Jakob Audorf

Jacob Audorf (1 August 1835 – 20 June 1898) was a German poet, businessman, journalist-commentator and Labour movement pioneer. Much of his poetry was not remotely political, but it was for his political and polemical writing that he became known. The most frequently repeated of his poems was the so-called "German Workers' Marseillaise", a set of three verses (separated by a recurring refrain) of uplifting German-language encouragement for the building of a better future according to the socialist precepts of the time. The words were to be sung, in place of the French language original text, using Rouget de Lisle's already well known revolutionary melody for the Marseillaise.

Life Provenance and early years Jacob Friedrich Theodor Audorf was born in Hamburg, still at that time a resolutely independent and economically formidable city-state near the German northern coast, and one of the 39 member states of the German Confederation. Johann Hinrich Jakob Audorf (1807–1891), his father, was a weaver of head scarves by trade, and a prominent Hamburg radical leader and organiser before and during 1848/49. The younger Jacob Audorf attended a charity school and then, between 1852 and 1857, undertook an apprenticeship as an artisan metal worker and mechanical engineer. Under the influence of his father, still a committed socialist, he joined the Hamburg Workers' Education Association while still an apprentice. In 1857, with his training completed and three thalers in his pocket, Audorf set out from Hamburg to discover the rest of Germany. In the end he spent five years as a wandering journeyman, travelling well beyond the confines of Germany. It was probably in 1861 that Audorf moved on, first to (bilingual) Mulhouse and then, by the end of the year, Paris. Audorf became a leading figure, initially in Hamburg, in creating and developing the "Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiter-Verein" (ADAV), as it was initially known.

General German Workers' Association Two months later, on 23 May 1863, Audorf participated at the founding congress of the ADAV in Leipzig. He was elected to membership of the party executive, serving as a member of it between 1863 and 1868. He was, in addition, appointed ADAV senior representative, with appropriate contractual authority, for the Free State of Hamburg. He participated at the ADAV national congresses in 1864, 1866 and 1867, emerging as an uncompromising supporter of the movement's leader Ferdinand Lassalle, always committed to backing a clear policy programme, when confronted by recurring pressures for fragmentation from comrades with divergent visions. As one commentator put it, pressures for organisational democracy from within the ADAV had to learn to co-operate with its "social movement". After Lassalle died in August 1864, Audorf was similarly prompt unswerving in his demonstrations of loyalty to Bernhard Becker, the new ADAV leader (whose tenure was nevertheless brief).

Russia In 1868, letting it be known that he had grown tired of the internal squabbling among comrades within the ADAV, Audorf relocated to Russia where he supported himself as a businessman. Between 1875 and 1877 he was a member of the editorial team, alongside Wilhelm Blos, at the newly launched "Hamburg-Altonaer Volksblatt" (socialist newspaper). (Łódź was part of Congress Poland between 1815 and 1915.) Despite its initially semi-detached status in relation to the rest of Russia, the territory was widely seen in Germany (and the rest of western Europe) as just another part of the Russian Empire by the time of Audorf's involvement with the region.

Final Hamburg years Although the "Anti-Socialist Laws" lapsed only in 1890, after 1871, there was little appetite in Berlin for Germany to mutate into a centralised state on the Anglo-French model, at least until after 1933. In reality, throughout the 1880s social democratic politics were outlawed with far less fervour in some part of Germany than in others. In April 1888 Audorf accepted an editorial position with the recently relaunched and rebranded Hamburger Echo (newspaper). The Echo, remained faithful to the social-democratic political traditions of Hamburg that long predated the Unification of Germany. Audorf remained an active member of the editorial team for the rest of his life, regularly contributing humorous and satirical pieces to the weekend issues.

The Audorfgasse in Vienna-Floridsdorf was named in honour of Jacob Audorf in 1992.