A-Infos (en) Britain, Anarchist Federation Organise #67 - REVOLUTIONARY PORTRAITS - Erich Muehsam: Poet, playwright, bohemian, anarchist revolutionary

Erich Muehsam was born in Berlin in 1878 into a fairly well-to-do Jewish 
family. Soon after his family moved to Luebeck in north Germany where 
his father worked as a pharmacist (in fact the pharmacy is still there).
He hated the school where he was sent, which was known for its 
authoritarian discipline and its unsparing use of corporal punishment. 
Erich was often a victim of "the unspeakable flailings which were 
supposed to beat out of me all my innate feelings" because his 
rebellious nature often clashed with the school regime. In 1896 he wrote 
an anonymous piece for the socialist paper Luebecker Volsboten 
denouncing one of the school's most brutal teachers. This caused a 
scandal and Erich was expelled for taking part in socialist activities.
Erich had wanted to be a writer and poet from an early age and he left 
Luebeck to pursue this aim in Berlin in 1900. He got involved in a group 
called Neue Gemeinschaft (New Society) which combined socialist ideology 
with experiments in communal living. Here he met Gustav Landauer who 
introduced him to anarchist communist ideas. Muehsam contributed to 
Kampf, the anarchist paper of his friend Senna Hoy, who later died in 
terrible conditions in a Russian prison.

In 1904 Erich went to Ascona in Italian Switzerland to live in the 
artists' colony of Monte Verita (the writer Herman Hesse, the dance 
theorist Laban, the psychotherapist Otto Gross and many Daddaists and 
Expressionists lived there at one time or other).

He began writing plays there, the first of which, The Con Men, mixed new 
political theory with traditional dramatic forms. He also continued 
contributing to many anarchist papers, which drew the attention of the 
German authorities. He was considered one of the most dangerous 
anarchist agitators.

He moved to Munich in 1908 and took part in the cabaret movement. He did 
not care much for writing cabaret songs, but he achieved much notice 
because of them.

In 1911 he founded the paper Kain which advocated anarchist communism. 
He castigated and ridiculed the German state, fighting capital 
punishment and theatre censorship, and prophetically analysing 
international affairs. The World War that he had predicted led to the 
suspension of Kain.

At first Erich publicly supported the war, but by the end of 1914 was 
persuaded that he had been wrong, saying that, "I will probably have to 
bear the sin of betraying my ideals for the rest of my life". He threw 
himself into anti-war activity taking part in various actions. He 
supported the strikes that were beginning to break out. As these became 
more widespread and began to take on a revolutionary nature, Erich was 
among those arrested and imprisoned in April 1918, and then freed in 
November.

With the fall of the Kaiser and King Ludwig of Bavaria, Munich burst 
into revolt. Muehsam and Landauer as well as Ret Marut (later known as 
the novelist B. Traven) were among those agitating for the setting up of 
Workers Councils which led on to the founding of the Bavarian Council 
Republic. This lasted only a week. The Social Democrats, terrified by 
the thought of revolution, allied with the right. The Freikorps, a 
reactionary militia organised by the socialist minister Noske and 
composed of right wing military and students, crushed the Council 
Republic. Landauer died under the blows of rifle butts and boots.

Muehsam escaped but was later captured and sent to prison for 15 years. 
In prison, Erich continued with his writing, composing many poems and 
the play Judas. Released in the amnesty of 1924, he returned to a Munich 
in the grip of apathy. He joined the Anarchist Communist Federation of 
Germany (FKAD). He restarted Kain but this failed after a few issues. He 
then brought out Fanal (The Torch) where he attacked both the Communists 
and the far right. His openly revolutionary tone and his attempts to 
stop the rise of the right made him a hate figure among conservatives 
and Nazis.

He used satire to ridicule the Nazis with short stories and poems. This 
came to the personal attention of Hitler and Goebbels, arousing their 
anger. He agitated for the freeing of the revolutionary Max Hoelz and 
wrote a play, Staatsraeson (For reasons of State) in defence of Sacco 
and Vanzetti), in 1928.

In 1930 he completed his last play Alle Wetter (All Hang) which called 
for mass revolution as the only way to stop the seizure of power by the 
radical Right.

A few hours after Van der Lubbe had set fire to the Reichstag in 
February 1933, Muehsam was arrested and then spent the last 17 months of 
his life in the concentration camps of Sonnenburg, Brandenburg and 
Oranienburg. His teeth were smashed in with rifle butts, his scalp was 
branded with a swastika from a red-hot iron and he was hospitalised. He 
was forced to dig his own grave for a mock execution, and his body 
became a mass of bruises and wounds. His tormentors tried to force him 
to sing the Nazi song the Horst Wessel Lied. He refused to give in and 
sang the International. " Thanks to his will power he resisted all 
attempts to humiliate him" (Augustin Souchy).

Despite these tortures Erich remained intransigent to the end. Finally 
he was tortured and murdered on the night of 9th July 1934. After 
beatings, a Stormtrooper leader administered a lethal injection and then 
a suicide by hanging was faked.

/Never in my life have I learnt
To submit to anyone
Here I am locked up,
Far from my home,
My wife, my workshop.
And even if they kill me,
If I must die,
To give up is to lie!
...
But if the chains broke
Then I would breathe in sunshine
At the top of my lungs- Tyranny!
And I would cry to the people: be free!
Forget to submit yourselves!
To give up is to lie!
/

*From Muehsam's poem The Prisoner*

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