Helmut von Gerlach

Helmut von Gerlach (born February 2, 1866, Mönchmotschelnitz, Silesia [now Moczydlnica Klasztorna, Poland]—died August 2, 1935, Paris, France) was a German pacifist journalist and politician, a consistent opponent of German nationalism, whose writings exercised a significant influence on public opinion during the latter part of the reign of William II and during the Weimar Republic.

Originally a conservative, Gerlach became associated with the Christian Socialist movement during his studies at German and foreign universities. After a short interlude as a minor civil servant, he joined Adolf Stöcker’s Christian Socialist and anti-Semitic newspaper, Das Volk, but was dismissed in 1896 as too radical. Gerlach founded the Nationalsozialer Verein (National Social Union) with the Protestant theologian and Socialist politician Friedrich Naumann that same year and wrote for his organization’s paper Die Zeit. In 1901 he became an editor of the democratic Berlin weekly Die Welt am Montag, a position he was to hold for more than two decades. After espousing pacifist views during World War I, Gerlach, who had already gained governmental experience as a Reichstag member from 1903 to 1907, became an undersecretary in the ministry of the interior after the German revolution (November 1918). When his attempt to reunite the Social Democratic Party (SPD) failed, he resigned early in 1919.

During the Weimar period, Gerlach, now a renowned journalist, polemicized against such topical issues as the Kapp Putsch (1920), militarist propaganda, the paramilitary organization Der Stahlhelm, and anti-Semitism. Supported mainly by the left bourgeoisie and certain Socialist elements, he called for a German-French and German-Polish understanding and a genuinely democratic German government. Gerlach was a member of the pacifist Neues Vaterland (New Fatherland) organization and chairman of the Deutsche Liga für Menschenrechte (German League for Human Rights). In 1932 he became editor of the radical weekly Die Weltbühne. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Gerlach went first to Austria, then to Paris, where he aided German anti-Nazi refugees until his death.