sentation greatlybenefited Social Democracyand the workers’movement.This
did not stopBecker from expressinghis intense distaste for this“messiahof
the nineteenth century”and describing Lassalle’sself-servingreenactment of
the life of Christ in derisive terms:“His Mary Magdalene was called Helene,
he died fromapistol shotrather thanonthe cross, and Countess Hatfield had
the right personality to playMother of God.”¹⁹
Lassalle became an object of cult-like veneration through the fantasies of in-
timacy thatmade him an effective spokesperson for socialism in his earlythirties
and, long after his death, continuedto fuel an intense interest in his lovelife.
Manyparty members sawthe quasi-religious nature of the Lassalle cult as det-
rimentalto the socialist endorsement of atheism, scientism, and materialism.
Nonetheless,evenhis most outspoken critics acknowledgedthatthe phenomen-
on’sunderlying psychological mechanisms sustainedthe movement especially
duringthe 1880s. Lassalle’spresenceinthe everydaylife of party members
was apparent,among other things, in theirchoice of wall decorations, the
kind advertised inSüddeutscher Postillonas“tasteful showpieces for proletarian
apartments.Marx and Lassalle portraits in high quality chromolithographs.”²⁰
Confirmingthe full compatibility of socialism, nationalism, and Catholicism, fac-
tory worker-turned-SPD senator Moritz Bromme (18 73 – 1926)rememberedthata
portrait of Lassallewasdisplayedprominentlyinhis parents’living roomtogeth-
er with Marx,Bebel, Bismarck,Wilhelm I, and several popularsaints.²¹KPD pol-
itician PaulFrölich describedafamilyhomefilledwith pictures of Lassalle,
Marx, andBebel on the wall andabook of Lassallesspeeche’ sonthe table,
right next to theBrockhausConversations-Lexicon,the SPD journalDie Neue
Zeit,and afew popular scientific books.About his father,atypical worker,he
concluded:“Did he ever studyMarxism inaserious way? Idon’tthink so. His
socialism was based on Lassalle whose views he fullyaccepted even as he con-
tinued to evolve within the milieu of Leipzigradicalism.”²²
Theremarkabletextual productivity inspired by Lassalle attests to the endur-
ing appeal of older forms ofromantic infatuation and sentimental feeling that,
BernhardBecker,Geschichte der Arbeiter-AgitationFerdinand Lassalle’s. Nach authentischen
Aktenstücken(Braunschweig:W.Bracke,1875), 307. Another disillusionedassessmentofLassalle
by another ADAV foundingmember can be found inJuliusVahlteich,Ferdinand Lassalle und die
Anfänge der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung(Munich: Birk, 1904).
Advertisement inSüddeutscher Postillon16.10(1897).
MoritzWilliam Theodor Bromme,Lebensgeschichte eines modernenFabrikarbeiters(Leipzig:
Diederichs,1905),71.
PaulFrölich,Imradikalen Lager.PolitischeAutobiographie 1890– 1921 ,ed. and with after-
word by ReinerTosstorff (Berlin: Basis,2013),21.
Ferdinand Lassalle, the First SocialistCelebrity 127