Austrian politician, born on the 27th of April 1850 at Vienna, the son of a small master tailor. While still a lad at the Gymnasium he had to earn his living by giving lessons. At the Schottengymnasium he struck up a close friendship with Viktor Adler, and became interested in the Pan-German political movement. While still at the Gymnasium he gave courses of lectures at the Workmen’s Education Union. At the university he came into contact with Schönerer, to whose intimate circle he belonged. He collaborated in the preparation of the so-called Linz programme of the Left National party, and for a quarter of a century, from 1881 onwards, he edited the periodical Deutsche Worte. He separated from Schönerer as the latter adopted an increasingly reactionary and anti-Semitic attitude. He was also the inspirer and one of the founders of the German School Union. In 1885 he was elected to the Austrian Parliament as independent candidate for the manufacturing centre of Wiener-Neustadt. From that time, with the exception of the electoral period 1897 to 1901, he sat in Parliament until his death, and from 1907 onwards was its vice-president. In 1907 he became president of the parliamentary Social Democratic party, which had in the meantime increased in number to 87 in consequence of the adoption of universal suffrage. He died, after a rather long illness, in Vienna on the 7th of January 1918.
