Marxist Workers' School

The school was created in the tradition of the workers cultural movement with its commercial and Workers' Education Associations ("Arbeiterbildungsverein"). Following the reprisals of the Anti-Socialist Laws, social democratic and worker's associations were newly founded as training associations. Proletarian associations opened workers' libraries, e.g. in 1861 in Leipzig, where August Bebel was chairman of the library commission of the local workers' association. He formulated the goal of taking knowledge, art and culture away from bourgeoisie guardianship and "extracting from existing knowledge what benefited the working-class revolutionary struggle for emancipation."{{cite book |author1=Helmut Schulze |author2= Bibliotheksverband der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Bezirksgruppe |title=Leihbibliotheken, Arbeiterbibliotheken, Bücherhallen : bibliothekarische Bemühungen um die Volksbildung vom Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1933 : herausgegeben anlässlich des Jubiläums 75 Jahre städtisches Bibliothekswesen in Leipzig |date=1989 |publisher=Bibliotheksverb. der DDR |location=Leipzig |isbn=3-86061-001-5 |language=German|trans-title=Lending libraries, workers' libraries, book halls: Library efforts to educate the people from the beginning of the 19th century to 1933: Published on the occasion of the jubilee of 75 years of urban library management in Leipzig}}

After the separation of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany from the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1914 and founding of the KPD on 30 December 1918, communists in Germany pursued the goal of a socialist revolution similar to the October Revolution in Russia in 1917. The educational work of the KPD was haphazard in the early years, following its formation. In the party congress of October 1919, leading members of the KPD including Duncker, Clara Zetkin and Edwin Hoernle pointed out the need to train party members. Social Democrat hiking courses, a traditional way to teach while walking, were established, but it was only with the 3rd World Congress of the Comintern and an orientation towards Soviet politics, that worker education really began. From the point of view of the KPD, its supporters had to be politically and intellectually trained, aligned and steeled beyond the previous social-democratic and trade union educational and social goals.

As early as 1932, the MASCH had become increasingly targeted, as state repression by the Nazis was started in earnest. On 25 November 1932, the central building was occupied by Schutzpolizei and several people were arrested and the register of teachers confiscated. House searches of lecturers subsequently followed. On 29 March 1933, the central school room in Berlin was closed by the police. Following this, many teachers from the school emigrated, but many teachers and student stayed to fight the Nazis in Germany.

• The MASCH saw it ideological function as spreading communist ideals. The theoretical foundations of Marxism and emerging Leninism were taught.
• As described, the aim was to

::"create a generally accessible school in which the working population of Berlin should be given the opportunity to learn the basic teachings of unadulterated Marxism and its application to all areas of proletarian life and struggle".{{cite web |last1=Schmidt |first1=Johann |title=Fünf Jahre Marxistische Arbeiterschule |url=http://www.trend.infopartisan.net/trd0916/t050916.html |website=Trend Online Newspaper |accessdate=2 June 2020 |language=German}}

• The MASCH should reach the widest possible mass throughout Germany. In 1932, there were MASCH offshoots in 36 major German cities, as well as numerous branches in small towns.
• It was also about disseminating materials e.g. art posters along with leaflets and pamphlets, meant to incite communist agitation and propaganda. Interested laypeople were trained in the design and creation of suitable propaganda materials by artists from the Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists.{{cite web |last1=Grimkowski |first1=Rüdiger |title=Assoziation Revolutionärer Bildender Künstler Deutschlands |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/kunst/assoziation |website=Lemo |publisher=Deutsches Historisches Museum. |accessdate=4 June 2020 |location=Berlin |language=German |date=14 September 2014}}

• In addition to the historical or current affairs and politics, discussions were held on medical topics, progress in technology and natural sciences and, of course, community affairs.{{cite book |last1=Herrmann |first1=Ursula |title=Aus dem Alltag eines Arbeitervereins 1891 bis 1901 der sozialdemokratische Arbeiterverein von Lichtenberg-Friedrichsberg in Protokollen und Berichten |date=2011 |publisher=Fides |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-931363-17-8 |language=German|oclc=725250178|trans-title=From the everyday life of a workers' association from 1891 to 1901 the Social Democratic Workers' Association of Lichtenberg-Friedrichsberg in minutes and reports}}
• The school held a large number of courses including: stenography, typing, Russian and English, social and local politics, law. Lectures were also held on culture, arts, literature, film, radio, photography, theatre, music, natural sciences, medicine, sports, sexuality, children, education, the Soviet Union, foreign languages (including Chinese, Japanese and Esperanto), psychoanalysis and individual psychology, rhetoric, library studies, orthography and grammar, mathematics and women and young people studies. Fascism in its Italian and German forms was also analysed time and time again.
• In individual cases, the MASCH supported foreign visits, such as the 1932 visit to China by the communist sociologist and sinologist Karl August Wittfogel.{{cite book|last1=Shen|first1=Qinna |last2=Rosenstock|first2=Martin |title=Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LqH8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA83|accessdate=4 June 2020|date=1 July 2014|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=978-1-78238-361-1|pages=82–83}}
• Participants in the MASCH were in many cases members of the KPD, or became members, expedited under the impression of training and propaganda.

