Intro: Carl Peters and the Crime of Converting to Islam
In 1884, four young Germans - Carl Peters, Joachim Graf von Pfeil, Karl Jühlke, and August Otto - landed in Zanzibar. They tried to disguise themselves "alternatively as hunters, scientists, and travelers", but it was an open secret that “they wanted to annex land”. The group hired local porters and, headed by the philosopher-turned-adventurer Carl Peters, set course. The journey lasted five weeks and mostly consisted of signing dubious land transfer contracts with locals. At some point, Peters got into a fight with Pfeil and Otto and left them "to construct camp" - the real reason was the serious risk of violence. Peters and Jühlke continued traveling, despite suffering from fewer, until they reached a coastal town of Bagamoyo, where they were treated by French priests.
Nothing had to come out of this crazy expedition. Peters had little knowledge of local politics or governance, and, in any case, the German trade houses of O'Swald (yes, he changed his name for style) and Hansing had long operated in the region, making good money. But Germany was late to the colonial race, a fact that upset many on the right, and Bismarck could not ignore his coalition's displeasure; thus, Peters's "conquests" were recognized. The chancellor would soon regret this.
Peters wanted to establish a private administration (under the German flag), but his lack of knowledge of business, terrible administrative skills, and the accusations of embezzlement made the idea of a self-funding colony impossible. After failing to raise enough money (though, given he had no plan, the amount raised was still impressive), he asked Bismarck to force bankers to gather 200000 marks – the colony was saved, but Peters had to give up control to the Reich in 1887. His followers were disappointed to find "nothing" in places where Peters claimed to have finished the construction, and his uninformed policing efforts led to the closure of the trading routes because of banditry. Over the years, Peters, as popular as he was incompetent, became an annoyance for everyone, from Bismarck to the Social Democrats. Bismarck's refusal to support Peters' another venture - Emir Pasha rescue expedition - had damaged his relationships with National Liberals and likely partially led to Iron Chancellor's downfall.
Peters’ own downfall only came in 1897 - the letter had surfaced insinuating that he had married an African woman through African customs (Islam in some sources – Germans did not make a difference) and then killed her and her lover in a flash of jealousy, claiming that as husband, he had the right to execute her. Practically everything turned out to be false – Peters did kill two Africans, but he did not convert to Islam, did not marry anyone under Islamic law, or justify his actions in this way - but it angered Catholics, and finally allowed the parties to unite and remove Peters from imperial colonial service.
One of the people involved was a guy named Eugen Richter. Interested in a fresh name, I looked him up. Brief research had shown that he was a liberal left, opposed to socialism and antisemitism, opposed to state-sponsored colonialism, and a supporter of free trade.
Naturally, I fell in love.
This review is about “Pictures of Socialist Future” – a strangely prescient book by Richter that describes a social-democratic anti-utopia. There is a section about my favorite topic – the 19th-century palace intrigues and Richter’s place among them: I first talk about Richter’s view on the big issues of the day, then about the failure of liberalism. Then the main review: the assessment of the predictions and the prose, followed by a brief overview of liberals in Germany after Richter. There is a note on sources at the end, and a glossary below.
Glossary
You can skip this, but since German 19th-century politics is hard to follow, here is a brief overview of actors and affiliations. I know I needed it.
SPD - Sozialdemokratische Partei - Social Democrats; in fact, hardline Marxists.
National Liberals - Nationalliberale Partei – right liberal party. A wide coalition of those who supported parliamentarism on one hand, and hard German nationalism on the other. Individual positions varied, but the party as a whole is associated with supporting saltwater colonialism, colonization of Poland, tariffs, Navy buildup, confrontation with England, anti-Catholicism, and antisemitism. Unlike left liberals, they weren't against compromise with Bismarck.
Secessionists - the left wing of the National Liberals who separated from them when they thought the compromise with Bismarck went too far and that the National Liberals were giving up on parliamentarism. They united with Richter's party in 1884; the unhappy union dragged for 10 years.
Deutsche Fortschrittspartei – German Progressive Party – left-liberal party, the party of Eugen Richter.
Freiseinnige Partei/ Free Thinkers Party - a union of secessionists and DFP.
