German Freethinkers League

Last updated

The German Freethinkers League ('Deutscher Freidenkerbund') was an organization founded in the late 19th century by German freethinkers and atheists with the main goal to oppose the power of the state churches in Germany. [1] Its aim was to provide a public meeting-ground and forum for materialist and atheist thinkers in Germany. Renamed German Freethinkers Association (Deutscher Freidenker-Verband) in 1930, the organization was subsequently prohibited by the Nazi regime in 1933. At the time, the association had some 500,000 members. Reestablished at federal level in West Germany in 1951, the German Freethinkers Association consisted in 2004 of approximately 3000 members. [2]

Contents

History

The organization was founded in 1881 by the materialist philosopher and physician Ludwig Büchner and the socialist politician Wilhelm Liebknecht [3] to oppose the power of the state churches in Germany. [1] By 1885, the group had 5,000 members. [3]

In 1930, the German Freethinkers League ('Deutscher Freidenkerbund') was renamed as Deutscher Freidenker-Verband (German Freethinkers Association) and Max Sievers was elected chairman. The largest organization of its sort in Germany at the time, by 1933, the German Freethinkers League had a membership numbering some 500,000. [4] The Association was closed down in the spring of 1933 when the Nazi regime outlawed all atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany. Freethinkers Hall, the national headquarters of the League, was then converted to a bureau advising the public on church matters. [4] Many freethinkers were active in the resistance. Max Sievers, the then chairman of the Freethinkers' Association, and general secretary Hermann Graul, managed to leave Germany in April 1933. Sievers immigrated to the United States in 1939, returned however subsequently to Europe, and after being detained in France by the Gestapo in 1943, he was executed at Brandenburg-Görden Prison on January 17, 1944. [5]

Post–World War II

Deutscher Freidenker-Verband

Numerous new groups formed after the end of the Second World War. The first association at the state level was the Deutscher Freidenker-Verband (DFV) in Hamburg. The founding date was intentionally set to December 24, 1945.

In 1951, the DFV was re-established at the federal level in Braunschweig after the former General Secretary Hermann Graul emigrated and returned from exile in 1949. The DFV has been a member of the World Union of Freethinkers (WUF), based in Paris, since 1952.

Verband der Freidenker der DDR

In the GDR, the Association of Freethinkers was only founded on June 7, 1989, by 400 delegates at the Academy of Arts headquarters. Among other things, Erich Honecker was a member until the end of his life. [2]

In 1991 the German Freethinkers Association (GDR) merged with the DFV in Braunschweig. Since then, the German Freethinkers Association has increasingly dealt with political issues and advocates justice, peace, and social, humane, and ecological action.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span title="German-language text"><i lang="de">Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten</i></span> Paramilitary organisation

Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, commonly known as Der Stahlhelm, was a German First World War veteran's organisation existing from 1918 to 1935. In the late days of the Weimar Republic, it was closely affiliated to the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP), placed at party gatherings in the position of armed security guards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freethought</span> Position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism

Freethought is an unorthodox attitude or belief.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Football Association</span> Governing body of association football in Germany

The German Football Association is the governing body of football, futsal, and beach soccer in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and is in charge of the men's and women's national teams. The DFB headquarters are in Frankfurt am Main. Sole members of the DFB are the German Football League, organising the professional Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga, along with five regional and 21 state associations, organising the semi-professional and amateur levels. The 21 state associations of the DFB have a combined number of more than 25,000 clubs with more than 6.8 million members, making the DFB the single largest sports federation in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DDR-Oberliga</span> Former top-level association football league in East Germany

The DDR-Oberliga was the top-level association football league in East Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Germany national football team</span> National football team of East Germany (1952–1990)

The East Germany national football team, recognised as Germany DR by FIFA, represented East Germany in men's international football, playing as one of three post-war German teams, along with Saarland and West Germany.

