Abstract
Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) was a German-Jewish anarchist and radical thinker who was brutally murdered in the Munich Soviet Republic. Paul Mendes-Flohr has contributed enormously to the rediscovery of this long-neglected figure, who nonetheless played a crucial role in the intellectual debates of his time. Mendes-Flohr emphasizes the impact that Landauer’s death had on Martin Buber’s conception of politics at a time when Jewish revolutionaries were attempting to combine messianism and activism. In this essay, as a complement to Mendes-Flohr’s insightful work, I will attempt to show how Landauer’s legacy can be traced in two other German-Jewish thinkers, Franz Rosenzweig and Walter Benjamin, albeit with important differences. In particular, I want to illustrate how Landauer’s idea of an anarchic diaspora, as well as his idea of revolution as interruption, both based on a unique conception of time, can be seen as two powerful theologico-political devices that he used in order to dismantle a too narrow and too technical idea of politics. I will, therefore, examine how the anarchic diaspora finds its echo in Rosenzweig’s thought, and how the idea of interruption and inversion can be found in Benjamin’s conception of revolution.
Highlights
In a famous article entitled “Messianic Radicalism: Gustav Landauer and OtherI (Mendes-Flohr 2015, pp. 22–44), taking Max Weber’s lecture given in the midst of the Bavarian revolution of 1918/19 as a starting point
I want to illustrate how Landauer’s idea of an anarchic diaspora, as well as his idea of revolution as interruption, both based on a unique conception of time, can be seen as two powerful theologico-political devices that he used in order to dismantle a too narrow and too technical idea of politics
Landauer played a crucial role in the intellectual debates of his time, and he was popular as an activist, journalist, and public speaker in many of Berlin’s intellectual circles
Summary
I (Mendes-Flohr 2015, pp. 22–44), taking Max Weber’s lecture given in the midst of the Bavarian revolution of 1918/19 as a starting point. 22–44), taking Max Weber’s lecture given in the midst of the Bavarian revolution of 1918/19 as a starting point In this lecture, in order to rebuke the activists who refused to accept the “disenchantment of world”, Weber compared the Munich radicals’ need for redemption with the “fate of the Jews and the vain, self-defeating longing for Redemption” Landauer played a crucial role in the intellectual debates of his time, and he was popular as an activist, journalist, and public speaker in many of Berlin’s intellectual circles His brutal death had a tremendous impact on a whole generation of thinkers who interpreted it as a martyrium, a symbol, or a fault of the German-Jewish destiny.. Landauer’s faults, and question why Rosenzweig and Benjamin positioned themselves antithetically to his sacrificial death, which warned of and prefigured the tragic destiny of German Judaism
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