Zentrum - Catholic centrist party.
Vorwärts/Onwards - official SPD newspaper
Freisinnige Zeitung - Eugen Richter’s newspaper
DVP - Deutsche Volkspartei - German People's Party - right liberal party of the Weimar Republic
DDP - Deutsche Demokratische Partei - left liberal party of the Weimar Republic
Kulturkampf – conflict between the Catholic Church and Otto von Bismarck
HKT - Deutscher Ostmarkenverein – proponents of colonization of Poland
Eugen Richter, resolute liberal and "Parteityrann"
It's perhaps easiest to describe Eugen Richter by his political positions that set him apart from other parties – such as stances on the army, Catholics, the budget, conservatism, and socialism.
One of the biggest issues of the time was the length of the conscription term and the size of the army. Richter was for pursuing peace, with the goal of making the burden of conscription easier on the people - making the army smaller, if possible, and absolutely not bigger. Bismarck, of course, wanted a bigger army; the National Liberals, while supporting shorter conscription time, nevertheless wanted the army to be impressive, strong, and demonstrating the nation's might. Richter’s almost libertarian position could nowadays seem naïve – he thought, for example, that if captains wanted protection on sea, they should themselves raise money for it. If overly idealistic, this was consistent with his other positions. Given the utter unreachability of this goal, however, in parliament, he only fought against army expansion.
On cultural issues, even against his enemies, Richter was a live-and-let-live type. He was seemingly uninterested in Kulturkampf, the crusade of Bismarck against Catholic schools, which eventually came to include heavy-handed repression. Many liberals, especially National Liberals, supported the attacks on the Catholics. He was against Catholic control of public schools, but not against Catholic private schools and the religion in general. Similarly, he opposed antisemitism – to the extent that Jewish voters trusted non-Jews from his party more than Jews from other parties. And he opposed "Drang nach Osten" - a position taken by eastern right liberals, and especially HKT (a.k.a. Deutscher Ostmarkenverein), that Poland should be colonized, land taken from Polish owners, and Germans sent to replace them. (They could be radical. One of my favorite HKT-propaganda books, Das schlafende Heer by Clara Viebig, includes a young German man, Valentine, who falls in love with a Polish girl. They have a fight. Being sad, he walks around her father's house until he drowns in a swamp caused by poor irrigation. Damn those uncivilized Poles!)
On saltwater colonialism, Richter was of the opinion that it should be pursued by private actors and with their own money - understandable, since German colonies perpetually lost money. He was in favor of private schools and, curiously, public schools - education for minors, in his opinion, was a good place for government to intervene, provided schools weren't used to foster class, religious, and other divisions, but were provided equally for all citizens. Despite his dislike of SPD, he also opposed anti-socialist laws.
What, however, earned him infamy in the Reichstag, made him highly disliked, disparaged, and mocked by politicians all around, was his position on the budget. To say he was a hawk would be an understatement. No, he was a HAWK. He studied under Karl Heinrich Rau and understood economics, at least by 19th-century standards. Back then, people still agreed that a balanced budget was an admirable goal, but Richter went further: he actually read all proposed laws and, during each session, drove lawmakers mad by asking millions of questions – mostly, “Does the state actually need to do it?” No one knew the budget better than Richter, and even his opponents agreed that he turned the Reichstag's power to make the budget into a really meaningful one - but The Groups just wanted to make deals, quid pro quo, I support your tariff, you support mine - and Richter questioning the usefulness of those tariffs was not making them happy. A fun little episode included Richter being prosecuted for publishing pamphlets, "200 million new taxes!" before the 1871 elections. The government claimed he was discrediting the Bismarck coalition, but the process took time, and Richter was acquitted after it became clear that 200 million in new taxes had, in fact, been introduced.
Richter was not well-liked. He had strong control over the Deutsche Fortschrittspartei, but that was it. Even the secessionists thought he was condescending, acidic, "doctrinal", negativist, and lacking imagination. Their 1884 unification almost failed: on the one hand, Richter worried about secessionist finances - on the other, secessionists hated Richter's heavy-handed style. National Liberals hated Richter so much that potential unification with them was one good reason not to include Richter.
