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ROBERT REITZEL (1849-1898)
LUTHERAN MINISTER, FREETHINKER,
AND LIBERAL FIREBRAND
obert Reitzel's name surfaces only occa-
sionally in scholarly works even within the
relatively narrow confines of German-Ameri-
can studies. Yet in the late nineteenth century
he was well known to many in German-Amer-
ica and beyond. Robert was born 27 January
1849 in Weitenau near Schopfheim in Baden
as the only child of Reinhard and Katharina
Uehlin Reitzel.¹ Although Reitzel's childhood
years hardly augured any achievements of
substantial significance for the young man, it
might be noted here that Reitzel's credentials
as a freethinker and potential revolutionary
were impeccable from the point of view of his
family heritage. He was named after Robert
Blum, hero of the Baden revolution, and his
uncle, Georg Uehlin, earned a reputation for
himself during the Baden revolution as well.
Reitzel writes:
In the gorgeous countryside of Alemania my
uncle George Uehlin was born to the family of
the tanning master of the city of Schopfheim.
One can't be certain whether it was the influ-
ence of the air of nearby free Switzerland or
something inherited from that notorious
thief [Blum], who nonetheless managed to be-
come mayor of Schopfheim, but no matter
what the reason George turned into a fine
revolutionary.²
Young Reitzel passed his first ten years in
Weitenau until he was sent to school in
Mannheim, where he subsequently began a
rather hapless series of attempts at preparing
himself for the university. In the course of time
he attended the Gymnasien in Mannheim, Karl-
sruhe, and Constance successively, but was
graduated from none of them. Robert started
his university preparation at the Gymnasium in
Mannheim. He then moved to Karlsruhe,
where he was expelled in the spring of 1869 for
failing to obey the rules of the institution con-
cerning proper decorum. He seems to have at-
tempted to complete his pre-university training
by enrolling at Constance the following fall as a
member of the graduating class, but for rea-
sons which remain unclear he never continued
beyond the winter semester.³
Reitzel's university years are equally cloudy.
Mrs. Doris Severance notes that her mother,
Reitzel's daughter Pauline, had duelling
swords which she believed to have been her fa-
ther's during his university days. Moreover, Re-
itzel himself frequently related adventures
which took place among a lively student popu-
lation in Heidelberg. However, because Reitzel
left the lyceums at Karlsruhe and Constance
without an Abitur he could not have pursued
his education further at the university level.
Rudolf Rieder's work on Reitzel clarifies the
matter considerably.4 On the authority of Dr.
Leo Müller in Karlsruhe, a childhood friend of
Reitzel, Rieder states that Reitzel never studied
in Heidelberg although he was anxiously
awaited as an Alemanenfuchs by many of his
friends who were already at the university. Pre-
sent archival material, which is more detailed
than in Rieder's day, confirms this assumption.
As Rieder notes, Reitzel's role in the perpetua-
tion of this one myth at least was at most a pas-
sive one, for nowhere does Reitzel say tht he
studied in Heidelberg; he simply fails to cor-
rect a false assumption.5 It is, in any case, clear
that Robert Reitzel did not continue his studies
at the lyceum in Constance. Indeed, on 4
February 1870, Reinhard Reitzel made appli-
cation to the proper authorities for a visa
which would permit his son to emigrate to the
United States. In March 1870 Robert Reitzel
was issued a passport and by the late spring he
was on his way to America and his first home
there, in Baltimore.
Within a year of his arrival in Maryland Re-
itzel took and successfully passed the exami-
nation administered by the local Lutheran
synod for admission to the clergy. He wrote his
parents:6
Dear Parents!
I left the wine shop at the beginning of the new
year in order to once again devote myself to
the study of theology. Now I'm staying with Pas-
tor Pister and will leave for Washington yet this
week. I gave a sample sermon there yesterday
which was greeted with enthusiasm. In fact, I
am now the pastor of the First Reformed Con-
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R
Robert Reitzel
gregation of Washington D.C., elected unani-
mously from among three candidates. My fel-
low candidates were both older and more ex-
perienced ministers, and consequently it was
no simple matter for me to carry the day. My
salary will be the equivalent of about 1600
gulden initially. In addition there are the fees
for funeral services and the tuition money for
tutoring. I believe that I have outstripped all
my schoolmates in Germany and you won't be-
lieve what a fine picture of preacher I will pre-
sent in the pulpit.
In the matter of Reitzel's years as a preacher
there is again a certain degree of uncertainty as
to the exact sequence of events. Reitzel himself
mentions three stages: the period between
April 1871 and March 1872, when his congrega-
tion at the corner of 6th and N Streets in Wash-
ington, D. C. was fully affiliated with the synod;
the period between March 1872 and October
1873, when essentially the same congregation
established itself independently, severing its ties
to the synod; and finally, in late 1873, Reitzel's
complete break from the church, which was oc-
casioned primarily by his increasingly liberal
views, but most likely hastened by a number of
negative comments from parishioners who
were concerned about the pastor's apparent
disinterest in orthodox practices.
