While Ostwaldpublished“authentic”voices from the workingclass along-
sidevolumes on prostitution, homosexuality, and the Berlinbohème,Paul
Göhre (1864–1928)became interested in workers’life writingsbecause of his
deep commitmentto the social question. The formerLutheran pastor had per-
sonally experienced the harsh workingconditions in the modern factoryduring
asocial experimentrecounted inDrei MonateFabrikarbeiter und Handwerksbur-
sche(1891, Three Months asaFactoryWorker andJourneyman). This expedition
to lifeworlds more foreignto middle-class readers than distant continents was
receivedwith great excitement. As Rudolf Lavant noted inapoem:“The book
wasahit./ It was devoured/ And passed on from hand to hand.”¹⁸In alater lec-
ture publishedunder the titleWieein Pfarrer Sozialdemokrat wurde(1900,How a
ParsonBecameaSocial Democrat), Göhre described his eventual conversion to
socialism asalogical evolution of his Christian faith. As several scholars have
noted, however,his indiscriminatereferencesto workers asamass,aclass,
andapeople betray an enduringconservatism. In fact,Göhre’sinitialgoal as
asocial reformerhad been“the education, therefinement,and the Christianiza-
tion ofawild, heathen Social Democracy and the obliteration of its contrarian
materialistic worldview.”¹⁹
Göhre’sambitious editorial project started with CarlFischer’sDenkwürdig-
keiten und Erinnerungen einesArbeiters(1903,published in English asRecollec-
tions ofaWorker),which wereinspired by Göhre’sown excursions into working-
class life and served asamodel formany later contributions.Throughout,these
literarydebts do not necessarilyimplyshared socialist convictions, despite their
focus on the special role of school, church, and police in preservingfeudal and
patriarchal structures in modern class society.Inaletter to the publisher,written
before learning of Göhre’sconversionto Social Democracy,Fischer expresses his
“full sympathy”for Göhre as anauthor and calls him“the man most suited”to
become his interlocutor and editor.²⁰Concerned thatFischer’sunfamiliarity with
Rudolf Lavant,Gedichte(Berlin: Akademie, 1965), 52.
Paul Göhre,DreiMonateFabrikarbeiter und Handwerksbursche. Eine praktische Studie(Leip-
zig,Grunow,1891),222.Alexander GrafvonStenbock-Fermor,who reported similar excursions
into the proletarian lifeworld inMeine Erlebnisse als Bergarbeiter(1929) andDeutschland von
unten:Reise durchdie proletarische Provinz(1931), might be calledaWeimar-era successor of
Göhre. Carol Poore discusses the reportages of the so-called Red Count inTheBonds of
Labor:GermanJourneystothe WorkingWorld, 1890– 1990 (Detroit:Wayne StateUniversity
Press,2000).
Quoted by Dieter Schwarzenau,“Die frühen Arbeiterautobiographien,”inBeiträge zur Kul-
turgeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung,1848– 1918 ,ed. PetervonRüden (Frankfurt am
Main: Büchergilde Gutenberg, 1979),177. Schwarzenau includesabrief discussion of Göhre’s
complicated relationship to his worker-writers.
148 Chapter 7