To illustrate how fragile the arrangement was, there was a serious risk it would fall apart because of the name. Freisinnige Volkspartei was agreed upon; but then some progressivists who weren’t invited to the discussion complained that both Deutsche and Fortschritt were important, unique, and generally good brand, while Freisinnige was banal. Richter was impressed by their arguments, and that was a problem – a successful vote for changing the name – and it was likely to succeed - would have been a vote that demonstrated support for Richter. Widespread support for Richter could have scared off secessionists. In the end, Richter didn't press the matter, and this strange conflict never exploded. The union eventually happened because it was expected, and no one wanted to look stupid if it failed. It somehow limped along for almost 10 years despite constant infighting and probably did more harm than good.
Richter saw himself as waging a two-front war against conservatism and socialism. For him, socialism was a fundamentally reactionary movement that sought to restore feudal-like control over people's lives. ("As in feudal times, labor is now again regarded as a kind of villanage, a slavish toil," he speaks through his self-insert in “Pictures”). He was adamantly against any kind of welfare state - life insurance, injury insurance, old age insurance, and others. In response to his frequent criticism, SPD violently disrupted Progress Party meetings. So did antisemites in response to his support for Jews. When Bismarck introduced his state socialism to take voters from the SPD, Richter opposed it. After all, as any libertarian knows, welfare was a slippery slope, where more and more claims for welfare are added until the productive economy collapses under the weight of taxes. Alas, Germany did not heed his warnings.
The Liberal Failure
Bismarck personally made efforts to brand Richter a negativist. Was he? Perhaps. Many authors say that he did not have a vision for Germany - this, I think, is incorrect – he had a libertarian vision. But Richter did think he was on the defensive – and in the late 19th century, when racial liberalism was increasingly replacing national liberalism, it is hard to argue with him. Sometimes his political instincts failed him - his principal stance against tariffs and for free trade led to a catastrophic loss in 1879, which he did not at all expect. Iron Kanzler had also outmaneuvered him - by toning down the Kulturkampf, he got the Zentrum on his side; and through flattery and appointments, he got the National Liberals as well, while isolating more principled secessionists in opposition.
It was said that Richter's journalistic work interfered with his career in the Reichstag. A journalist and a representative have separate goals, and he would have taken different decisions if he weren't a journalist. The last is debatable - Richter thought you should vote the same in the opposition as you would in power. However, his habit of writing brutally harsh articles in Freisinnige Zeitung about fellow party members was a major source of hatred towards him. On the other hand, the Freisinnige name debacle illustrates that Richter was hardly the one big evil. Secessionists instigated utterly trite fights over inconsequential appointments just as often. Such is the fate of the party that spends too much time in opposition.
In the Reich, the center of power was with the emperor. The vision of the left liberals was Friedrich III ascending to power and, relying on a coalition of National Liberals and Freisinnige, enacting reforms to expand parliament's powers and personal freedoms. Much like in Russia, this never happened: Friedrich III died of cancer in 1888 - the same year he was crowned, and only 56 years old. His son was of conservative persuasion, and the liberal coalition never materialized.
Richter absolutely made a lot of bad tactical decisions. One could imagine a different leader, some kind of amiable and open to compromise German Abraham Lincoln, maneuvering his way to victory between Scylla and Charybdis. Richter at least failed in a good company. The National Liberals only achieved a degree of power by compromising their liberal aims, and the parliamentary form of government did not come until the Weimar Republic. Richter failed, but liberalization was a hard task.
Some technical words about the book
"The Pictures of Socialist Future" was printed in over 250000 copies and translated into many languages. I read the new edition with Brian Caplan's foreword in Henry Wright's 1893 translation - alas, my German isn't yet good enough for 19th-century books. The original was printed in 1891 under the name "Sozialdemokratische Zukunftsbilder" - "the pictures of social-democratic future." Since SPD was a Marxist party, a change of name is understandable; however, "pictures of social-democratic future" also sometimes appears in the writing, and, for reasons that would become obvious, might be a better name.