The three phases Reitzel distinguishes mark
a relatively quick transformation from
Lutheran minister to liberal firebrand. In April
1871 Reitzel was offered his first position as
pastor of a Lutheran congregation in Washing-
ton, D.C., but slightly less than eleven months
later he was asked to resign. Reitzel's popu-
larity with the majority of his parishioners was
undeniable, but his unconventional dress and
increasingly unorthodox views had caused con-
siderable consternation among the more con-
ventional individuals in the congregation as
well as within the hierarchy of the synod itself.
The Reverend Mr. Reitzel was finally removed
from his post by order of a synodical commis-
sion; however, his appeal among his pastorate
carried the day, for as he departed a large ma-
jority of the church's members followed him.
Reitzel and his companions ultimately estab-
lished themselves as an independent Protes-
tant denomination in a building only a few
blocks from the Lutheran church they had left.
Here Reitzel was free to preach in street
clothes if he desired and question the infallibil-
ity of revealed religion when he wanted. Yet
even this arrangement soon proved inade-
quate. Although the rather bohemian pastor
continued to be generally admired and re-
spected by those to whom he preached, in-
evitably Reitzel seems to have become em-
broiled in situations which certainly did not
enhance his standing, especially among those
already disinclined to accept his increasingly
liberal views. Apparently Reitzel himself gradu-
ally began to realize the distance which sepa-
rated his own opinions from the beliefs and
dogma of established religion. On 20 October
1873 he delivered a farewell sermon to his
Washington congregation and within a month
he was the acknowledged leader and speaker
for an active group of Washington-area free re-
ligionists.
In 1874 the Association of Independent
Congregations held a convention in Sauk City,
Iowa. Robert Reitzel attended as a represen-
tative for the Washington affiliate and while
there he met and became friends with Eduard
Schroeter, the organization's founder.
Schroeter was quite impressed by the young
man and urged him to offer his services as a
lecturer on the speaking tour being arranged
by the association. Reitzel agreed, and for ten
years thereafter he travelled almost full time,
expounding the principles of free thought be-
fore assemblages of liberal-minded Germans
around the country. By the time Reitzel moved
his wife and family permanently to Detroit in
early 1882, he had in fact thoroughly estab-
lished his reputation as a captivating and effec-
tive speaker, whose sharp wit, keen mind, and
sincere dedication to his ideals seemed to
strike a sympathetic chord in the hearts of his
listeners.
A number of individuals remark upon Re-
itzel's talents as a speaker, among them Martin
Drescher and Emma Goldmann. However, the
comments of Fernande Richter, who wrote
under the pseudonym Edna Fern, as related to
Paul Werckshagen,7 seem best to indicate the
effect Reitzel might have had initially on a
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Robert Reitzel
group which was not necessarily predisposed to
being enthusiastic. Mrs. Richter had read Re-
itzel's travel letters in his weekly journal, the
Arme Teufel, while he was in Europe, and upon
hearing that he was to speak in her hometown
of St. Louis, she was quite anxious to see the
man whose writing had so impressed her. Her
reactions she reports as follows:
The disappointment! There on the small
podium stood a small, rather rotund man with
disheveled hair and a leathery face. He fum-
bled around in his pockets and finally found a
scrunched-up manuscript. He held the paper
directly in front of his near-sighted eyes and
began to read in a voice which was so hoarse
you could hardly understand him. After a few
minutes, however, he looked up from the
paper, cleared his voice and spoke freely: words
so full of conviction, of beauty, and of power,
that your heart sang. The audience outdid it-
self in its applause. Disappointment in the man
Reitzel turned later into admiration as a small
group sat together over wine in a cozy little bar.
There his humor bubbled forth. The words fly
back and forth full of enthusiasm but also full
of great sadness.8
Many of Reitzel admirers echoed Richter's
ultimate sentiments. Even the move to Detroit
itself was motivated in great part by friends in
Detroit who pleaded that Reitzel consent to a
series of weekly lectures in the local Turnhalle.
During the first years of his Detroit journal, Der
arme Teufel, Reitzel continued to speak weekly
in the Turnhalle. Moreover, he reprinted a num-
ber of his speeches from the period before the
advent of the paper in a column entitled Aus
meinen Vorträgen. That these lectures were
successful and ultimately popular seems obvi-
ous from the fact that a group of Detroit friends
belonging to the number which had initially in-
vited Reitzel to Detroit also advanced him the
money required to begin publication of his pe-
riodical. Thus Robert Reitzel was no stranger in
many quarters of Detroit by the time he de-
cided to make his home there, and during his
more than fifteen years of residence, he was
eventually to become quite a well known
personality, whose characteristic appearance
was nearly as familiar to the local German-
American citizenry as his general notoriety was
to the German-American populace at large.
