1861–1927
○ Died of pneumonia
Journalist whose weekly Die Zukunft attacked Wilhelm II’s entourage and set off the Eulenburg affair
From 1906 his articles exposing Eulenburg and Kuno von Moltke as homosexual set off the greatest scandal and wave of trials of the German Empire.
A journalist and critic born Felix Ernst Witkowski to a Jewish silk merchant’s family in Berlin. After working as an actor and theatre critic he founded the weekly Die Zukunft in 1892 and ran it until 1922. A Bismarck admirer and hardliner, from 1906 he attacked Wilhelm II’s intimates Eulenburg and Kuno von Moltke as a homosexual “camarilla”, setting off the Eulenburg affair. He turned critic of the war during the First World War and took socialist positions after the revolution. Badly injured in an attack by far-right assailants in 1922, he closed his journal, withdrew to Switzerland and died there in 1927.
Also known as: Felix Ernst Witkowski
Activities and affiliations
-
1884–1922
Ideology and propaganda
Related historical events
Die Zukunft and after the Eulenburg affair
Forced by his father to leave grammar school at twelve, he trained as an actor from 1874 and toured with a travelling company. He converted to Protestantism in 1878 and from 1884 worked as theatre critic for many papers while also writing on politics. In 1889 he co-founded the theatre society Freie Bühne. The weekly Die Zukunft, founded in 1892 and largely written by himself, made him the “best-hated and best-known of all German writers”, and he also opened its pages to progressive writers such as the sex reformer Helene Stöcker. At first a monarchist and admirer of Bismarck, he came to see Wilhelm II’s personal rule as the work of a “camarilla” whose homoerotic milieu made the Kaiser “soft”. Disgusted that he dragged private lives into court, Karl Kraus, once an admirer, broke with him in a 1907 pamphlet. Early in the First World War he called for a victorious peace but gradually became a critic of the war, took socialist positions after the revolution, and was one of the few Germans to support the Treaty of Versailles, convinced of Germany’s war guilt. On 3 July 1922 young völkisch far-right assailants attacked him outside his house in Berlin-Grunewald, leaving him with eight head wounds. He published the last issue of Die Zukunft on 30 September 1922 and withdrew to Switzerland in 1923. When he died, Goebbels wrote that his death had robbed the Nazis of the chance to settle accounts with him their way.