• Mitte in Berlin
• Bochum
• Brandenburg an der Havel
• Breslau
• Chemnitz
• Danzig
• Dessau
• Dresden
• Düsseldorf
• Duisburg
• Elberfeld
• Erfurt
• Essen
• Frankfurt
• Gelsenkirchen
• Hagen
• Halle
• Hamburg
• Cologne
• Königsberg
• Leipzig
• Nuremberg
• Recklinghausen
• Remscheid
• Solingen
• Stuttgart
• Wuppertal

Lecturers and teachers were, in addition to the employees and functionaries of the KPD, committed politicians, artists and scientists who were open to the labour movement. These included:

• Eduard Ludwig Alexander
• Hilde Benjamin
• Julian Borchardt Lecturer at the school.{{cite book|author=Josef Olbrich|title=Geschichte der Erwachsenenbildung in Deutschland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TzYFpOFkbOIC&pg=PA427|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=31 January 2001|publisher=Springer-Verlag|language=German|isbn=978-3-8100-3349-9|page=427}}
• Franz Dahlem
• Philipp Dengel
• Hermann Duncker
• Albert Einstein
• Hanns Eisler
• {{ill|Karl Ferlemann|de}}
• Alfred Frank{{Cite web |title=Frank, Alfred (1884–1945) – Maler, Graphiker und Antifaschist in Leipzig |url=https://www.leipzig-lexikon.de/biogramm/Frank_Alfred.htm |access-date=2025-02-10 |website=www.leipzig-lexikon.de}}
• Walter Gropius
• Kurt Hager
• {{ill|Felix Halle|de}}
• {{ill|Linus Hamann|de}}
• John Heartfield
• Fritz Heckert
• Otto Heller
• Georg Henke
• Edwin Hoernle
• {{ill|Lothar Hofmann|de}}
• {{ill|Bernhard Karlsberg|de}}
• {{ill|Max Keilson|de}}
• Egon Erwin Kisch
• {{ill|Hermann Werner Kubsch|de}}
• Jürgen Kuczynski
• Alfred Kurella
• Barbara Lantos
• Georg Lukács{{cite book|last=Sziklai|first=László |title=After the Proletarian Revolution: Georg Lukács's Marxist Development, 1930-1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vIuZAAAAIAAJ|accessdate=5 June 2020|year=1992|publisher=Akadémiai Kiadó|isbn=978-963-05-6238-6|page=164}}
• {{ill|Kurt Massloff|de}}
• Willi Münzenberg
• {{ill|Alexander Neroslow|de}}
• Theodor Neubauer
• Fritz Perls
• Erwin Piscator
• Alexander Radó
• Anni Reich
• Wilhelm Reich
• Ludwig Renn
• {{ill|Albert Rosenfelder|de}}
• {{ill|Ernest J. Salter|de}}
• Diethelm Scheer{{cite book|last=Mertens|first=Lothar|title="Nur politisch Würdige". Die DFG-Forschungsförderung im Dritten Reich 1933–1937|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lWbyCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA141|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=30 March 2015|publisher=De Gruyter|language=German|isbn=978-3-05-008243-1|page=141}}
• Otto Josef Schlein
• Johann Lorenz Schmidt
• Ernst Schneller{{cite book|last=Olbrich|first=Josef |title=Geschichte der Erwachsenenbildung in Deutschland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OZ3yBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA197|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=9 March 2013|publisher=Springer-Verlag|language=German|isbn=978-3-322-95032-1|page=197}}
• {{ill|Max Scholz|de|Max Scholz (Ökonom)}}
• {{ill|Fritz Schulze|de|Fritz Schulze (Maler)}}
• Anna Seghers{{cite book|last1=Neubauer|first1=John |last2=Török|first2=Borbála Zsuzsanna |title=The Exile and Return of Writers from East-Central Europe: A Compendium|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j2PmEIYMsHUC&pg=PA56|accessdate=5 June 2020|year=2009|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-021773-5|page=56}}
• Manès Sperber
• Bruno Taut{{cite book|last=Olbrich|first=Josef |title=Geschichte der Erwachsenenbildung in Deutschland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OZ3yBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA198|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=9 March 2013|publisher=Springer-Verlag|language=German|isbn=978-3-322-95032-1|page=198}}
• Helene Weigel
• Erich Weinert
• Karl August Wittfogel
• Friedrich Wolf{{cite book|last=Hermann |first=Harmann|title=Einspruch. Schriftenreihe der Friedrich-Wolf-Gesellschaft: "Was bleibt und was lohnt!" Friedrich Wolf zum 125. Geburts- und 60. Todestag|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8lN4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA45|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=18 June 2014|publisher=Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag|isbn=978-3-8288-6043-8|page=45}}

