List of German utopian communities

German utopian communities are historic intentional communities that were formed in wake of various social movements from the mid-19th century until the 1930s. Estimates show that around 100 communities were created between 1918 and 1933, but data is unreliable. Although communities were ideologically diverse, they shared a common sense of mission as role models for German society at large.

Background

The settlement movement was party inspired by romanticized ideas of agriculture, which had been popular since antiquity, such as Arcadia and the Garden of Eden. It was also influenced by land reforms caused by population boom, urbanization and ensuing poverty.

Due to technological, medical and agricultural advances, the population of the European continent doubled during the 19th century, from approximately 200 million to more than 400 million. Approximately 70 million people emigrated from Europe, with most migrating to the United States. The countries also urbanized, with the populations of numerous cities worldwide growing to over a million.

The land reform movement began in Europe in the 1830s. Based on David Ricardo's law of rent, English Chartists argued that private land ownership was the cause of urban poverty. The theory was adapted through various influential social economists such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein. It was popularized by Henry George in his 1879 book Progress and Poverty. His lectures led to the creation of the Land Tenure Reform Association of John Stuart Mill that argued for the complete nationalization of land.

An early proponent of land reform in Germany was Hermann Gossen with his 1854 book Die Entwicklung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs und der daraus fließenden Regeln für menschliches Handeln. The Austrian Theodor Hertzka published the utopian novel Freiland, ein soziales Zukunftsbild in 1889, promoting emigration to the "empty" New World. In opposition to this, Franz Oppenheimer published Freiland in Deutschland in 1894, arguing for cooperative-based settlements in Germany. Both agreed that it was possible to overcome capitalism not through political conquest but by cooperative economic subversion which they claimed would naturally lead to social justice. Although Hertzka criticized their theories, Freiland can be seen in the tradition of Owenism and Fourierism, and parallelled the opinions of Marx and Engels. He also influenced Theodor Herzl, author of the founding document of Zionism, Der Judenstaat, published as a direct reply to Oppenheimer in his 1902 Altneuland. In 1911 they were tasked with the creation of Merhavia by the Zionist Congress, which later became a successful Moshav and Kibbutz.

The Prussian and later German government also designed official land reform programmes with limited success. In 1886 the Prussian Settlement Commission was created in West Prussia and Posen motivated by racist beliefs to increase the Germanization of former Polish territories. The Commission oversaw developing administrative infrastructure for interior colonization in the German Reich such as centers of counseling, pension banks, cooperatives and private settlement companies like the Pommersche Ansiedlungsgesellschaft(1903) and Ostpreußische Landgesellschaft(1905). Dense city centers were untangled through the use of suburbs, allotment gardens and garden cities. Related publications were collected in the Archiv für innere Kolonisation beginning in 1908. Ideas for the accommodation of soldiers returning from war originated in the start of World War I. The Reichssiedlunggesetz ("Imperial Settlement Act") was passed in 1919. To hasten the resettlement of refugees from Poland the Flüchtlingssiedlungsgesetz ("Refugee Settlement Act") was passed in 1923, leading to the relocation of about 2,500 refugees. Although settlements had been discussed as means to relieve urban poverty since 1918, results were "sobering". Only 26,343 new settlements were created between 1919 and 1928; and 21,602 of these were in Prussia. This meant that only 25% of the intended area (Landlieferungssoll) of 1,413,706 ha (about 5,500 sq miles) was achieved.

In 1931 three new laws were passed to create 100,000 new settlements. But the cabinet was overturned in May 1932 due to accusations of "Settlement Bolshevism". The Drang nach Osten became a core principle of Nazi Germany expressed through the slogan "Blood and soil" and tied to the belief that the German people were to expand their Lebensraum into eastern Europe, conquering and displacing the native Slavic and Baltic population via Generalplan Ost. The settlement movement became coupled with official policies through the Artaman League.

Map

Eden

Schwarzerden [de]

Heimland [de]

Sinntalhof [de]

Habertshof [de]

Almbruderhof

Schatzacker [de]

Monte Verità

Heimgarten [de]

Freidorf BL [de]

Eden

Hellerau

Vogelhof [de]

Donnershag [de]

Mittgart

Höllriegelskreuth

Himmelhof

Freie Erde

Loheland [de]

Neue Gemeinschaft

Locations of utopian communities in Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria and Switzerland. Green: currently active, Black: former

List

Categorization

There has been no clear consensus on the exact assignment of settlements into categories. Ulrich Linse separates the spectrum of settlement attempts into a social reform period and lebensreformische (1900–1914/18), freideutsch-bündische (1918–1923) and bündisch-jugendbewegte (1923-1933) phases. Gustav Küppers categorizes settlements by biological, world-view, political, social, aesthetic and theoretic-pedagogical principles. Gustav Heinecke separates them into völkisch-imperialist and purely religious settlements. Georg Becker names religious and religious-socialist (Habertshof, Bruderhof, Neusonnenfeld, Vogelhof), anti-semitic völkisch (Donnershag), communist (Barkenhof) and anarcho-syndicalist (Freie Erde) communes. Christoph Conti sees religious spirit in all settlements and categorizes them further into political left, right, Christian and women's settlements.

Interpretation of success

Most scholars agree that settlements were short-lived due to economic difficulties, lack of agricultural training and ideological quarrels within groups. However, the ideological success of settlements has been controversial. Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe describes four lines of interpretation which roughly follow and build on each other chronologically:

Early scholarship from the 1960s onwards saw reform movements as ersatz religion and compensation of the bourgeois middle class, which was losing political influence between growing capitalist magnates and under pressure from a rising working class. Settlements, then, were a romantic-utopian escapism from mass industrialization into the personal and individual.

Building on this, researchers of the 1970s and 1980s increasingly saw aspects of socio-political protest incorporated into the allegedly private reform movements. This bourgeois-anti-bourgeois paradox was extensively examined in scholarship from then on and was later seen as an essential character of modernism, because "modernity stands in its essence continually in opposition to itself".

Finally, a majority of contemporary scholars now view the reform movements not as escape from or protest against modernity, but instead its very forerunners. Wedemeyer-Kolwe points out that this also adequately reflects the self-perception of those involved in the 19th century reform movements, who thought themselves "rational, modern and progressive".

According to another fringe interpretation presented by Barlösius and Wedemeyer-Kolwe, the reform movements allowed members of a newly developing middle class to assimilate themselves into and absorb the former bourgeois lifestyle and values, which became the new mainstream in the early 20th century. Eisenberg also observed this in the history of association football.

There has been no updated overview on the settlement aspect of German 19th century reform movements in particular since the handbook of 1998. Furthermore, "interpretations of the historic phenomenon in its global context are still missing".

Influence

In the 1960s, there was a resurgence of intentional communities, beginning with Kommune 1 in Berlin. Seemingly unaware of the previous movement, researchers then became interested in historic predecessors. Communities continue to be ideologically varied. Thus, in the 1990s, the approaching new millennium brought another wave of interest in sustainability due to widespread fears of ecological collapse. There is a network of contemporary left-political communes in Germany called "Kommuja" with about 40 member groups (May 2023). Similarly, there are contemporary settlements on the political right, with a focus on organic agriculture, nationalism and eugenics, also influenced by Anastasianism. In an interview, Elisabeth Siebert estimated that there are at least 17 such settlements in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

List of German utopian communities

Background

Map

List

Categorization

Interpretation of success

Influence

See also

References

Further reading