Wilhelm Marr

Friedrich Wilhelm Adolph Marr (November 16, 1819 – July 17, 1904) was a German journalist and politician, who popularized the term "antisemitism" (1881).

[5] In 1841, he went to Zürich, where he became acquainted with political émigrés (like Georg Herwegh, Julius Fröbel, and August Follen), most of whom were members of the democratic or liberal leftist movements of the early 19th century.

[6] He turned to Lausanne, where he joined Hermann Döleke and Julius Standau, the founders of the secret Léman-Bund, which belonged to the "Junges Deutschland " (Young German Movement).

[9] Lacking success, he returned to Hamburg, worked again as a journalist, and in 1854 he married Georgine Johanna Bertha Callenbach, daughter of a Jewish businessman who had renounced his faith.

In an article, in the Courier an der Weser on 13 June 1862, he attacked the elected liberal speaker of the house, the Jewish lawyer Isaac Wolffson [de], accusing him and other Jews of betraying the democratic movement and abusing their emancipation in order to enter the city's merchant class.

[10] In 1877, this marriage was ended in divorce too; Marr's last wife was Clara Maria Kelch, daughter of a Hamburg working man.

To prevent this from happening, in 1879 Marr founded the League of Antisemites (Antisemiten-Liga), the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews and advocating their forced removal from the country.

The Pan-German League, founded in 1891, originally allowed for the membership of Jews, provided they were fully assimilated into German culture.