Gustav Landauer, Erich Mühsam, Ernst Toller

The anarchist and socialist-minded writers Gustav Landauer (1870-1919), Erich Mühsam (1878-1934) and Ernst Toller (1893-1939) were among the most important protagonists of the first Soviet Republic. The photos are taken from the right-wing conservative and anti-Semitic illustrated brochure "Ein Jahr bayrische Revolution im Bilde" (Images of one year of Bavarian Revolution), published by Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957) in the autumn of 1919. The photos had cynically formulated and biased captions. Ernst Toller's portrait was a police photograph, taken after his arrest in June 1919.

Gustav Landauer was born in Karlsruhe and lived in Berlin for most of his life. In November 1918, he followed an invitation of Kurt Eisner (1867-1919) and went to Munich. After the proclamation of the Soviet Republic, Landauer was appointed "Volksbeauftragter für Volksaufklärung" (People's Representative for Popular Enlightenment). In his short term of office, he initiated a number of reforms in the education sector, including the abolition of corporal punishment in schools and of celibacy for female teachers. Disillusioned by the further development, Landauer resigned three days after the communists took power on 16 April. Shortly after the abolition of the Soviet Republic, he was arrested and murdered by members of the Freikorps (volunteer militia) on 2 May 1919.

Erich Mühsam was born in Berlin and grew up in Lübeck. From 1909, he lived in Munich, where he developed into an important personality of the “Schwabinger Bohème”. He had been resolved and quite prepared to use violence for a Soviet system, from the start of the revolution in November 1918. During the first Soviet Republic he held a prominent position in the Revolutionäre Zentralrat. As early as on 13 April 1919, Mühsam was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison. After an amnesty he lived in Berlin from 1924. Following the National Socialist takeover, Mühsam was murdered at the Oranienburg concentration camp in 1934.

Ernst Toller came from the Prussian province of Posen. After participating in WWI until 1917, he studied law and philosophy in Munich. As chairman of the USPD in Bavaria and chairman of the Revolutionäre Zentralrat, he was one of the leading figures in the first Soviet Republic. In his function as commander of the Red Army in Dachau, he also held an important position during the second Communist Soviet Republic. In June 1919, he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. From 1924, Toller lived as a writer in Berlin. He left Germany for Switzerland in 1933 before moving to the USA in 1936. In 1939, he took his own life in New York.