Red Secularism
Socialism and Secularist Culture in Germany 1890 to 1933

Illuminates the culture and worldview of socialist secularism and its impact on German history between the Kaiserreich and the Third Reich.

Todd H. Weir (Author)

9781107132030, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 November 2023

382 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.683 kg

'This deeply-researched and well-argued book makes an important contribution to the political and the religious history of Germany in the years between the accession of Wilhelm II to the imperial throne and the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor.' Hugh Mcleod, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Red Secularism is the first substantive investigation into one of the key sources of radicalism in modern German, the subculture that arose at the intersection of secularism and socialism in the late nineteenth-century. It explores the organizations that promoted their humanistic-monistic worldview through popular science and asks how this worldview shaped the biographies of ambitious self-educated workers and early feminists. Todd H. Weir shows how generations of secularist intellectuals staked out leading positions in the Social Democratic Party, but often lost them due to their penchant for dissent. Moving between local and national developments, this book examines the crucial role of red secularism in the political struggles over religion that rocked Germany and fed into the National Socialist dictatorship of 1933. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

1. Introducing socialism and secularism as two cultures
2. Secularist culture in a working-class city: Berlin around 1890
3. Prometheans: secularist intellectuals on the socialist stage
4. The sociology and psychology of secularist intellectuals: dancing near the abyss
5. Workers and worldview
6. The politics of secularism 1905–1914
7. Secularists in war and revolution 1914–1922
8. Monism in the Weimar workers' culture movement
9. Culture war at the end of the Weimar republic
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]