Translation from Paul Mendes-Flohr, “‘The Stronger and the Better Jews: Jewish Theo-
logical Responses to Political Messianism in the Weimar Republic,” in Jews and Messianism in
the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning, ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991), 159–185.
Buber to Ludwig Strauss, February 22, 1919, LMB 242.
Landauer to Hugo Landauer, January 17, 1919, in All Power to the Councils, 188.
Landauer to Georg Springer, January 25, 1919, in All Power to the Councils, 189.
Landauer to Hugo Landauer, January 29, 1919, in All Power to the Councils, 190.
The German word Rat, “council,” is often used to translate the Russian “Soviet.” How-
ever, Kuhn is right to avoid “English terms that evoke the Soviet Union’s political order—such
as ‘soviets’ and ‘people’s commissars’—as the situation and the debates in Germany were quite
different.” Kuhn, introduction to All Power to the Councils, x v.
“In translations, this has sometimes been shortened to ‘minister.’ However, the distinc-
tion between the position of a Minister and a Volksbeauftragter was important to the council
republicans.” Kuhn and Wolf, introduction to Revolution and Other Writings, 47n5.
Mühsam, From Eisner to Leviné, in All Power to the Councils, 205–263. “I especially
think that I have the duty to clear the memory of the great revolutionary Gustav Landauer, my
teacher and best friend, who was slaughtered on May 2, 1919, by White Guards,” in All Power to
the Councils, 210–211. Von Eisner bis Leviné is the only firsthand account of the Bavarian Revo-
lution by an anarchist; it provides a salutary corrective to accounts of the Bavarian Revolution
that group all the leading figures together, such as his claim that Eisner had his opponents
arrested to prevent them from disrupting his plans for the Landtag elections. See All Power
to the Councils, 217. Also see Ulrich Linse, Gustav Landauer und die Revolutionszeit 1918–1919
(Berlin: Karin Kramer Verlag, 1974).
Mommsen, Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy.
Mauthner, conveying his consent to Buber with respect to this project, refers to a previ-
ous letter from Buber proposing the committee, but that letter is not included in the Briefwech-
sel. Mauthner to Buber, Easter Sunday 1919, and Susman to Buber, May 4, 1919, in LMB 243.
Buber, “Landauer und die Revolution,” 291, cited in Mendes-Flohr, “The Stronger and
the Better Jews,” 184n105.
The mural Buber saw in the Italian church likely represented the medieval Christian
legend of the ten thousand martyrs, a popular theme for Renaissance art. Since Buber does not
name the church or the work, I thank Heba Mostafa for suggesting this possibility to me.
Rudolf Rocker cited in Kuhn and Wolf, introduction to Revolution and Other Writings,
54n101.
Buber, “Der heimliche Führer,” Die Arbeit 2.6 (1920): 36–37. A Hebrew translation of
“Landauer und die Revolution” appeared in the Zionist paper Ha’adama in 1920.
Buber, “Erinnerung an einen Tod,” Neue Wege 23.4, April 1929, 161–165. Cf. “Recol-
lection of a Death,” in PW 115–120. In 1939, Buber published a short piece entitled Landauer
b’sha’a zo (Landauer in This Hour); cf. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, vol. 10, no. 29, June 27, 1939, 8–9.
Also that year, Hebrew translations of “Landauer and the Revolution” and “The Hidden
Leader” were collected with the new article into a Hebrew collection Al Gustav Landauer
(On Gustav Landauer), published by the Histadrut (Federation of Hebrew Workers in the
Land of Israel).
Buber, “Recollection of a Death,” 117. Buber’s early wartime argument that soldiers par-
ticipate together in a shared Erlebnis of action and commitment to die for a cause has become
a shared struggle not to battle but to perceive the non-inimical nature of the enemy.