The Pictures of Socialist Future
Part 1: Resolute Socialist
"Pictures" is a short book - my version is only 145 pages - and is written in the form of a diary of Herr Schmidt: there are 35 chapters, each one a diary entry. Schmidt is a socialist who reads Bebel and Vorwärts, and after socialism suddenly wins, he starts writing to document its success. His age is unspecified, but he just celebrated a silver wedding with his wife, Paula. Paula is also a socialist and has read Bebel’s work on women and family. They have three children: the oldest, Franz, is a typesetter, and prepares to marry his girlfriend, Agnes, who is a milliner - that is, a hat maker. Ernst is a teenager - he doesn't do great in school, but is inclined to trades, and the narrator hopes he'll become a good craftsman. Youngest, Annie, is just 4 years old. They have two big rooms and two smaller rooms in front, where the whole family, plus Paula's father, lives. Schmidt is hard-working, and so is Franz, and they enjoy a good life.
The first and second chapters describe his elation at the revolution and the new laws: all printing establishments are taken over by the state, rich people are allowed to immigrate as long as they give up all money, the army is disbanded, and taxes are abolished. The narrator notes that some people want to flee, but where to? Socialism is triumphant everywhere except in England, Switzerland, and America.
Chapters 3 through 12 then discuss various new laws introduced by socialists - despite often being unhappy, Schmidt stays resilient and believes in socialism. First, he finds out that not only the rich were eaten - Agnes has saved money for the wedding with Fritz, but now they had all been confiscated, and the government refuses to compensate, because, as one Reichstag member says, “A real Socialist of pure water never yet had bothered himself about saving anything”.
They also get their jobs assigned. Since the pay is equal for all jobs and many more people wanted to be acrobats than miners, the jobs are assigned by lottery, and the narrator notes that many people received the positions they disliked. They, however, got lucky: the narrator is still a bookbinder, and Agness a seamstress, but they now work in big shops. Franz is still a typesetter but is sent to Leipzig, because there are too many typesetters in Berlin, and only reliable socialists are allowed to stay. Paula registers as a child carer to be close to Annie, but finds out that this is explicitly forbidden.
A number of other socialist laws are introduced: a currency that allows consumption tracking; the state cookshops that allow a free meal with a pound of meat every day - the narrator just notes that lines are long, and time for eating is short - Paula also complains that food is very bad, to which Schmidt condescendingly notes that ah, women! They had been released from labor and were still unhappy. Grandfather, Annie, and Ernst are taken away to facilities for care for the young and elderly. People from villages came to Berlin for a better life under socialism - everyone is outraged at these "backwoods" people being let in, and they are soon forced back.
Finally, new housing assignments are released: it turns out Paula had hoped for a nice villa, or at least a couple of nice rooms. However, remember that marriage had been made into a completely private affair: it is not considered when giving out rooms, and they receive housing far apart. Paula is given a small room in the back, and the narrator exchanges his nice room for a tiny cupboard to be with her.
Critique
I think it’s obvious that some of these predictions were very on the mark, but this segment also contains the parts for which Richter is most often criticized. When doing research, I found that a common critique point is focusing too much on the family - some of the worst scenarios, such as taking away kids, marriage no longer being an official matter, cookshops, and houses being switched by lottery - are all house-centric, and they have not been realized. I propose that they have not been realized because they are insane, not unfathomable, and even communists agreed with that. Let's take a look:
Communists denied that they intended to take away children. Or, at least, they said that parents wouldn't be banned from participating in upbringing. Marx only spoke about natural dissolution of the bourgeois family and the right to free public schools. Bebel and, e.g., Alexandra Kollontai in her “Communism and the Family” essay realized that without the bourgeois family, a much larger strain would be put on the mother. Therefore, they proposed that children should spend much of their time in state care, playing and learning together. By Kollontai, parental participation is not necessary - people can date, love each other, have sex, give birth to little socialists, and give them up to the state. If they still want to raise the kids, they can.
Of course, when tried in Romania, even such a mild, supportive plan as suggested by Kollontai was a disaster. Richter extrapolated, and not kindly - yet I don't think he was hugely off mark. As for marriage, both Bebel and Kollontai sought to diminish its legal significance.