In the fourteen years the Weimar Republic was in existence, some forty parties were represented in the Reichstag. This fragmentation of political power was in part due to the use of a peculiar proportional representation electoral system that encouraged regional or small special interest parties and in part due to the many challenges facing the nascent German democracy in this period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secular Coalition for America</span> American advocacy group

The Secular Coalition for America is an advocacy group located in Washington D.C. It describes itself as "protecting the equal rights of nonreligious Americans."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Sievers</span>

Max Georg Wilhelm Sievers was chairman of the German Freethinkers League, writer and active communist, later social democrat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Humanist Federation</span>

The European Humanist Federation, officially abbreviated as EHF-FHE, was an umbrella of more than 60 humanist and secularist organisations from 25 European countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Olympic Sports Confederation</span> Modern German sports confederation

The German Olympic Sports Confederation was founded on 20 May 2006 by a merger of the Deutscher Sportbund (DSB), and the Nationales Olympisches Komitee für Deutschland (NOK) which dates back to 1895, the year it was founded and recognized as NOC by the IOC.

NSTG Asch was an ethnically-German football club from what was known as the town of Asch, Sudetenland and is today Aš, Czech Republic. The team played a single incomplete season in the regional top-flight Gauliga Sudetenland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irreligion in Germany</span> Overview of irreligion in Germany

Irreligion is prevalent in Germany. In a time of near-universal adoption of Christianity, Germany was an intellectual centre for European freethought and humanist thinking, whose ideas spread across Europe and the world in the Age of Enlightenment. Later, religious traditions in Germany were weakened by the twin onslaughts of Nazi rule during World War II and that of the Socialist Unity Party in East Germany during the Cold War. In common with most other European societies, a period of secularisation also continued in the decades that followed. While today Christianity remains prevalent in the west of Germany, in the east relatively few Germans identify with any religion whatsoever.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern German Football Association</span> Regional association of the German Football Association

The Northern German Football Association is one of the five regional associations of the German Football Association and covers the four German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western German Football Association</span> Regional association of the German Football Association

The Western German Football Association is one of the five regional associations of the German Football Association and covers German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands</span>

The Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands is an organisation to promote and spread a secular humanist worldview and an advocate for the rights of nonreligious people. It was founded 1993 in Berlin and counts about 20,000 members. The HVD is a member of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the European Humanist Federation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Metal Workers' Union</span> German Reich trade union (1891–1933)

The German Metal Workers' Union was a German industrial union for metalworkers formed in 1891 and dissolved after the Nazis' accession to power in 1933.

Vrijdenkersvereniging De Vrije Gedachte (DVG) (English: Freethinkers association The Free Thought), is a Dutch atheist–humanist association of freethinkers. It was founded in 1856 and known by the name De Dageraad ("The Dawn") before assuming its present name in 1957. De Vrije Gedachte strives to use reason, natural science and logic to liberate humanity from prejudices, clerical paternalism, dogmas and false truths.

The Freethinkers Association of Switzerland (FAS) is a Swiss nonprofit organisation for freethought. It is the result of the merger of several late 19th century and early 20th century local freethinkers associations throughout Switzerland into a national society, currently headquartered in Bern.

The German Tobacco Workers' Union was a trade union representing people in the tobacco manufacturing industry in Germany.

References

  1. 1 2 Hanne May (2006). Religiosität in der säkularisierten Welt. VS Verlag fnr Sozialw. ISBN   3-8100-4039-8.
  2. 1 2 "Der verlängerte Arm einer herrschenden Partei - Vor 15 Jahren wurden die DDR-Freidenker gegründet". Evangelische Zentralstelle für Weltanschauungsfragen - Materialdienst…. 2015-09-16. Archived from the original on 2015-09-16.
  3. 1 2 Royle, Edward (1980). Radicals, Secularists, and republicans: popular freethought in Britain, 1866-1915. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 78. ISBN   0-7190-0783-6.
  4. 1 2 "Atheist Hall Converted: Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshipers". The New York Times. May 14, 1933. p. 2. Retrieved September 18, 2010.
  5. Geschichte, freidenker.org