Raphael Friedeberg
| Raphael Friedeberg | |
|---|---|
| Born |
14 March 1863 Tilsit, East Prussia |
| Died | 16 August 1940 (aged 77) Ascona, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Physician |
| Political party | SPD |
Raphael Friedeberg (14 March 1863 – 16 August 1940) was a German physician, socialist, and later anarchist.
Friedeberg was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, today Sovetsk, Russia, to Salomon (a rabbi) and Rebekka Friedeberg (née Levy). He studied medicine and political economy at the University of Königsberg, but was expelled in 1887 for "abetting social democratic endeavors". Friedeberg moved to Berlin, where he worked as a private teacher and continued his studies at the University of Berlin after the sunset of the Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890, graduating in 1895.
He worked as a general practitioner and specialist for pulmonary disease in Berlin from 1895 to 1911. Friedeberg contributed to Sozialistischer Akademiker from early 1895 to the end of 1896, and from 1897 on, he was a member of the press commission of Sozialistische Monatshefte, both periodicals, which attempted to draw intellectuals to socialism and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Friedeberg was active in the establishment of health insurance for the working class in Berlin. The German socialist movement was just discovering the health insurance movement and starting to be active within it, both to win access to medical treatment for the working class and as a means of disseminating socialist ideas. In 1899, Friedeberg helped establish Berlin's Central Commission of Health Insurance Boards, which then organized the first Congress of German Health Insurance Boards. Additionally, he served as a member of the city council of Berlin from 1901 (or 1902 according to some sources) to 1904, making him a top SPD leader in Germany's capital.
Soon after, however, he started becoming increasingly disillusioned with the SPD, and particularly the Free Trade Unions, the unions allied with that party. He was frustrated by the SPD's focus on parliamentary rather than revolutionary action and by the unions' political neutrality. He blamed the socialist movement's inability to gain influence rather than just votes after the end of the Anti-Socialist-Laws on these two policies. Friedeberg came into contact with the Free Association of German Trade Unions (FVdG), a federation, more radical than the Free Trade Unions, which had been founded in 1897. It criticized the separation of political and union action and opposed centralist control over the unions. Becoming increasingly influential in the FVdG, Friedeberg held the central lecture at the federation's 1904 congress in Berlin, intervening in the mass strike debate, which was taking place in the SPD at the time, and advocating the general strike as a means of class struggle. In 1907, all members of the FVdG were given the choice of either leaving this federation and joining the centralized unions or losing their SPD membership. Friedeberg opted for the latter.
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