Weitling,Wilhelm (Christian) b. October 5, 1808; in Magdeburg, Prussia d. January 25, 1871; New York City
Important German Communist thinker and prolific writer who published many theoretical pamphlets and books that influenced the German workers’ movement in the United States. He also attempted unsuccessfully to establish a Socialist colony in Iowa.
Weitling was born as the illegitimate son of a French officer who went missing without trace, and a German cook. He grew up with his mother in humble conditions. After attending elementary school he completed an apprenticeship as a tailor. The traditional years of travel linked with this trade took him to Paris in 1826 via Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna. There he joined the Communist Bund der Geachteten (Association of Outlaws) in 1835, switching a year later to the radical splinter group thereof, dubbed Bund der Gerechten (Association of the Righteous). He advanced in 1838 to association leader and in 1839 wrote the manifesto in ten precepts entitled “Die Menschheit, wie sie ist und wie sie sein sollte” (Humanity, How It Is and How It Ought to Be) that had a print run of 2,000 copies. Influenced by the works of Felicite Robert de La Mennais, Philipp Buonarotti, Henri de Saint-Simon, Etienne Cabet, Louis-Auguste Blanqui, and Charles Fourier, he developed a social utopia of “common property” to be brought about by a revolutionary act that he explained in greater detail in his main work Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit (Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom, 1842), which was admired by Karl Marx and Ludwig Feuerbach. His social idea of redemption united Christian elements of brotherly love with Communist concepts of equality. Until the beginning of the 1840s Weitling featured as a central figure within the international labor movement. He agitated in Germany and Switzerland (Geneva) and propagated his ideas of justice within several associations close to the movement known as Junges Deutschland (Young Germany) as a means of exploiting these alliances as nuclei for the new social order. He supported these efforts with articles in the monthly, and later weekly, magazine Der Hulferuf der deutschen Jugend (The German Youth’s Cry for Help) appearing in Geneva, Bern, London, and Brussels from 1841 to 1843. After numerous disputes within the association and expulsions from Geneva, Bern, and Vevey, he retreated to Zurich, where he was sentenced to a term of several months in prison for his work entitled Das Evangelium eines armen Sunders (The Gospel of the Poor Sinner,1845), in which he established similarities between early Christianity and communism using more than 100 verses from the Bible. His popularity reached its height, and his political songs (Kerkerpoesien [Dungeon Poetry], 1844) were well known in many circles. His agitational activities provoked his expulsion from Switzerland and Prussia.
After further disputes of a political, organizational, and theoretical nature with, among others, Marx in Brussels (March
1846) regarding the need for an economic theory for revolution and the religious coloring of Weitling’s Socialist ideas of justice, he emigrated to New York at the end of 1846 to take over the editorial office of the Volkstribun (People’s Tribune) publication from Hermann Kriege. However, as the social reformist paper was forced to close for financial reasons, Weitling translated his work The Gospel of the Poor Sinner, made contact with American supporters of Fourier such as Albert Brisbane, and founded the Befreiungsbund (Freedom Association, 1847-1849) modeled on American lodges and European trade associations. It attracted German supporters in many American cities such as New Braunfels in Texas. Weitling vexed American tradesmen with his disrespectful image of America, which he described as the “Babylon of Capitalists” in which theft, fraud, and deceit stood in the way of social justice and freedom. Following an agitational trip that ended in New Orleans, he spontaneously returned to Europe in 1848 to help shape the revolution in Berlin.
However, his plans for arming the workers, a complete amnesty, the abolition of the police force and judiciary, new paper money for workers, and a provisional government comprising members of the freedom association failed to arouse support. Bitterly disappointed, he returned to the United States at the end of 1849, where he hoped to prepare the ground for revolution through organizations and by publishing articles. As a member of the Arbeiterverbruderung (Worker’s Alliance) Weitling edited the 16-page weekly paper entitled Die Republik der Arbeiter (The Republic of Workers, 1850-1855), which had a print run of up to 4,000 copies. The plan to publish a bilingual edition never materialized. The organ, which contained numerous reprints of his writings, became the mouthpiece of his personal views. His outlook formed the subject of discussion at the German American Workers’ Congress in Philadelphia (October 22-28, 1850), attended by members from St. Louis, Louisville, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, Williamsburg, and Cincinnati. Although Weitling was highly regarded and his ideas formed the basis of the congress, the tradesmen and workers distanced themselves in numerous resolutions from Weitling’s ideas of an ideal society achieved by revolution and demanded instead reforms to immigration, labor, and economic policies. This shift was reinforced by Weitling’s critical stance toward the strike movement and his indifference to workers’ claims for higher pay.Weitling’s fundamental sociopolitical ideas, embracing the establishment of trading regulations, a currency reform, the foundation of a trade barter bank, a special system of workers’ shops, and independent paper money for workers, met with little support among workers and within the German workers’ association. He also attempted unsuccessfully to implement such sociopolitical experiments in Socialist colonies, such as in the Communia settlement in County Clayton, Iowa, from October 1851 to spring 1855.
This colony was also to become the organizational center of the workers’ association with the objective of uniting all workers. Accusations of embezzlement, criticism of his strict style of leadership, his tendency to portray himself as a messiah, his pathological overestimation of himself, internal power struggles, and above all the increasing influence of the union movement within the workers’ movement finally led a disappointed Weitling to leave the political stage altogether. Following numerous disputes with, among others, Karl Heinzen, Weitling was isolated within the workers’ movement after 1855. Until the outbreak of the Civil War he worked in the records department of the New York Immigration Office in Castle-Garden, to support his wife, Caroline Toedt, whom he had married in 1854, and his six children. In addition, Weitling carried out astronomical(Theorie des Weltsystem [Theory of the World System], 1859) and educational studies. He finally returned to working as a tailor. The buttonhole and embroidery machine he invented and patented was unlawfully mass produced by sewing machine manufacturer Howe and Singer. Three days before his death he was celebrated by German, English, and French workers at a festive occasion staged by the International Workers Association in New York. Weitling’s religiously inspired utopia of equality and brotherhood in a dictatorial workers’ republic was largely forgotten and could no longer compete with Marx’s ideas of a scientific socialism. However, Weitling’s illustrious personality, the idealistic type of the utopian socialism, had an influence on the German worker’s movement in the United States into the 1860s.
Claude D. Conter
See also Anarchists; Darmstaedters; New Braunfels, Texas; New York City
References and Further Reading
Knartz, Lothar, and Hans-Arthur Marsiske, eds. Wilhelm Weitling. Ein deutscher Arbeiterkommunist. Hamburg: Ergebnisse, 1989.
Marsiske, Hans-Arthur. Eine Republik der Arbeiter ist moglich. Der Beitrag Wilhelm Weitlings zur Arbeiterbewegung in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika 1846—1856. Hamburg: Hamburger Institut fur Sozialgeschichte, 1990. Schafer, Wolf. Die unvertraute Moderne.
Historische Umrisse einer anderen Natur- und Sozialgeschichte. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1985.
Schluter, Hermann. Die Anfange der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung in Amerika [1907]. Ed. and with a preface by Carol Poore. New York, Berne, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1984.
Wittke, Carl. The Utopian Communist. A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling, Nineteenth Century Reformer. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1950.