history of German political parties] at the University of Cologne. 56 years later, following a long career as a broadcast deskman, ARD foreign correspondent, and Chair of the Deutscher Journalisten-Verband Berlin, he has now published his revised dissertation in book form. In it, he writes: »Little that is revolutionary has been added to the state of knowledge of the political work of Rudolf Breitscheid over recent decades« (p. 217).
This is indeed the case, and does not reflect well on historical science, nor on German social democracy, which has done little to honor the work of Rudolf Breitscheid to this day. After all, he was the former Prussian interior minister, a delegate at the League of Nations in Geneva, leader of the SPD group in the Reichstag, a member of the party’s ruling committee, and a fighter for an anti-fascist popular front during his exile in Paris. The science of journalism studies would also have (had) every reason to look more closely at Breitscheid, given that the »symbol of parliamentarianism« (p. 169) had worked mainly as a journalist before 1933 and left behind an enormous body of journalistic work.
Rudolf Breitscheid began his career as a deskman at the Hannoverscher Courier and as Berlin reporter for the Hamburgischer Correspondent, and wrote for dozens of other German and foreign press organs during his lifetime. His comment pieces – widely read and much feared – had a significant influence on the factional struggles in the German Empire and Weimar Republic. He was editor of the following magazines and press services: Das freie Volk, Sozialistische Auslandspolitik, Der Sozialist, Die Gesellschaft, Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, and weekly newspaper Rheinische Rundschau. The republican convictions that he set out there, as well as in the papers of Friedrich Naumann, Theodor Barth, Karl Kautsky, Rudolf Hilferding, and others, he also presented as a gifted speaker in the parliaments of which he was a member from 1920 until the Nazis’ rise to power.
Reproductions of Breitscheid’s journalistic work have so far been available only in incomplete form. Sven Crefeld (2015) edited writings from 1908 to 1912 as the first volume in a planned republishing of his work. Some of Breitscheid’s speeches in the Reichstag and articles from his exile in France are found individually in anthologies of political journalism (cf. Lange 1977 and Zwoch 1974). Although the GDR did honor him as an anti-fascist – naming numerous roads and schools after him and even releasing a postage stamp and postcard with his image on them – they avoided releasing the complete works of a man who, despite occasional approaches to the KPD, remained at a distance from or even rejected communism all his life.
Now we at least have a political biography of the social democrat. The book is a major gain for anyone interested in the history of German political parties, or indeed in history and the history of the press in general. Despite the academic basis of the book, Peter Pistorius succeeds in painting a lively, colorful, yet still critical picture of a man whose career and personality represent the hopes and disappointments, the twists and turns, the opportunities taken and opportunities missed in Germany’s unique 20th century history.
What became and could have become of this country between Wilhelminian imperialist posturing and the collapse into Hitler’s barbarism is captured paradigmatically in Rudolf Breitscheid’s struggle for survival. Following studies in national economics, he enters the journalistic stage before the First World War as a follower of economic liberal Friedrich Naumann, joins the Free-minded Union in 1903, and supports the hegemonial colonial policies of the German Empire. Yet it does not take long for him to turn his attention to left-wing liberal positions in the fight against the three-class franchise and in favor of reforms in social policy. Influenced by his wife Tony Drevermann, a militant feminist, he also campaigns for women’s suffrage. He resigns from the party in protest at its rapprochement with Bülow’s right-wing faction and, in 1908, founds the Democratic Union (DV), which oscillates between the Liberals and the SPD and of which he would later become leader. But the DV remains a splinter party and, in 1912, Breitscheid and his party colleagues abandon it and join the SPD.
There, the powerfully eloquent journalist is eyed with mistrust, not least when, after the outbreak of war, his journalistic writing joins with Kautsky, Bernstein and Haase in their opposition to the social democrats’ war policy. In 1917, he leaves the SPD and joins the USPD, agitates against the »Scheidemann church« and, according to Pistorius, avows himself »to class war« (p. 79). After the November Revolution, Breitscheid is made Prussian interior minister. Under pressure from circumstances, he alternates between sympathies for a council republic and parliamentarianism, yet remains steadfast in his opposition to the right-wing direction of the ruling SPD and calls for a »purely socialist regime« (p. 103). Now sitting for the USPD in the Reichstag, he swings back towards the SPD. Following the Kapp putsch, he increasingly returns to parliamentary ideas and gives up his revolutionary rhetoric. When the USPD dissolves in 1922, he is a member of the majority social democrats once again and develops, according to Pistorius, into one of the »outstanding leadership figures« of the »party of order« (p. 118). As a member of the Reichstag’s foreign policy committee, he campaigns for European unity and reconciliation with France. By advocating the implementation of the Treaty of Versailles, he becomes a hated »fulfilment politician« in the eyes of the right. Foreign minister Stresemann appoints him to the German delegation at the League of Nations. Breitscheid becomes one of the party’s parliamentary leaders in the Reichstag in 1928, and a member of the party’s executive in 1931. His own political manner and his journalism are now also defined by the SPD’s tacking from left to right, the politics of compromise and appeasement. He shies away from active policies against the national socialists, such as supporting a general strike. He is unable to recognize the »totality of the danger« (Pistorius, p. 160).
