General German Workers' Association
전독일노동자협회
The first mass party of the German labour movement, founded in Leipzig in 1863 on Ferdinand Lassalle's initiative. Its programme centred on winning universal and equal suffrage and on state-aided producers' cooperatives. From 1869 it competed with the Social Democratic Workers' Party, merging with it at the Gotha congress of 1875 into the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany.
In depth
As the period of reaction ended in the early 1860s, workers' educational associations arose in Saxony and parts of Prussia, and on 11 February 1863 the Leipzig preparatory committee asked Lassalle for his views on the labour movement. In his 'Open Reply' of 1 March Lassalle invoked the 'iron law of wages' and called for state-aided producers' cooperatives and universal, equal and direct suffrage. On 23 May 1863, in the Pantheon in Leipzig, Lassalle and delegates from Leipzig, Hamburg, Cologne and other towns founded the association, and Lassalle was elected president, initially for five years. The president had wide discretion, and secretary Julius Vahlteich played a prominent role on the 23-member executive.
The iron law of wages led the association to a position close to the state and to reservations about recognising the trade-union movement. Regarding the liberal bourgeoisie as the main enemy, Lassalle met several times with Bismarck, then Prussian minister-president and an opponent of the liberals in the constitutional conflict, to explore cooperation, without result. A few months after the founding Lassalle expressed disappointment at the weak growth in membership.
After Lassalle's death in 1864 disputes over the succession followed, and the crisis was overcome only when Johann Baptist von Schweitzer became president in 1867. From 1869 the ADAV competed with the Social Democratic Workers' Party, and at the end of May 1875 the two organisations merged at the Gotha congress into the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, the direct predecessor of the SPD.