Political Contestation and Internal Strife: Socialist and Anarchist German Newspapers in London, 1878–1910

Laqua, Daniel (2018) Political Contestation and Internal Strife: Socialist and Anarchist German Newspapers in London, 1878–1910. In: The Foreign Political Press in Nineteenth-Century London: Politics from a Distance. Bloomsbury, London, pp. 135-154. ISBN 9781474258494, 9781474258517, 9781474258500

Preview

Text Laqua - Socialist and Anarchist German Newspapers in London-1.pdf - Published Version Download (614kB) | Preview

Abstract

Daniel Laqua In 1910, Theodore Rothstein – a socialist émigré from Tsarist Russia – traced the ‘long and glorious history’ of the German political press in London. Fittingly, his survey appeared in the Londoner Volks-Zeitung – a weekly founded in 1909 ‘to form a connecting link between the working-class movements of both sides of the North Sea’. Summarizing nearly a century of publishing ventures, Rothstein portrayed the Londoner Volks-Zeitung as the ‘heiress of a beautiful bequest’. Like many of its forerunners, the paper itself was short-lived, lasting for only nine months. Nonetheless, the existence of such publications illustrates the political dynamism of London’s German community. Britain’s role as a site for activists from different countries was linked to its openness towards refugees: the country’s liberal asylum policy only changed with the passing of the Aliens Act in 1905. As Bernard Porter has noted, ‘between 1823 and 1906 no refugee who...

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads