Wilhelm Hasenclever
In between and afterwards, Hasenclever – like many artisans of the time – took to the road, taking on various short-term jobs and visiting most member states of the North German Confederation, Switzerland, northern Italy and southern France.
Shortly after his release he was sentenced to six weeks in prison on grounds of Ehrfuhrchtsverletzung gegenüber Sr. Majestät (Lèse majesté against the Prussian king Wilhelm I) due to an article he had written for the Rheinische Zeitung.
After these experiences with the Prussian judicial system he joined the ADAV the same year – only a few months after Lasalle had died in a duel.
In 1869 Hasenclever became the representative for Duisburg in the Reichstag (parliament) of the North German Confederation, which had been founded in 1876 after Prussia had won the Austro-Prussian War against Austria.
Also present in the Reichstag was the Social Democratic Workers' Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei, SDAP), with Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel.
The rivalry between the two parties made it easier for the government to harass worker's associations in the whole Reich with raids and searches.
Additionally, Hasenclever was editor for the magazine Sozial-politische Blätter ("Socio-Political Papers") and, from 1873 onwards, publisher of the special edition Sozialpolitische Blätter zur Unterhaltung und Belehrung der deutschen Arbeiter ("Socio-Political Papers for the Entertainment and Education of the German Workers").
It included toning down the revolutionary goals of the SDAP to work within legal bounds: ... erstrebt die sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands mit allen gesetzlichen Mitteln den freien Staat und die sozialistische Gesellschaft ...( ...the Socialist Worker's Party of works towards the free state and the socialist society using all legal means ...)Additionally, these goals should be reached primarily on a national level, which weakened the internationalist aspect of social democrat politics.
Because of the steady increase of support for the social democrats Bismarck tried to suppress the party and related associations more firmly.
After a majority decision of the Conservative and the National Liberal representatives of the Reichstag Bismarck submitted the Gesetz gegen die gemeingefährlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie ("Law against the highly dangerous endeavors of Social Democracy", known today as the Sozialistengesetze in German and "Anti-Socialist Laws" in English) for the Kaiser to sign.
It went into effect on 22 October 1878 and was rescinded in 1890 – one year after Hasenclever's death and shortly after Bismarck had been relieved of his post as chancellor by the new Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Many Social Democrats were forced to emigrate to neighboring countries, others were jailed for breaching the anti-socialist laws or were expelled from the towns they were living in as "agitators".
When the government declared the so-called Kleiner Belagerungszustand (small state of siege) on several cities that were Social Democrat strongholds, these sanctions further increased.
Even though these heavy sanctions, their seats were confirmed in the next Reichstag elections, in which the SAP continued to gain additional votes.
Against Bismarck's intentions, the anti-socialist laws had led to a surge of solidarity in the working class that politicized the workers and moved them closer to the party.
Even though he had a seat in the Reichstag, he was forced to change his German place of residence multiple times by the Kleiner Belagerungszustand, since he was expelled from Leipzig in 1881 and from Berlin in 1884.
Because he was mostly unable to finance his political work by himself, he had to rely on support by his wife Clara, which owned a cigar trade in Berlin.
In the late 1880s Hasenclever increasingly suffered from a neurological and psychiatrical condition that was not specifically diagnosed at the time.
He did not experience the end of the anti-socialist laws and the renaming of the SAP to Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) a year later.
Its inscription is "Dem alten Kämpfer für Wahrheit, Freiheit und Recht" ("To the old fighter for truth, freedom and justice").
He wrote various treatises on sociopolitical problems of the time, but also novellas, poems and songs, in which he addressed the cause of the workers in emotionally and full of pathos.
In it, Hasenclever addressed the racist-antisemitic position of Adolf Stoecker, who had founded the Christian Social Party (Christlich-soziale Partei) to promote an anti-Semitic agenda politically.
