Adler, Friedrich

Adler, Friedrich, b. Vienna, July 9, 1879, d. Zurich (Switzerland), Jan. 2, 1960, Social Democrat, son of Victor Adler; first, an editor and university lecturer in Zurich, 1911-1914 secretary of the Austrian Social Democratic Party. As leader of the left-wing spoke against the warmongers in his party in the magazine "Der Kampf", the theoretical organ of Social Democracy. In protest at the state of emergency and in an attempt to rouse the working class, he shot and killed the Prime Minister Count Karl Stürgkh on Oct. 21, 1916. The death sentence was reduced to a prison sentence and eventually he was pardoned in 1918. He countered the communist influence in the Viennese Workers´ Councils (Arbeiterräte), where he was chairman from 1918 to 1923. 1923-1940 Secretary of the International Socialist Workers´ Federation (2nd International) in Zurich, from 1935 in Brussels; dissolved the Austrian Social Democrats´ foreign mission in 1939. Emigrated to the USA in 1940 but returned to Europe in 1946, where he took up permanent residence in Zurich. Contrary to the platform of the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) he supported the idea of a Pan-German social-democratic system until he died.

Works: Die Erneuerung der Internationale, 1918; Vor dem Ausnahmegericht, 1923; Das Stalin´sche Experiment und der Sozialismus, 1932.

Literature: R. Ardelt, F. A., 1984; J. Zimmermann, "Von der Bluttat eines Unseligen". Das Attentat F. A. und seine Rezeption in der soz.-dem. Presse, 2000.