Workers' Councils

GA 331a

The Workers' Councils of Württemberg I

Documents from the early days
February to May 1919

February 25, 1919
Hans Kühn to the Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council
Document Main State Archive Stuttgart, E 135a, Bü 212

To the Workers' Council of Stuttgart!

1. Healthy socialization can be implemented immediately today without disrupting competitiveness with other countries, if it is not to be achieved by the detour of nationalization.

2. State socialism inhibits economic life and distances German social democracy from understanding with the International.

3. With the true socialization of the economy, capitalism disappears for the individual, and class differences are abolished.

4. The surplus value generated benefits the general public exclusively.

5. All other issues, such as tax policy, goods, labor, and so on, find their natural, relatively simple solution, and the proletariat achieves its rightful, humane existence within the rest of human society.

I will give further explanations of this system, which is proposed by Swiss and German socialists, to the workers' council or a larger audience in a lecture, if desired.

I consider this method to be the only way to gain recognition abroad and to bridge the differences at home without the use of armed force.

Stuttgart, February 25, 1919 [signed] H. Kühn

April 29, 1919
Motion to the plenary assembly of the Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council

Document Main State Archive Stuttgart, E 135a, Bü 212

Feuerbach, April 29, 1919

Motion to the plenary assembly of the Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council

The undersigned submit the following motion:

The plenary assembly meeting on April 29, 1919, in the Kuppelsaal [Kunstgebäude, Neuer Schloßplatz No. 2] on April 29, 1919, to invite Dr. Steiner, who spoke last week at various meetings before workers and other segments of the population about the “core of the social question” and his problem of the tripartite division of socialization, to speak at a plenary assembly on the question of socialization. In view of the importance of this question, this should take place as soon as possible.

[sign.] Georg Lohrmann

April 29, 1919
Resolution to invite Rudolf Steiner
Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt 76th year, no. 214 (April 30, 1919)

Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council

Yesterday afternoon, a meeting of the Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council took place in the dome hall of the Kunstgebäude. Comrade Gehring opened the meeting, which was sparsely attended. At his suggestion, the report on the Council Congress in Berlin was postponed. Dr. Steiner has agreed to give a lecture to the Workers' Council, which is to coincide with the report on the Council Congress. Since the last meeting, there have been changes in the executive committee; Comrade Gehring replaced Comrade Zernicke, who had resigned, as chairman of the executive committee, and Comrades Ziegler and Wirsching replaced committee members Engelhardt and Unfried.

April 30, 1919
Hans Kühn in a letter to Rudolf Gehring
Document Main State Archive Stuttgart, E 135a, Bü 212

Hans Kühn Stuttgart, April 30, 1919 Werfmershalde 10

To Mr. Gehring Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council
Stuttgart, Neues Schloß

Dear Mr. Gehring!

We hereby confirm that Dr. Steiner is happy to give a lecture to

the delegates of the Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council on the threefold social order he advocates, which appears to be the only salvation from the current situation. Dr. Steiner will appear as agreed on Wednesday, May 7, at 2 p.m. in the ballroom of the trade union building and assumes that you have already reserved this room.¹

The undersigned hopes that the delegates will appear in such numbers that the hall will be filled; otherwise, he requests that guests be invited if possible so that the hall is indeed full, because the opportunity to hear Dr. Steiner speak here is a rare one and should therefore be used as widely as possible. It is emphasized that Dr. Steiner's ideas have nothing to do with any political party, but that they have proven to be extremely effective, especially in proletarian circles, in the course of his lectures to date.

For the Working Committee of the Association for the Threefold Social Order

[sign.] Kühn