View source for Biography:Friedrich Adler (politician)

{{Short description|Austrian politician}}
{{Other people|Friedrich Adler}}
[[File:Friedrich Wolfgang Adler.jpg|thumb|Friedrich Adler, about 1917]]
'''Friedrich Wolfgang "Fritz" Adler''' (9 July 1879 – 2 January 1960) was an Austrian [[Social:Socialism|socialist]] politician, physicist, philosopher and journalist. He is perhaps best known for his assassination of Minister-President Karl von Stürgkh in 1916.

==Early years==

Friedrich Wolfgang Adler was born in [[Place:Vienna|Vienna]], the son of politician Victor Adler (1852–1918), founder of the Austrian Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP), and his wife Emma, née Braun (1858–1935), sister of the [[Place:German Empire|German]] publisher Heinrich Braun. Following his father's wishes, he studied chemistry, physics and mathematics at the [[Organization:ETH Zurich|ETH Zurich]], where he became a close friend of [[Biography:Albert Einstein|Albert Einstein]].<ref name=galison>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlONXXn9_QI |title=Assassin of Relativity (Lecture) |last=Galison |first=Peter |website=[[Company:YouTube|YouTube]] |accessdate=8 April 2016}}</ref>

==Political career==

He committed himself to the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland and in 1897 joined the association of Austrian Social Democrats, working as a journalist. In 1910, Adler became editor of the newspaper ''Volksrecht'' in Zurich.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Alder|first=Douglas|date=October 1978|journal=German Studies Review|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press {{Subscription required}}|title=Friedrich Adler: Evolution of a Revolutionary|volume=1|issue=3|page=266|doi=10.2307/1429221|jstor=1429221}}</ref>

While still established at the ETH, Adler participated in the philosophical discussion about [[Biography:Ernst Mach|Ernst Mach]], publishing ''Die Entdeckung der Weltelemente (zu E. Machs 70. Geburtstag)'' - The Discovery of the World-Elements (On the Occasion of E. Mach's 70th Birthday) published in ''Der Kampf'' in 1908.<ref>{{cite web|last=Lenin|first=Vladimir|year=1909|title=Materialism and Empirio-Criticism|url=http://www.wsws.org/IML/materialism/#intro1|accessdate=11 November 2013}}</ref> This was hostilely cited by [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]] in [[Philosophy:Materialism and Empirio-criticism|Materialism and Empirio-criticism]], who called Adler a "naïve university lecturer". This was part of Lenin's attack on the [[Philosophy:Studies in the Philosophy of Marxism|Russian Machists]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lenin|first1=Vladimir|title=Materialism and Empirio-criticism Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy|date=1909|publisher=Zveno Publishers|location=Moscow|page=Chapter 1.2|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/one2.htm#fwV14P053F01|accessdate=25 September 2015}}</ref> In 1909/10 he was being considered to chair the physics department, but deferred to Einstein's superior expertise and lobbied for Einstein's appointment instead.<ref name=galison /><ref name=vallentin>{{cite book|last=Vallentin|first=Antonina|title=The Drama of Albert Einstein|url=https://archive.org/details/dramaofalbertein0000vall|url-access=registration|year=1954|publisher=Doubleday & Company Inc.|location=Garden City, NY|pages=[https://archive.org/details/dramaofalbertein0000vall/page/50 50]}}</ref>

Adler was engaged in the international trade union movement and in 1911 he finally gave up his scientific activities to become the secretary-general of the SDAP in Vienna, an office he held until 1914. Together with the [[Social:Austromarxism|Austromarxist]] proponent [[Biography:Otto Bauer|Otto Bauer]], he was editor of the magazine ''Der Kampf'' and became a spokesperson of the left wing of the party according to the ideas of the [[Organization:Second International|Second International]]. After the outbreak of [[Social:World War I|World War I]] in 1914, he agitated particularly against the SDAP's policy of supporting the war.

