- General German Workers' Association
The General German Workers' Association, in German "Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein", ADAV) was founded on
23 May 1863 byFerdinand Lassalle and existed under this name until1875 , when it combined withAugust Bebel andWilhelm Liebknecht 's SDAP to form theSocialist Workers' Party of Germany , which was renamed shortly thereafter theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The ADAV was the first GermanLabour Party , formed inPrussia prior to the establishment of the Germany had united as theGerman Empire . Its members were known colloquially throughout Germany as "Lassalleans". The association was founded inLeipzig by Lassalle and twelve delegates from some of the most important cities in Germany:Barmen ,Dresden ,Düsseldorf ,Elberfeld ,Frankfurt am Main ,Hamburg ,Harburg ,Cologne ,Leipzig ,Mainz andSolingen . About 600 workers were present, having travelled on the newly-openedDresden -Leipzig railway line. Lassalle acted as president from23 May 1863 to31 August 1864 . He had been expecting many thousands to become members of the association, but by1864 there were only 4,600; merging with the SDAP was the best option to gain influence. The ADAV was in part financially supported by funds obtained by Lassalle through his personal relations. These same relations resulted in a duel in1864 in which Lassalle was killed.Opinion was divided within the ADAV between strict
socialism and democracy.Wilhelm Liebknecht was a member until1865 , but as the ADAV tried to co-operate withBismarck 's government, for example on the question ofwomen's suffrage , Liebknecht became disillusioned with the association. He had been writing for the association's newspaper "Der Sozial-Demokrat" ("the Social Democrat") but now, in disagreement with the paper'sPrussia -friendly position, he left, first forming theSaxon People's Party along withAugust Bebel , and then in1869 becoming a co-founder of theSocial Democratic Workers' Party ("Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei", SDAP) inEisenach as a branch of theInternational Workingmen's Association .Liebknecht was to meet up again with his old ADAV colleagues, however, as the lack of support for the Association led them to join forces with Liebknecht's SDAP in
1875 . Together with the SDAP the ADAV formed the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany ("Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands", SAPD) at the Socialist Unity Conference in Gotha: their manifesto was theGotha programme . It called for "universal, equal, direct suffrage"; this later became part of theWeimar Republic 's constitution. In1890 the party was renamed theSocial Democratic Party of Germany ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands", SPD) and it still exists under this name today.Presidents
*
23 May 1863 -31 August 1864 Ferdinand Lassalle
*1 September 1864 -2 November 1864 Otto Dammer
*2 November 1864 -21 November 1865 Bernhard Becker
*21 November 1865 -30 November 1865 Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche
*30 November 1865 -31 December 1865 Hugo Hillmann
*1 January 1866 -18 June 1866 Carl Wilhelm Tölcke
*18 June 1866 -19 May 1867 August Perl
*20 May 1867 -30 June 1871 Johann Baptist von Schweitzer
*24 June 1869 -4 July 1869 Fritz Mende
*1 July 1871 -25 May 1875 Wilhelm Hasenclever
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