Free Association of German Trade Union | |
Freie Vereinigung deutscher Gewerkschaften | |
 | |
| Re-founded as | Free Workers' Union of Germany |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1897 |
| Dissolved | 1919 |
| Headquarters | Berlin |
| Location |
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Members | 1897: 6,803 1900: 19,752 1903: 17,061 1906: 16,662 1910: 6,454 1914: 6,000[1] August 1919: 60,000 December 1919: 111,675[2] |
Key people | Fritz Kater Gustav Keßler Fritz Köster Rudolf Rocker |
The Free Association of German Trade Unions (German: ; abbreviated FVdG; sometimes also translated as Free Association of German Unions[3] or Free Alliance of German Trade Unions)[4] was a trade union federation in Imperial and early Weimar Germany. It was founded in 1897 in Halle under the name Representatives' Centralization of Germany as the national umbrella organization of the localist current of the German labor movement. The localists rejected the centralization in the labor movement following the sunset of the Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890 and preferred grassroots democratic structures. The lack of a strike code soon led to conflict within the organization. Various ways of providing financial support for strikes were tested before a system of voluntary solidarity was agreed upon in 1903, the same year that the name Free Association of German Trade Unions was adopted.
During the years following its formation, the FVdG began to adopt increasingly radical positions. During the German socialist movement's debate over the use of mass strikes, the FVdG advanced the view that the general strike must be a weapon in the hands of the working class. The federation believed the mass strike was the last step before a socialist revolution and became increasingly critical of parliamentary action. Disputes with the mainstream labor movement finally led to the expulsion of FVdG members from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1908 and the complete severing of relations between the two organizations. Anarchist and especially syndicalist positions became increasingly popular within the FVdG. During World War I, the FVdG rejected the SPD's and mainstream labor movement's cooperation with the German state—known as the Burgfrieden—but was unable to organize any significant resistance to or continue its regular activities during the war. Immediately after the November Revolution, the FVdG very quickly became a mass organization. It was particularly attractive to miners from the Ruhr area opposed to the mainstream unions' reformist policies. In December 1919, the federation merged with several minor left communist unions to become the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD).