Was German Social Democracy Before 1914 Antisemitic?

Abstract

The Social Democratic Party in Imperial Germany (SPD), with a million members, was Europe's first true mass-membership political party. In the undemocratic, authoritarian regime of the Kaiser's Germany, it was a force pushing for reform and democratization. Its programme advocated equal civic rights for all German men and women. It was a consistent opponent of Germany's nascent antisemitic political parties. A new study of the SPD and the question of antisemitism has argued that the party's treatment of the question of antisemitism was seriously inadequate, and considers the attitude of Social Democracy to antisemitism to be in need of a fundamental reconsideration. It is claimed that SPD was 'more a part of the problem than a part of the solution'. To what extent does this reconsideration of the relationship between the SPD and antisemitism rest on new evidence, and to what extent is it the result of a different definition of 'antisemitism'? Does this reconsideration do justice to the political behaviour of the SPD in imperial Germany?