Gustav Mayer

Gustav Mayer
Gustav Mayer, 1931
Born	(1871-10-04)4 October 1871 Prenzlau, Brandenburg, Germany
Died	21 February 1948 Kensington, London, England
Occupation	Journalist Professor Historian of the Labour movement
Political party	KPD (1945-1946) SED (1947-1976)
Spouse(s)	Henriette "Flora" Wolff (1882–1963)
Children	Peter Mayer (1907-1941) Ulrich Philip Mayer (1910-1995) social anthropologist
Parent(s)	David Mayer Clara Devora Mayer/Gottschalk

Gustav Mayer (4 October 1871 - 21 February 1948) was a German journalist and historian with a particular focus on the Labour movement. For reasons of race and politics he left Germany in 1933 and lived the final years of his life in England.

Gustav Mayer was born into a long-established mercantile family in Prenzlau, a small town in central northern Germany. The family had settled in Prentzlau in 1677, having prefiously lived in Oderberg. His upbringing combined traditional Jewish values and beliefs with a keen appreciation of German intellectual developments more generally. While growing up he acquired a deep knowledge of the German classics which would underpin his subsequent work. He studied between 1890 and 1893, being particularly influenced by the ideas of the so-called academic socialists ("Kathedersozialisten") Gustav Schmoller and Adolph Wagner. He received his doctorate for work on Ferdinand Lassalle from Basel, for which he was supervised by Georg Adler (). For the next few years he undertook various jobs and other activities, at one stage embarking on an apprenticeship as a book dealer.

In 1896 he took a position with the Frankfurter Zeitung (newspaper) as a trade and business journalist, and working as a foreign correspondent for the newspaper till 1906. In geographical terms his remit covered the Netherlands, Belgium and France. The work provided important networking opportunities and enabled him to get to know pioneers of Socialism in Europe such as Jean Jaurès and Emile Vandervelde.