Housing in the Soviet Union had not been taken away and distributed by lottery. Houses of nobility and new houses were distributed by queue; one should have hoped to inherit a house from their parents, because queues were long - obsession with the "housing question", the swaps and machinations to obtain a little more space that the Party determined you needed was a thing mocked in "Master i Margarita", and it arose from the destruction of the private market. If anything, Richter overestimated the socialist commitment to equality.
As for cookshops - only a brief note, because I find them less offensive. Yes, work canteen food was bad, and getting good chicken, or something as extraordinary as a banana or orange, was a once-in-a-year occurrence. Yes, North Korea still failed to fulfill its modest promise of meat in soup every day, according to even official sources. That said, I don't find this either at all implausible or unprecedentedly bad.
Richter, of course, extrapolated. But he was an uncompromising liberal. If he believed the liberal ideas, he took them to a logical end. Socialists, on the other hand, knew the line behind which bad economic policy became unacceptable.
Part 2: the consequences
Chapters 13 through 23 have a marked tone shift - the narrator is still supportive of socialism, but he has to admit that it's not as great as he expected. The Chancellor tries to create a party elite and have someone to clean his clothes and bring his meals - he is ousted as a fake socialist. The army and police are reinstated; emigration of people of working age is prohibited - after all, they owe the state for their education, and the army shoots everyone who tries to leave.
The narrator is dismayed about his workshop - no one, except him, puts in any effort, as everyone is paid the same. He tries to inspire his comrades but is mocked. Unable to work in such conditions, he transfers to the post of an overseer, which he gets through a friend. In this position, he discovers the huge extent of the embezzlements - much greater than under the old government. The quality of goods suffer - Paula and Agnes are trying to make better dresses than the unstylish ones found in state shops**,** the state finances suffer, as no other now wants to buy poor German, and they are in debt to France and Russia.
Agnes is sexually harassed at work; unable to transfer, she complains to Franz. Franz is enraged and, with Agnes, flees to America through England. Narrator and Paula read in Vorwärts about would-be refugees being shot, but thankfully, Franz and Agnes aren't among them.
There are free theaters for everyone - however, since plays praising socialism are sparsely attended, seats are distributed by lottery. Arrangement collapses when people from villages also demand equality and free plays - with not enough space, money payments are reintroduced.
The final 12 chapters are full of disappointment: Annie dies of quinsy after being neglected in her care home, and Paula gradually loses her mind because of grief. The collapsing economy leads to a huge deficit, and the grandfather's state without any job or entertainment starts to deteriorate.
Two new opposition parties are created - Yonkers, who are angry that the socialist state has not given everything promised - e.g., a four-hour workday, and Party of Freedom, which is essentially a left-liberal self-insert. As people are scared to vote against the government, lest they be transferred away, Socialists get two-thirds, and the Party of Freedom about a third. After the Chancellor enumerates increasingly insane further proposals, a representative of Hagen - Richter represented Hagen, but this guy is explicitly not him - goes on a long speech criticizing the government, in which he makes a number of further predictions. After that, the galleries are cleared because of the noise, and the narrator cannot hear anything more.
Eventually, France and Russia, feeling German weakness, invaded under the cover of taking payment for goods supplied. Counter-revolution breaks out, and Schmidt, while trying to meet with Ernst, is mistaken for a government representative and shot. Ernst sends the diary to Franz and flees the country as well.
A Unique Dystopia
The most popular anti-communist dystopias are 1984 and Animal Farm. They are pretty good as a critique of real communism. But they are not a critique of socialist ideas – the grey, dull world, unhealthy, boring people, cynicism and equality in mediocrity in 1984 describe the Soviet State very well, but this is not what Marx proposed; not a real communism, you might say. Richter takes a very different approach - he interprets everything socialists say literally, and then takes the idea to a logical conclusion. Of course, you can't merely eat the rich - there aren't enough of them - so the middle class would have to be eaten. Of course, there is no spirit of togetherness to motivate people to work - if you are all paid the same, many people would not put any effort, and there is nothing you could do about it. Of course, if there is no market incentive, it is up to the state to send you where additional labor is needed - and it is not in a foreign country.
What did he get right?
