Sind das Ketzergedanken? [Are these Heretical Thoughts?], a printout of an essay by Gustav Landauer. [Leipzig?, 1913?]. German.
In the essay, Landauer strives to put into words his perception of his Jewish-German identity: "I never felt the need to simplify myself or to create an artificial unity by way of denial; I accept my complexity and hope to be an even more multifarious unity than I am now aware of" (Jewish Secularity: The Search for Roots and the Challenges of Relevant Meaning, edited by David M. Gordis and Zachary I. Heller, 2012. p. 12).
Inscribed by Landauer to Zionist leader Heinrich Loewe on the title page: "Mr. Dr. Heinrich Loewe, Nevertheless – Together. Gustav Landauer. Hermsdorf Berlin, October 16, 1915" (German).
Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) was a Jewish-German revolutionary, an ardent pacifist and one of the most important theorists of communist anarchism in pre-World War I Germany. He was a writer, translator, journalist and prolific publicist who authored numerous articles on art, literature, philosophy, economics and politics. Landauer was born to a wealthy Jewish family from Karlsruhe and studied philosophy and Germanics at the universities of Heidelberg, Strasburg and Berlin. In 1891, he settled in Berlin, where he joined the Verein unabhängiger Sozialisten (Association of Independent Socialists) and edited its journal, der Sozialist (The Socialist). Landauer was imprisoned several times due to his activity in anarchist circles.
In 1908, he founded the Sozialistische Bund (Socialist League), whose members included his friends Martin Buber and Erich Mühsam, and under their influence, grew closer to Judaism and to the Zionist idea. With the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic (Bayerische Räterepublik) in Munich in 1919, Landauer was appointed Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction of the new government. On May 1, 1919, after the German army suppressed the revolution and recaptured Munich, Landauer was arrested. He was murdered one day later, without trial, in the Stadelheim Prison.
This essay was first printed in 1913 in the "Vom Judentum, ein Sammelbuch" ("On Judaism") anthology, published by the Prague-based Bar-Kokhba Zionist student union (Leipzig, 1913).
[5] leaves (numbered 250-257), 24 cm. Good condition. Fold line. Some stains and creases. Small tears to spine and margins (one reinforced with tape).