Anti-Socialist Laws




The law also banned the display of emblems of the Social Democratic Party. To circumvent the law, social democrats wore red bits of ribbons in their buttonholes. These actions, however, led to arrest and jail sentences. Subsequently, red rosebuds were substituted by social democrats. These actions also led to arrest and jail sentences. The judge ruled that in general everyone has a right to wear any flower as suits their taste, but when socialists as a group wear red rosebuds, it becomes a party emblem. In a final display of protest against this clause of the anti-socialist laws, female socialists began wearing red flannel petticoats, and when they wanted to show a sign of solidarity, they would lift their outer-skirts. Female socialists, especially, would display in protest their red petticoats to the police, who were constrained by social norms of decency from enforcing this new sign of socialist solidarity.[2]





June 2: Wilhelm I is shot by Dr Karl Nobiling.

June 11: Reichstag dissolved.

July 30: New elections, socialists lose 3 of their 12 seats. Anti-Socialist bill passed by the two conservative parties and the national liberals.

October 19: Bill passed by 221 to 149. Social Democrats voluntarily dissolved the party.[3][4]


August 21-3 1880: Wyden [5] party congress sees the expulsion of Johann Most and Wilhelm Hasselmann for anarchism by the SPD's moderate wing.

October 28: Minor state of siege in Hamburg.

April 4, 1881: Social Democrats back accident insurance but demand several amendments.[6]


September 8: Moderate socialist Louis Viereck begs Engels to tone down the radicalism of the party newspaper Sozialdemocrat[7]


1883: Anti-Socialist laws partly relaxed, strengthening SPD.[9] moderates

March: Secret Copenhagen Congress condemns State socialism.

January 13, 1885: Frankfurt police chief Rumpf stabbed to death by the young anarchist Julius Lieske.[10]



May 11: Political meetings in Berlin now need police permission 48 hours before.[11]

May 20: Minor state of siege in Spremberg.


December 16: Minor state of siege in Frankfurt am Main.

February 15, 1887: Minor state of siege in Stettin.


Fall: Bismarck fails to get socialist leaders expelled from Germany.


July 14–20: 2nd international founded in Paris.


February 20: Social Democrats win 19.75% of the vote.

March 18: Bismarck resigns.

Some Social Democratic members of the Reichstag during the period

See also


  1. Lidtke (1966), 339.
  2. "Metropolitan. v.38 1913". HathiTrust. p. 63. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  3. Lidtke (1966), 119.
  4. Lidtke (1966), 70–77.
  5. Lidtke (1966), 82.
  6. Lidtke (1966), 159.
  7. Lidtke (1966), 131.
  8. Lidtke (1966), 135–38.
  9. Lidtke (1966), 273.
  10. Lidtke (1966), 125.
  11. Lidtke (1966), 244–46.

Further reading
