Ignaz Auer (; 19 April 1846 – 10 April 1907) was a German

Social Democratic Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

politician who served as a member of the

German Reichstag The Reichstag (; ) is a historic legislative government building on Platz der Republik in Berlin that is the seat of the German Bundestag. It is also the meeting place of the Federal Convention, which elects the President of Germany. The Ne ...

for the Glauchau-Meerane Reichstag constituency intermittently between 1884 and 1906.

Biography

He was born in Dommelstadl,

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...

, in 1846, the son of a butcher, and joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1866. In 1872, he moved to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

as a saddler, where he met and became friends with

Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Marxist theorist and politician. A prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he has been both condemned and praised as a "Revisionism (Marxism), revisi ...

, later an influential Marxist theoretician. He was an active participant in the unity congress of 1875 at

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

, which founded the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

, (SPD) and later became Party Secretary of the SPD. Though on the right of the party, Auer was a pragmatist and viewed attempts to formulate social democratic

reformism Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution. Within the socialist movement, ref ...

theoretically as harmful to its real political practice. He remarked to Bernstein during the controversy over the latter's theory of revisionism, "What you call for, my dear Ede, is something which one neither admits openly nor puts to a formal vote; one simply gets on with it." Auer died in Berlin on 10 April 1907.

References

Sources

* * * * * 1846 births 1907 deaths Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Members of the 6th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 8th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 9th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 10th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 11th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 12th Reichstag of the German Empire German trade unionists People from Passau (district) Politicians from the Kingdom of Bavaria {{Germany-SPD-politician-stub