What makes the book impressive, however, is the amount of totally correct predictions Richter made in 1891. Restricting the freedom of movement of specifically farmers by not issuing passports was done during Holodomor, killing millions of people. Under Stalin, switching jobs without permission was punishable. Young graduates, as payment for their education, were assigned a 3-year position after college - and unless you had connections, it usually wasn't a good place. Bad socialist plays are a byword in all tongues, mocked even by socialists like Mayakovsky - and today one can, of course, watch examples from North Korea. Korea also provides the most graphic example of restricting emigration. Widespread corruption, theft, people slacking off, and people reporting their neighbors for the smallest violation of the socialist law, neglect of the elderly, alienation, and breakdown of social bonds are also well-known.
A couple of particularly interesting items are from the final speech of the Hagen representative. First, Richter thinks that socialists would be warlike:
"The inexorable law of self-preservation will hence compel the Socialists on this side, and on that side, to engage in a deadly struggle, which will last until that superfluity of population, which can only be supported by such forms and systems as you have uprooted, shall have succumbed."
The Soviet Union did use war to distract the population.
Second:
"This annual deficit of twelve milliard marks which we are now face to face with, means the bankruptcy of social democracy."
Such a budget hawk as Richter, of course, focused on the deficit. While oil (and in capitalist welfare-state, functioning markets) softened the blow, a good case can be made that debt killed the Soviet Union.
A believer in democracy
The most amusing thing, though, is that throughout the book, the democratic institutions do not collapse. Perhaps it was easier for Richter, single until very old age, to imagine the dissolution of family than the dissolution of his favorite workplace. At the beginning of the book, many citizens sued the state for the bad quality of the goods. While the state always wins, nothing prevents them from doing so. Second, the first two-thirds of the books occur with the old parliament - only SPD is present, while the other parties are dissolved, since they "achieved their place by capitalist means." HOWEVER, all parties are allowed to participate in the next elections. Richter's favorite Party of Freedom gets a third of the vote, even though it is discussed that people are afraid to vote against the state because of their dependence. The narrator recalls that sometimes this happened - e.g., in Saar, where voting against the factory owner's preferred party meant becoming unemployable - but now absolutely everyone is subject to it. Yet the new representatives are seated and get floor time. As an opposition party, their influence is limited, and the book ends with a counter-revolution. But Richter gets to write about the Reichstag.
And about book itself
Richter clearly enjoys writing about Reichstag sessions, and his personal experience is obvious. If you enjoy such scenes, they are amazing. The rest, at least in my translation, is smooth and reads easily for the 19th-century book; good prose. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but there is amusement in escalating absurdity. For the most part, Richter only traces the path of expressed or implied socialist ideas. Then we get this Kanzler speech:
"It is a well-known fact that there are many estimable persons—I allude to those persons who are styled vegetarians—who hold not only that meat may very well be dispensed with altogether, but that it is positively injurious to the human system."
"Now I put the question to you: are we justified in so far yielding to the caprices of such persons, that we offer them a choice of various goods to one and the same identical end—such as nourishment, furnishing, and attire—in order that Mr. and Mrs. X. may live, and dress, and furnish their house differently from Mr. and Mrs. Y,"
“As an additional aid to the promotion of equality, we propose that in future all persons shall attire themselves in garments whose cut, material, and color, it will be the province of this House to determine beforehand. The length of time during which all garments are to be worn will also be fixed with precision."
(after noises of protest)
"I wish not to be misunderstood. We do not contemplate carrying equality in dress to such a length that all diversities will be entirely abolished. On the contrary, we suggest the wearing of various badges as marks whereby the ladies and gentlemen of the different provinces, towns, and trades, may readily be distinguished from each other at a glance."
"On the three chief political holidays of the year—the birthdays of Bebel, Lassalle, and Liebknecht—each adult person will receive half a pound of meat, and a pint of beer for dinner."
“As regards offenses against the obligation to" work, the Government recognizes the fact that the extension of the hours of labor to twelve hours renders a further elaboration of the system of penalties imperatively necessary; and it proposes to effect this elaboration through a variety of means. Amongst others, I mention the removal of the bed for slighter transgressions; arrest, incarceration in the dark cell, and the lash for repeated offenses.” (Hisses from the strangers’ galleries.)