• Karl von Appen{{cite book|last1=Baumgartner|first1=Gabriele|last2=Hebig|first2=Dieter |title=Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR. Band 1+2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2CpHD7n0gjkC&pg=PA14|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=24 May 2012|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|language=German|isbn=978-3-11-169913-4|page=14}}
• {{ill|Annemarie Balden-Wolff|de}}
• {{ill|Éva Besnyő|de}}
• {{ill|Werner Böhnke (Resistance fighter)|de|Werner Böhnke (Widerstandskämpfer)}}
• Bertolt Brecht{{cite book|last=Fehervary|first=Helen|title=Anna Seghers: The Mythic Dimension|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xw1RaKL6-0kC&pg=PA94|accessdate=5 June 2020|year=2001|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=0-472-11215-5|page=94}}
• Elfriede Brüning
• Max and Charlotte Burghardt
• {{ill|Gert Caden|de}}
• {{ill|Eugen Eberle|de}}
• {{ill|Martin Hänisch|de}}
• {{ill|Ernst Hansch|de}}
• Bruno Leuschner
• {{ill|Ludwig Marmulla|de}}
• {{ill|Charlotte Müller (Resistance fighter)|de|Charlotte Müller (Widerstandskämpferin)}}
• {{ill|Erich Rackwitz|de}}
• Kurt Schwaen{{cite book|last=Hermand|first=Jost |title=Mehr als tönende Luft: Politische Echowirkungen in Lied, Oper und Instrumentalmusik|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZF8nDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA222|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=12 June 2017|publisher=Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar|language=German|isbn=978-3-412-50921-7|pages=222–}}
• {{ill|Johann Schwert|de}}
• {{ill|Ernst Wolf|de|Ernst Wolf (Politiker, 1907)}}

The courses for workers cost only a few Pfennigs with the teachers working free of charge.{{cite book|title=Marxistische Blätter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e70KAAAAIAAJ|accessdate=11 June 2020|volume=14|year=1976|publisher=Europäische Verlagsanstalt|language=German|page=65|chapter=Der Marxistische Arbeiterschule}} In order to reach workers who could not regularly attend the courses through home studies, Duncker, Wittfogel and Goldschmidt published the booklets of the Marxist Workers Training (MAS) History of the International Labour Movement and Political Economy.{{cite web |title=Duncker, Hermann |url=http://cpr.uni-rostock.de/resolve/id/cpr_person_00002207 |website=Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium |publisher=University of Rostock |accessdate=11 June 2020 |location=Rostock |language=German}}

The Marxist Workers School was obviously quite undogmatic and practical in its approach, describing itself as the university of the working people. It was also used intensively by members of other social groups such as the intelligentsia and apparently nobody was excluded as they all belonged to the bourgeoisie.{{cite book |last1=Gerhard-Sonnenberg |first1=Gabriele |title=Marxistische Arbeiterbildung in der Weimarer Zeit (MASCH) |date=1976 |publisher=Pahl-Rugenstein |location=Cologne |isbn=978-3-7609-0245-6 |pages=81, 154 |language=German|series=Erziehung und Bildung|oclc=925039283}}

The MASCH had 25 students in 1925 and by 1930/1931 had 4000 students. The number of lecturers rose to 160. At one single evening lecture, some 700 were present. In the winter semester of 1929/30 alone, 613 evening lectures were held. In 1932 there were around 2,000 courses. Both the technical staff and the teaching staff worked free of charge. Some of the lecturers were neither KPD members nor bound to a particular political party. The decisive criterion for admission as a MASCH teacher has become more and more: Are you also against fascism? On the 1932 January edition of the MASCH magazine Der Marxist, the slogan was emblazoned: Against Nazi theories!.{{cite web|first=Bruno|last=Voigt |authorlink=Bruno Voigt|title=Erstausgaben und Erstdrucke von Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht und Friedrich Engels, Socialistica und Geschichte |url=https://www.rotes-antiquariat.at/_pdf/pdf_liste_maerz_2020.pdf |website=Rotes-Antiquariat |accessdate=11 June 2020 |location=61. Marxist, Der. |page=43 }}