Branded a »traitor of the people« by the Nazis, Breitscheid flees through Switzerland to France in March 1933. Despite his attempts to establish an anti-fascist German popular front influenced by the politics of Léon Blum, in exile he finds himself increasingly isolated from his own party and disillusioned by the disputes between opponents of Hitler. He continues to write for socialist newspapers in Europe, but one personal defeat soon follows another. When Hitler’s armies march into France in 1940, he is forced to flee Paris for the south. Yet, despite having committed himself to reconciliation with France, he is arrested by French police in Arles and handed over to the Gestapo. The advocate of an alliance of Western democracies dies in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944 in a grotesquely tragic way: although the circumstances have never been entirely clear, he is thought to have been killed in an air raid by the Western allies. His wife, also imprisoned at Buchenwald, survives.
Peter Pistorius tells the story of this breathtaking life of a German politician in the 20th century without falling into the trap of an idealized personality story. Some of it assumes prior knowledge from the reader: Non-historians may struggle to understand the machinations and demarcations of the liberal parties before 1914, or the political back and forth at the end of the Weimar Republic. Other aspects are barely explained at all, such as Breitscheid’s view on the SPD’s approval of the war loans in 1914. His work on women’s rights and the political influence of his wife Tony would also have been worthy of greater attention. From a journalism studies point of view, it is regrettable that, although most of Pistorius’ monograph is based on quotations from newspapers and magazines, these serve ›only‹ as evidence of political points of view. The reader learns nothing about the journalistic characteristics of Breitscheid’s work, about rhetoric, language, reader reactions, journalistic guidelines, or the strategy of Breitscheid as an editor.
All in all, however, this first comprehensive recognition of Rudolf Breitscheid is an excellent demonstration of how insightful biographical research in social sciences can be. Pistorius is never blinded by his fascination for his subject. Again and again, he critically highlights Breitscheid’s illusions and the hardening dogma and self-opinionated nature, the missionary thinking, the puritan rigor, and the rhetorical aggression of this politician journalist. Many of his opponents considered Breitscheid, who switched political parties five times during his life, to be a divisive figure. His penchant for distinguishing himself in the style of a British aristocrat and his elegant dress sense also earned him the scornful nickname »Lord Breitscheid.« His bearing, dogmatism, and party switching remind one involuntarily of a political figure like Sahra Wagenknecht, just as the hesitant political approach to the NSDAP before 1933 triggers associations with today’s political constellations. Insight into this kind of political similarity is not the worst thing that historical education could achieve.
The revised version of this dissertation by journalist Peter Pistorius, printed with the support of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, is extremely easy to read. Yet the publisher clearly chose to forgo professional proof-reading – as is unfortunately common today. Around 30 typesetting errors, punctuation errors and typos, including the unintentional pun »Karl Kautzky« (footnote p. 69) and the embarrassing confusion of Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein (image caption, p. 79), are annoying for the reader. There is therefore still work to be done before a second edition of this important and highly interesting book, which one can only hope that the author and publisher will produce.
About the reviewer
Dr. Gunter Reus is retired Professor of Journalism Studies at Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, and co-editor of Journalistik/Journalism Research.
Translation: Sophie Costella
References
Crefeld, Sven (ed.) (2015): Rudolf Breitscheid. Die vornehmste Aufgabe der Linken ist die Kritik. Publikationen 1908–1912. Berlin: edition rubrin.
Lange, Dieter (ed.) (1977): Antifaschistische Beiträge 1933–1939. Frankfurt/M.: Verlag Marxistische Blätter.
Zwoch, Gerhard (ed.) (1974): Reichstagsreden. Bonn: Verlag AZ Studio.
About the book
Peter Pistorius (2024): Rudolf Breitscheid 1874–1944. Kampf um Wahrheit und Macht. [The fight for truth and power.] Marburg: Schüren, 232 pages, EUR 28