"Let me not be misunderstood as regards the lash. We should not be disposed to recommend the application of more than thirty strokes. "
I personally find it hella amusing. If you have a desire to read a pamphlet from the 19th century, that's a damn good one.
Reaction in Russia
And just for fun, I searched for who in Russian reads it. The answer seems to be conservative, highly religious, Orthodox, pro-monarchist parties, e.g., Ioann Vostorgov and A.A. Bronzov. They were absolutely anti-liberal. Had they met in parliament, I assume there would be hot hatred between them - but they did one-sidedly align themselves with Richter against the socialists. That makes sense - Russian liberals weren't of the laissez-faire type - but I find it sad.
What happened next
Richter died in 1906. He remained a towering figure till the end, but his influence waned. Richter was a patriot, pro-unification, and pro-Germany, but the successors, e.g., Friedrich Naumann, thought that for the survival of the party, they should reclaim the mantle of jingoism and colonialism. Nauman was part of the Deutsche Demokratische Partei, Weimar left liberals (as an aside, one of the cofounders was a dark wizard, eternal opportunist, savior of the Weimar economy, savior of a Nazi economy, and just another favorite German of mine, Hjalmar Schacht, who (unsuccessfully) tried to spoil the founding document by claiming that he's a monarchist.) Alas, DDP played the role FDP would later play, mostly being a coalition partner for SPD and Centrum. Their small, educated base was insufficient, and when they tried to expand it by taking more nationalist stances, they alienated even them, and the party imploded. Since then, the left liberalism never regained footing in Germany.
This is not a story with a happy ending, and it doesn't offer an easy answer. Hardliner Richter lost, but so did the compromising National Liberals. Communists got control over half of the country, and social democrats were powerful in the other half. Some predictions were never realized, but some ended up worse - instead of the lottery described by Richter, there was simply more corruption, and when the new communist elite was created, no one protested. Judging by DDP, completely rejecting your ideals does not seem like a good idea - but always voting in opposition as you would have voted in power, as Richter did, doesn't look like it either. Maybe Germany got unlucky with the liberal emperor's death, or maybe the liberals there failed to promote their ideals. I hugely respect Richter for his stances - but God damn it, man, I wish he were more skillful in politicking.
Grade
Definitely would recommend.
Notes on sources
Researching Eugen Richter proved harder than I thought. Peters has quite a good biography written about him (I used one by Arne Perras), and of course, there are plenty of sources on Bismarck; yet my initial wide search on Richter yielded little information. Ralph Raico, in his 1990 article Eugen Richter and Late German Manchester Liberalism: A Reevaluation complained that the information available is very meager. The situation has not radically changed since: around 2010, there were some media articles published about "Pictures", and some additional academic research had been done, but compared to the cofounder of the Social Democratic Party, August Bebel, Iron Kanzler Otto von Bismarck, or colorful and bloody philosopher-turned-adventurer Carl Peters, Richter remains a footnote.
Raico notes that this is because liberalism in general had not been respected in Germany, and he is probably correct. Knowing his biography, it’s no wonder that neither East Germany nor the Social Democratic Party, which remained Marxist until 1959 and truly socialist for years after, nor any conservative parties, had any interest in him.
The influence of the liberal parties post-war had been greatly diminished - Freie Demokratische Partei often struggled to get even 10% of the votes. It was often in coalition, but as a junior partner to either the Union or SPD. The compromises made shifted it quite to the left, so an unbending hardliner like Richter would have been an inconvenient ancestor. With the liberal line extinguished, there was no one to remember.
In fact, only people interested seem to be libertarians - I have gotten the lion's share of information from Raico (openly libertarian), from articles hosted by Mises Institute, and the foreword to my edition of the "Pictures" had been written by Brian Caplan.
Other useful sources included Dr. Felix Rachfall's work from 1912(!) . I, unfortunately, failed to get my hands on the unpublished dissertation by Jesse Rohlfeisch, "Eugen Richter: Opponent of Bismarck"(1946), and Ina Suzanna Lorenz's "Eugen Richter: Der entschiedene Liberlismus in wilhelminischer Zeit" (1980), which I particularly wanted for a highly critical perspective.