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German socialism is rooted in the French Revolution, the dialectics of Hegel and the philosophy of Karl I Marx, who as a German exile in London took a special interest in the activities of his brethren in the homeland. The party itself was not formally founded, however, until 1869, when the German Workers Party was born in Eisenach.
Power did not come easily to the Socialists. Though they are Germany's oldest political party, until now they have been in power for only two brief periods during the 100 years of their JULIUS existence. As advocates of internationalism, democracy, a distinct separation between church and state and improved social conditions, the Socialists naturally aroused deep suspicions in the monarchical, clerical, nationalistic Germany of the 19th century. "For me, every Social Democrat is an enemy of the Realm and of the Fatherland," declared Kaiser Wilhelm II. "That party, which dares to attack the foundations of the state, which revolts against religion and does not even stop at the person of the Almighty Ruler, must be crushed."
Instead, the Socialists helped crush the Kaiser by leading the revolution that broke out in the closing days of World War I. When the Weimar Republic was established in 1919, the first government was led by the Socialists, who ruled for two years. It was a dubious honor. Socialist Foreign Minister Hermann Muller was obliged to sign the harsh Versailles Treaty, putting the onus of Germany's defeat on the party that many nationalists already blamed for stabbing the country in the back by calling for the overthrow of the mon archy while the war was still going on. In 1928, another Socialist-led government took power. But Germany, beset by inflation and plagued by increasing political violence, proved ungovernable. After the Socialists resigned over cuts in unemployment insurance in 1930, the Weimar Republic fell increasingly under the power of the Socialists' enemies—the brown-shirted Nazis of Adolf Hitler.
Street Fighter
The rivalry between the Nazis and Socialists spilled over into bloody street battles that erupted all over Germany. In the Baltic seaport of Liibeck, the Nazis met a tough opponent in a husky, square-jawed youth named Herbert Karl Frahm, a member of the Socialist youth club. The son of an unmarried shopgirl whose lover had deserted her before the child's birth, Herbert Karl and his mother lived as boarders in the home of a chauffeur whose own wife had little patience with the child. Perhaps to compensate for his unhappy circumstances, the boy excelled at school, winning a scholarship to the Lübeck gymnasium, and developed an abiding interest in politics. Because of his lower-class