• Albert Einstein taught at the Marxist Workers School, until his emigration to the United States at the suggestion of Anna Seghers. He was in constant contact with other left-oriented people such as John Heartfield, Egon Erwin Kisch, Jürgen Kuczynski, Willi Münzenberg, Erwin Piscator, Annie Reich and Karl August Wittfogel.{{cite book |last1=Grundmann |first1=Siegfried |title=Einsteins Akte : Einsteins Jahre in Deutschland aus der Sicht der deutschen Politik |date=1998 |publisher=Springer |location=Berlin |isbn=9783540631972 |language=German|oclc=61757745|trans-title=Einstein's file: Einstein's years in Germany from the perspective of German politics}}
• From 1932, a group of friends and discussions from members of the Berlin Marxist Workers School gathered around the national economist Arvid Harnack and his wife Mildred.{{cite book|author1=Juchler, Ingo|author2=Ambauen, Ladina|author3=Arnold, Maren et. all.|title=Mildred Harnack und die Rote Kapelle in Berlin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gk87DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102|accessdate=11 June 2020|date=25 October 2017|publisher=Universitätsverlag Potsdam|isbn=978-3-86956-407-4|page=102}} These included the former Prussian Minister of Culture Adolf Grimme, the locksmith Karl Behrens, the couple Greta and Adam Kuckhoff and Leo Skrzypczynski, a proprietor of a firm manufacturing radio equipment.{{cite book|author=Erdmut Wizisla|title=Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht: The Story of a Friendship|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CAEFY32KaGcC&pg=PA43|accessdate=11 June 2020|date=14 May 2014|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-15644-7|page=43}}

Literature by and of Hermann Duncker:

• {{cite book |last1=Duncker |first1=Hermann |title=Der Marxist Marxist. Arbeiter-Schule; Schulungszeitschr. |date=1971 |publisher=Politladen |location=Erlangen |isbn=9783920531182 |edition=Reprint 1931, No. 1/3 [u.] 1932, No. 1/5 |language=German|oclc=72936785|trans-title=The Marxist Marxist. Workers school; Training journal|series=Politladen-Reprint, No. 11.}}
• {{cite book |last1=Duncker |first1=Hermann |title=Volkswirtschaftliche Grundbegriffe mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der ökonomischen Grundlehren von Karl Marx als Leitfaden für Unterrichtskurse |date=1995 |publisher=ISP |location=Karlsruhe |isbn=9783929008869 |edition=Reprint [der Ausg.] J.H.W. Dietz Nachfolger, Stuttgart 1908 |language=German|series=Edition 100 bei ISP, 1.|oclc=39478406}}
• {{cite book |last1=Duncker |first1=Hermann |title=Ausgewählte Schriften und Reden aus sechs Jahrzehnten |date=1984 |publisher=Tribüne |location=Berlin |edition=1st|oclc=11669467}}
• {{cite book |last1=Griep |first1=Günter |last2=Förster |first2=Alfred |last3=Siegel |first3=Heinz |title=Front cover image for Hermann Duncker, Lehrer dreier Generationen : e. Lebensbild Hermann Duncker, Lehrer dreier Generationen : e. Lebensbild |date=1976 |publisher=Verlag Tribüne |location=Berlin |edition=2nd|oclc=3848946}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1=Gerhard-Sonnenberg |first1=Gabriele |title=Marxistische Arbeiterbildung in der Weimarer Zeit (MASCH) |date=1976 |publisher=Pahl-Rugenstein |location=Cologne |isbn=3-7609-0245-6 |language=German|oclc=925039283|series=Erziehung und Bildung|trans-title=Marxist Worker Formation in the Weimar Period.}}
• {{cite book |last1=Kinner |first1=Klaus |last2= Müller |first2=Dieter|editor-last=Barck |editor-first=Simone|chapter=Die Rote Kapelle – Widerstand, Verfolgung, Haft |title=Lexikon sozialistischer Literatur : ihre Geschichte in Deutschland bis 1945 |location=Metzler|publisher=Stuttgart u.a |pages=322–325 |date=1994 |isbn=9783476012371}}
• {{cite thesis |last=Wächter |first=Lars |date=2013 |title=Der Einfluss des Marxismus auf die Person Bertolt Brechts und sein dramatisches Werk |type=Diploma Thesis |chapter=4|isbn=9783656519164|language=de|publisher=GRIN Verlag GmbH|location=München}}

• [https://andreas-peglau-psychoanalyse.de/die-marxistische-arbeiterschule-masch/ Anregungen zum (selbst)bewussten Leben]
• [https://www.masch-hamburg.de/ MASCH in Hamburg]

Category:1925 in Germany

Category:Educational institutions established in 1925

Category:1925 establishments in Germany

Category:Communist Party of Germany

Category:Marxist organizations

Category:Communist organisations in Germany

Category:Working-class culture