ABSTRACT
During Weber's life the points of contact between him and the anarchist trends of his time were rather marginal, whether considered from a political, scientific or personal point of view. They did in fact, though, frequently influence his way of thinking to no small degree; thus, his opposition of an ethic of ultimate ends (Gesinnungsethik) to an ethic of responsibility (Verantwortungsethik) seems to me hardly imaginable without reference to anarchist and pacifist ideas of the time; these appear on the fringe, only becoming explicit in a few passages. In his academic work, Weber discussed anarchism only to a limited extent, 1 above all the religious anarchism or pacifism as embodied by Lev Tolstoy 2 and the revolutionary syndicalism as it flourished as a political and social movement pre-eminently in France. 3
In particular, Weber had personal contacts with the 'Bohemia' that in Wilhelmine Germany had mainly established itself in pre-war Munich4 and in those 'strange, fabulous realms', 5 as Weber called Ascona, where the anarchists had founded a life-reforming commune on Monte Verita. It was here that he met Raphael Friedeberg, 6 a doctor and anarchist, who like himself delivered an opinion and gave advice in the Otto Gross case 7 : Weber a legal opinion and Friedeberg a medical one. Unfortunately though, there is practically no information about the relationship between Weber and Friedeberg. In the Gross case, Weber also gave a written judgement on the anarchist, Ernst Frick, 8 intimate friend of Frieda Gross, who had been sentenced to imprisonment for participating in an anarchist attack in Switzerland in 1913. Since 1905, Frick had edited Der Weckruf, which was the equivalent German publication to the journals Reveil and Risveglio anarchico (published by the Tessin anarchist, Luigi Bertoni). At the same time, Frick was a member of the Socialist Federation (Sozialistischer Bund), which was influenced by the ideas of Gustav Landauer. 9 Weber expressed a positive opinion about Frick in his letters, even though he had little sympathy for Frick's political views. 10
Next to the personal contacts with the anarchists of Monte Verita, which are hard to document, foremost is the exchange of letters, with Robert Michels as intermediary, with the Dutch anarchist, F. Domela-Nieuwenhuis, 11 and Max Nettlau, a collector of anarchist literature and chronicler of the anarchist movement in Europe and overseas. 12 Impressed by their refusal to compromise, Weber undoubtedly had a certain sympathy for the anarchists at a personal level, but scarcely any at the level of realistic politics. In April 1914, he wrote to his wife from Ascona: 'The life of these people is without
background, but not without pride and form ... but I could not breathe for long in _this atmosphere'. 13
In terms of his own personal standards, he sharply rejected aspects of these people's behaviour. Thus, in a letter to Emil Lask, he called the anarchists of Munich who were ideologically close to Erich Miihsam 'imbeciles' and 'fainthearts who besmirch the honest word "revolution" with their bragging on paper' - 'rabble' who 'scrawl articles'. 14 As Mommsen writes with good reason, 'Weber could easily understand the kind of radical, emotional politics [radikale Gesinnungspolitik] that did not shrink from hopeless battles. He took the anarchists who were committed to social revolutionary action far more seriously than he did the Marxists, who took comfort from the belief that their eventual victory was a historical necessity.' 15
But already, in Weber's lifetime, the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia indicated that the Marxists were definitely prepared to fight for their victory, whereas the fundamentalists in the anarchist camp failed in the 'bloody carnival', as the Munich Soviet Republic (Riiterepublik) was called by its opponents. Also, Weber's judgement of the Attentat (the idea of assassination) missed the crux of the matter; for him it had no concrete purpose other than demonstrating the belief in the correctness of the anarchist doctrine. 16 According to the anarchists' convictions and their theory-in so far as we can talk of a theory-the propaganda of the deed, the Attentat, served a definite end and had a clear purpose. Only in a few cases were the assassination attempts made out of despair; mostly they were planned actions intended to contribute to the de-stabilization of the social and political order and to demonstrate a capacity to act. Moreover, they were a proof of the voluntaristic understanding of revolution by anarchism, which considered revolutionary action as being possible at all times and not just at propitious moments. 17
As may be evident, Weber's interest in anarchist theory as well as his relationships with anarchists were not in general especially developed. They remained episodes, however much he appreciated individuals such as Ernst Frick and Raphael Friedeberg. Weber's lack of prejudice, his willingness to tolerate the ideas of political opponents, is shown with regard to anarchism in his published opinion in the debate on value-judgements. In opposition to almost all other German university teachers, he was of the opinion that an anarchist should be allowed to hold a professorship - he even chose the example of a professor of law. 'The anarchist can surely be a very good lawyer. And if he is, then this is the Archimedean point, which stands outside the conventions and assumptions that we take for granted, on which are placed his convictions (if genuine and actually practised), enabling him to see the basic conceptions of conventional legal doctrine as problematic - problems which escape those for whom such conceptions are all too self-evident.' 18
It was only during the First World War, at the Meetings on Culture arranged by Eugen Diederichs (an editor from Cologne) in the spring and autumn of 1917 and held at Burg Lauenstein in the Thuringian forest, that Weber became more closely acquainted with a representative of the religious-and pacifistoriented anarchism, namely the student, Ernst Toller. Terming Toller an anarchist is not without its difficulties; the term is scarcely appropriate in the Weimar period, yet his thinking was strongly influenced by the ideas of the anarchist Gustav Landauer and, in this sense, it is permissible to call Toller
Ernst Toller 369 an anarchist. In addition to Landauer, the writings of the pacifist Friedrich W. Foerster made a strong impression on Toller. Toller was born in Samotschin near Bromberg in 1893. Despite being exempt from military service on account of his physical and psychological constitution, he announced that he was willing to do active service and at his own request he fought at the Front. He suffered a nervous breakdown in May 1916 and, after a prolonged stay at a military hospital and sanatorium, he was discharged as unfit for further service. In the winter of 1916-17 he started to study economics at the University of Munich and at the same time worked on his play, Die Wandlung [The Transfiguration), and wrote poems. 19
Although strong differences existed between the two in every respect - most of all in political beliefs - there did emerge from their meeting at Burg Lauenstein a wholly personal relationship, which made a considerable impression on Toller's own work. Next to Gustav Landauer and Kurt Eisner, Max Weber was the third person who decisively influenced his thinking. This 'ancestry' may seem surprising, but it is to be explained by the personal impact that Weber had upon Toller, and Toller's virtually life-long preoccupation with the problematic of an ethic of ultimate ends and an ethic of responsibility, which Weber had raised.
