This deeply-researched and well-argued book makes an important contribution to the political and the religious history of Germany in the years between the accession of Wilhelm ii to the imperial throne and the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor. Todd Weir has already written a major book on the rise of secularism in the years after the failed revolutions of 1848–9 to become a ‘Fourth Confession’, alongside Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism. Here his concern is with one increasingly important branch of the movement, the ‘Red secularism’ which was closely linked with the various forms of Socialism. He argues that religion in general and secularism in particular played a major role in the politics of this period both in Germany and in many other parts of Europe.

Within the Social Democratic Party (SPD) the role of secularism was important, but also often divisive. Weir begins with a fundamental distinction between what he calls the ‘political secularists’ and the ‘world-view secularists’. The former, who included most of the party leadership, accepted the need for a separation of Church and State, but, whatever their personal standpoint, they decried attacks on the Churches, which they saw as a sure vote-loser. The latter saw Socialism as akin to a new religion, going far beyond merely political and economic objectives, offering a new understanding of the world and requiring the rejection of older beliefs. ‘World-view secularists’ were, however, the majority among the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) who split from the Majority (MSPD) during World War I, and were briefly centre-stage during the revolution of 1918–19,

The book begins with the rich variety of secularist groups emerging in the second half of the nineteenth century. The largest were the Free Religious Congregations which began in the 1840s among dissident Protestants and Catholics opposed to the dominant conservatism in their Churches. But after the defeat of the revolutions, they gradually moved further from Christianity, so that in the later part of the century their standpoint was humanist. By 1890 the large Berlin congregation was led by Socialists. For many working-class men and (less often) women of this era the first step towards conversion to socialism was the reading of works of popular science, which often had nothing to do with Socialism, but which were written with a secularist agenda. As Weir adds, in many parts of Germany the most respected figure in the local community was the Protestant pastor, and rejecting his authority was the first step towards a wider rebellion. The culmination of this period of growing connections between Socialism and secularism was the church-leaving campaign, led by ‘world-view secularists’, in the years 1906 to 1914. World War I, when ‘world-view secularists’ were prominent among opponents of the war, would be divisive both for Socialists and for secularism more widely. Secularism would also emerge as an important dividing-line during the revolution of 1918–19. For the USPD leaving the Church was mandatory and they imposed a radical separation of Church and State in areas where they were predominant. There was another wave of church-leaving in 1919–21 which was most successful in areas of USPD strength, such as Berlin. For the majority of Social Democrats leaving the Church was a personal choice (in the terminology of the time, ‘a private matter’), and their commitment to parliamentary democracy led to collaboration with the Liberals and the Catholic Centre Party, with the result that the Weimar Constitution included a very limited form of separation in which most of the privileges of the Churches remained intact. After the majority of the USPD rejoined the ‘Majority’ party, a minority joined the Communists for whom many aspects of ‘world-view secularism’ were an irrelevance, but who happily embraced militant anticlericalism.

The Weimar years were in many ways the heyday of ‘Red secularism’, with booming membership of the various Socialist secularist organisations. The ‘Religious Socialists’ included some eminent figures such as Paul Tillich as well as some of the parish clergy; but they were tiny in number by comparison with the more than half a million members of the Socialist Freethought organisation. Admittedly many people joined this principally because of the facilities they offered for moderately priced cremations, but they also provided a vibrant programme of what was called ‘cultural Socialism’, including evening classes, libraries, choirs, political theatre and ideas for ‘life reform’. They also promoted the Jugendweihe, a secular alternative to Christian confirmation, which would become semi-compulsory in East Germany. In Leipzig 30 per cent of young people were already going through this secular alternative in the 1920s. In some parts of the future East Germany, notably Berlin and parts of Saxony and Thuringia, the ground was already well-prepared prior to state-sponsored secularisation. Weir concludes that ‘Red secularism’ in the Weimar years was a cultural success but a political failure. Its chief political impact was to assist the mobilisation of Catholic and Protestant conservatives. A major factor in their willingness to consider political alliance with the Nazis, or to vote for that party, was fear of secularism – intensified by the brutal religious persecution then underway in the Soviet Union. The Nazis successfully posed as defenders of the Churches against the secularist forces – although from 1936, when the Nazis turned against the Churches, the numbers joining the state-promoted exit exceeded the numbers who had left their religious community during the Socialist campaigns earlier in the century. In a final chapter, Weir brings the story up to the later twentieth century, showing the decline of Socialist secularism after World War II, both because of the rapprochement between the SPD and the Protestant Church, and because, with the fall in church membership from the 1960s, secularism seemed less relevant. However, in the last days of East Germany, Erich Honecker, alarmed by the role of Protestant Churches as centres of political protest, attempted to reinvigorate the old tradition.

As well as the book’s central arguments, it is enriched by much fascinating detail. I will give three examples. First, although this is a nation-wide history, Weir brings out major regional differences, notably between Berlin, where the close association between Socialism and secularism was more or less taken for granted, and Munich, where some leading Social Democrats were members of the Catholic Church and the more militant secularists were on the fringes of the movement or outside it among the bohemian intellectuals of Schwabing. Second, not content with the sociology of the secularist-Socialist intellectuals (most of whom were schoolteachers) Weir ventures into psychology, exploring what he calls ‘the lunatic fringe’, including those who ‘courted martyrdom’ by inviting prison sentences for blasphemy. Third, he explores the experiments in ‘life reform’, which had begun earlier, but reached a high point in the 1920s, when vegetarianism, teetotalism, rhythmic dancing and nudism, as well as new approaches to sexuality, were practised in some Socialist circles. The leading exponent both of rhythmic dancing and of nudism was a Berlin teacher, Adolf Koch, who persuaded his class to dance naked, provoking a press-storm, a debate on the city council and his temporary suspension.

This is an impressive book, and it is convincingly argued. The only thing missing is the placing of Germany in a wider context. Weir mentioned in his earlier book that anticlericalism played a major political role in most predominantly Catholic countries. He also noted that the word ‘secularism’ was a British invention and that secularism had a significant role in British radical and Socialist movements – though this role was certainly more limited in Britain, and these movements were much more religiously pluralistic than their German counterparts. But Germany appears to be unique in the extent and the diversity of its secularist cultures. It would be good to know Weir’s thoughts on whether Germany really was unique, and if so why.