Urgent Call for Unity

The "Urgent Call for Unity" (German: Dringender Appell für die Einheit) was an appeal by the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (ISK) to defeat the Nazis. It was signed by nearly three dozen well-known German scientists, authors and artists in advance of the German federal election in July 1932.

The June 1932 appeal called for support of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD) in the Reichstag election in order to prevent the National Socialists from gaining control of the government. The appeal was unsuccessful, and Adolf Hitler was later appointed chancellor, after which the Nazis were able to consolidate power.

The appeal was published in the ISK's newspaper, Der Funke, in response to the growing strength of the Nazi Party. Placards were also put up all over Berlin.

On February 12, 1933, two weeks after Adolf Hitler was named Reichskanzler, the identical appeal was made to rally against Hitler in advance of the German federal election, March 1933. Placards appeared on February 14. This time, there were only 19 signatories, among them, Heinrich Mann and Käthe Kollwitz and her husband, Karl.

On February 15, 1933, the day after the new placards appeared, both Mann, then head of the poetry department, and Kollwitz were forced to withdraw from the Akademie der Künste, Berlin by Bernhard Rust, a Nazi who became the acting head of the Prussian Ministry of Culture on February 2, 1933, and with that, curator of the Akademie. Rust insisted that their presence endangered the very existence of the Akademie.

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