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Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
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The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, in German Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SAP / SAPD, was the name of two political parties in Germany.
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The first, which lasted from 1875 - 1890, was a left-wing German political party created in Gotha when Ferdinand Lassalle's ADAV merged with the SDAP formed by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht.
The party congress at which the unification of the Marxist "Eisenachers" of the SDAP and the more moderate Lassallians came about took place from June 22 - 27 1875. The Gotha programme was finalised at the same time. Three years later, the law banning socialism passed by Bismarck pushed the party underground. While its deputies were still allowed seats in parliament, there was a ban on meetings, organisations and news publishing.
In 1877, the SAPD won 500,000 votes in the Reichstag elections. In 1890, still before the Anti-Socialist Laws were overturned, the party won 1.4 million votes, making it the strongest in Germany.
The Anti-Socialist Laws were a result of Bismarck's fear of the socialists; he believed they were responsible for two assassination attempts. They were renewed every three years until he left politics in autumn 1890; immediately, the SAPD renamed itself Social Democratic Party of Germany or SPD; this is the name it has kept until today.
The second SAPD was a left-wing splinter group which split off from the SPD in autumn 1931. In 1932 some Communist Party dissenters joined the group, but its numbers remained small. From 1933, the group's members worked illegally against National Socialism.
In his home town of Lübeck, the young Herbert Karl Frahm, later known as Willy Brandt joined the SAPD, against the advice of his mentor Julius Leber. In his autobiography, Brandt wrote: In autumn 1931, Nazis and German nationalists, the SA and the men in steel helmets joined together to form the "Harzburg Front". ... It was just at this time that the left wing of the social democrats split off, as a result of measures connected to organisation and discipline by the party leaders. A few Reichstag assemblymen, a number of active party groups - above all in Saxony - and not least a large proportion of young Socialists followed the people who were calling for the founding of a Socialist Workers' Party.
In 1934 the youth of SAPD took part in the foundation of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations. The congress, which was held in the Netherlands, was broken up by Dutch police. Several SAPD delegates were handed over to German authorities. The congress then re-convened in Lille. Brandt was elected to the Secretariat of the organization, and worked in Sweden for the Bureau.
The SAPD was affiliated to the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre, but broke with the main party of that international, the Independent Labour Party, over the question of the united front and popular front.
During the Second World War some SAPD members emigrated to Great Britain and worked for the party there. Many of those became members of the SPD. Therefore the SAPD was not re-founded anew after the Second World War. Willy Brandt even became leader of the SPD.
- Hanno Drechsler, Die Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (SAPD): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Deutschen Arbeiterbewegung am Ende der Weimarer Republik, Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1963; Repr. Hannover: Politladen, 1971; 2. Repr. Hamburg: Junius, 1999. (The classic account)
| Preceded by General German Workers' Association |
socialist German parties {{{years}}} |
Succeeded by Social Democratic Party of Germany |
| Preceded by Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany |
socialist German parties {{{years}}} |
Succeeded by Social Democratic Party of Germany |