Friedrich Adler

The Witchcraft Trial in Moscow Friedrich Adler

This pamphlet was issued by the Commission of Enquiry into the Conditions of Political Prisoners, and in Britain it was published in 1936 under the imprint of Labour Publications. Friedrich Adler (1879-1960) was a long-standing Austrian Social Democrat, and was best known for his assassination of the Austrian Prime Minister Count Karl von Stürgkh in Vienna in October 1916 as a protest against the First World War. He was the son of Viktor Adler, a founder of the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). He joined the SPÖ in 1897, became the editor of its journal Der Kampf in 1907, and was the party?s General Secretary during 1911-14 and 1918-23. Sentenced to death for his shooting of von Stürgkh, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was released when the Austro-Hungarian Empire was collapsing in 1918. He chaired the Austrian Workers and Soldiers Council after his release, was the Secretary of the Labour and Socialist International during 1923-46, and led the exile organisation of Austrian socialists that was founded in 1938. He opposed the restoration of an independent Austria after the Second World War, and lived in Zurich until his death.