==Assassination of Stürgkh==

In his fight against the war policy of [[Place:Austria-Hungary|Austria-Hungary]], Adler resorted to drastic measures. On 21 October 1916, in the dining room of the Viennese hotel ''Meissl & Schadn'', he shot the Austrian minister-president Count Karl von Stürgkh three times with a pistol, killing him. The Social Democratic party organ ''Arbeiter-Zeitung'' called the assassination a "strange and incomprehensible" act, whereas left leaning German-language-newspapers outside the [[Social:Censorship|censorship]] of Germany and Austria, in neutral Switzerland, attributed his deed to an understandable matter of last resort against an anti-democratic tyrant, who had successfully blocked the Austrian parliament from convening since 1913.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maier |first1=Michaela |last2=Spitaler |first2=Georg |title=Fridrich Adler - Vor dem Ausnahmegericht |date=2016 |publisher=Promedia Verlag |location=Wien |isbn=978-3-85371-406-5 |page=24 |url=http://www.verlag-promedia.at}}</ref> After a period when attempts were made to avoid a trial by declaring Adler insane, he was brought to court in May 1917 where he was able to publicly present the killing as a revolutionary action in the context of the case against the war<ref>{{cite journal|last=Alder|first=Douglas|date=October 1978|journal=German Studies Review|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press {{Subscription required}}|title=Friedrich Adler: Evolution of a Revolutionary|volume=1|issue=3|pages=276–9|doi=10.2307/1429221|jstor=1429221}}</ref> as well as against '[[Social:Reformism|reformist]]' Social Democrats like Karl Renner. Adler was sentenced to death, a sentence which was commuted by Emperor Charles I to 18 years imprisonment. During the last days of the war, Emperor Charles had him released from custody.

In the following dissolution of the Monarchy, Adler played a significant role as the leader of the ''Arbeiterräte'' (workers' councils) and as a member of the National Council of Austria. Though courted by the Communist Party, Adler stayed loyal to the Social Democrats and disclosed revolutionary attempts by the [[Organization:Communist International|Communist International]]. Upon the death of his father on 11 November 1918, Friedrich Adler, together with his party fellows Otto Bauer and Julius Deutsch, paved the way for Karl Renner's German-Austrian government.

==Inter-war period==

While the SDAP presidency passed to pragmatic Karl Seitz, who led the party into a coalition government with the Christian Social Party, Adler served as secretary of the [[Social:International Working Union of Socialist Parties|International Working Union of Socialist Parties]] in 1921. He was subsequently active in the formation of the Labour and Socialist International, serving as secretary-general firstly jointly with Tom Shaw then on his own until 1940,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Steiner|first=Herber|date=1967 |title=L'internationale socialiste à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, juillet-août 1939: Documents de Friedrich Adler|journal=Le Mouvement Social|issue=58|publisher=Editions l'Atelier {{Subscription required}}|pages=95–96|doi=10.2307/3777238|jstor=3777238|language=French}}</ref> witnessing the rise of [[Social:Nazism|Nazism]].

The SDAP was already banned by the Dollfuss government upon the Austrian Civil War in 1934. After the Austrian ''Anschluss'' to [[Place:Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany]] in March 1938, the functionaries around Otto Bauer and Joseph Buttinger moved to Brussels and later to [[Place:Paris|Paris]].

==World War II==

Upon the 1940 Battle of France, the party leadership fled to [[Place:London|London]], while Adler together with Buttinger immigrated to {{wipe|New York City}}, {{wipe|United States}}, where he established the Austrian Labor Committee in 1942.

In the 1943 Moscow Declarations, the Allied called for the re-establishment of a free Austria after the victory over Nazi Germany. Adler, who rejected the "reactionary" ideas of an Austrian nation, gradually retired from politics.

Back in Europe from 1946, Adler moved to {{wipe|Switzerland}}, where he edited his father Victor's exchange of letters with [[Biography:August Bebel|August Bebel]] and [[Biography:Karl Kautsky|Karl Kautsky]]. He returned to Vienna once, to celebrate his father's centennial anniversary in 1952 and was received with full honours.

==Death and legacy==

On 2 January 1960, Adler died in his home in Zurich, at the age of 80.

== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist|2}}

== External links ==
*[https://archive.today/20130105220507/http://dispatch.opac.ddb.de/DB=4.1/REL?PPN=118647016 Works by and about Friedrich Adler] in Die Deutsche Bibliothek
* Archive of [https://search.socialhistory.org/Record/ARCH00135 Friedrich Adler Papers] at the International Institute of Social History
* [https://www.marxists.org/archive/adler-friedrich/index.htm Friedrich Adler Archive] at marxists.org
* {{PM20|FID=pe/000143}}

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[[Category:Philosophers of science]]

{{Sourceattribution|Friedrich Adler (politician)}}