Lassallean social-democratic leader and president of the ADAV
German Lassallean social-democratic politician, journalist and writer. He joined the General German Workers' Association (ADAV) in 1863 and began publishing and editing Social-Demokrat in 1864. ADAV president from 1867 to 1871, he also sat in the North German Reichstag. Disputes over his authoritarian leadership and support for Bismarck's unification policy preceded his political withdrawal in 1871 and expulsion from the ADAV in 1872.
Also known as: Jean Baptiste von Schweitzer
Activities and affiliations
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1863–1872
General German Workers' Association (ADAV)Main
Political and party leadership- President of the ADAV1867–1871
Career Timeline
- 1857Practised law in Frankfurt
- 1863–1872Joined the ADAV; expelled in 1872
- 1864.12–1871.04Publisher and editor of Social-Demokrat
- 1867–1871ADAV president and member of the North German Reichstag
Ulrichs’s defence and political attacks using sexual stigma
In Incubus (1869), the eighth work in his Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs identified Schweitzer as a Lassallean social democrat and used his treatment to examine the partisan exploitation of stigma against male same-sex desire. Although prompted by the Zastrow case, this passage concerns Schweitzer's separate Mannheim case of 1862. Ulrichs reports a sentence on 5 September 1862 for causing public offence. His description of the conduct with a young male as an insignificant dalliance expresses his own sympathetic assessment.
Ulrichs praised voters for electing Schweitzer despite the earlier case. He reproduced a poem from Kladderadatsch of 13 October 1867 that invoked Lassalle's ghost to ridicule Schweitzer's claim to represent workers. Ulrichs then contrasted that paper's subsequent restraint, once Schweitzer was regarded as a concealed supporter of Bismarck, with a sexual insinuation in the anti-Bismarck Frankfurter Zeitung of 21 February 1869. His argument concerned the selective use of sexual stigma across political camps.
The expanded Argonauticus, also published in 1869, repeats the discussion in §8. Its additional §63b cites an August 1869 press jibe connecting Schweitzer's involvement in the Berlin building workers' strike with his supposed interest in young building workers. It also quotes a newspaper attack after the Eisenach workers' congress that used his earlier trial to discredit him personally and politically. Ulrichs condemned this as a form of branding. The passages document the intersection of labour-movement conflicts and sexual stigma.
The 1994 edition's editorial preface also discusses the Marx–Engels correspondence. It reproduces Engels's letter to Marx of 22 June 1869, mocking Ulrichs and mentioning Schweitzer, and refers to Marx's attack on Schweitzer in his letter of 10 March 1865. This is later editorial commentary, distinct from Ulrichs's original text.
Sources (German): Incubus, Introduction III, original pp. 14–15; Argonauticus, §§8 and 63b; editorial preface to the 1994 edition.