From December 1884 until illness confined
him to bed, Reitzel could be seen each week as
he sat in the storefront where his paper was
printed and occupied himself energetically
with his writing. He had a habit of thrusting
out both lips slightly and sniffing the air occa-
sionally as he worked, thus adding a singularly
curious idiosyncrasy to an already distinctive
mien. Customarily, he would settle in his shirt
sleeves at an old desk situated amidst the para-
phernalia of his occupation. bundles of old
papers and stacks of complimentary issues
from friendly competitors. Here he would sit
by the hour, puffing on his long pipe with the
huge, round bowl and writing rapidly. He
seemed always to be wearing a clean white shirt
but was otherwise inclined to be negligent in
his dress. A casual viewer would likely remem-
ber him from his large head with its luxuriant
growth of curly, black hair, aptly accented with
a long, bushy mustache. In most other respects
he struck one as normal enough. He was a
man of medium build, inclined to be stout, a
description that might well fit any number of
men his age in the primarily German commu-
nity immediately surrounding his home and
office. Yet even as he took up his position as ed-
itor of Der arme Teufel, Robert Reitzel did not
conform to a predictable mold.
Even in its infancy the new journal was likely
to offer in each issue something to pique the
interest of many readers and irritate the sensi-
bilities of still others. The Arme Teufel was very
much the personal vehicle of Robert Reitzel
and his renown was practically the stuff of leg-
end. Many knew or had heard of him; others
spoke of him frequently if only to curse him.
He acknowledged no party affiliation and wel-
comed any and all points of view; but his own
opinions.at least as they appeared in print.
were often bizarre, and the brutal frankness of
his acerbic wit frequently caused his comments
to be perceived as even more severe than origi-
nally intended. His reputation as a maverick
spread quickly and by the first anniversary of
his modest-sized weekly with the odd name, his
credentials as a dissenter were unassailable.
In 1893 a brief illness revealed the first signs
of a tubercular infection which was ultimately
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Robert Reitzel
to kill Reitzel. From 1893 until his death five
years later Reitzel was to be afflicted with se-
vere pain and periodic complete paralysis of
the lower limbs. Moreover, he ultimately
passed his last three years as a complete in-
valid, never leaving his sickroom. Even the
medical guidance and counsel of Dr. Carl
Beck, Professor of Surgery at the New York
School of Medicine, could do little more than
alleviate the suffering to a small degree. De-
spite his disability, however, Reitzel continued
to oversee the publication of his paper as well
as to contribute the majority of the material
printed each week. The tenth anniversary issue
of Der arme Teufel, which appeared in Novem-
ber of 1893, gives little indication of its editor's
affliction or of any abatement in his customary
pugnaciousness. His activities, in fact, contin-
ued with no appreciable diminution Reitzel's
well-known reserves of strength until the day of
his death, 31 March 1898.
Arme Teufel
Reitzel's tenacity, his perseverance in the
pursuit of his editorial duties despite adversity,
is perhaps admirable; certainly it is remark-
able. What seems even more remarkable is that
the death of such a celebrated radical thinker
as Robert Reitzel should have occasioned
markedly positive, unabashedly laudatory press
coverage in the pages of a large number of
conservative German-American journals. It
would seem likely that an individual who had
identified himself so completely with liberal,
and even radical, doctrines would not be
highly esteemed in a society such as that of the
Germans in America. Yet the Detroit Abendpost,
an acknowledged spokesman for the solidly
conservative values of most German-Ameri-
cans, praised Robert Reitzel as doubtless one
of the greatest, if not the greatest German
writer in America.9 Similar commentary ap-
peared elsewhere as well, not only in most of
the Detroit papers, but in a substantial number
of journals throughout the country. Yet none
of the many highly favorable critical assess-
ments of Reitzel's career, particularly his tal-
ents as a journalist, seems to have been moti-
vated primarily by a misplaced sense of respect
for the dead.
No doubt there was some polarization of atti-
tudes toward Reitzel. Reitzel devotees occa-
sionally bordered on the fanatic in their im-
passioned enthusiasm. One gentleman in St.
Louis who found himself lacking a specific
number of the Arme Teufel which was already
out of print borrowed the issue from a friend
and transcribed it in its entirety in order that
his own set might be complete.10 There were
others, however, who were categorically op-
posed to Robert Reitzel and everything he un-
dertook. These people were appalled by his
outlandish tactics, dismayed by his extreme
stance on many issues, and generally disgusted
by his irreverent attitude towards many of the
things they held dear. Yet on the whole Reitzel
seems to have had a pervasive influence on a
much broader spectrum of individual opinion
in the German-American community than the
rather meager subscription figures for his con-
troversial weekly would indicate. The material
which supports such an assumption is relatively
intangible, being most often the cumulative
impression of a great deal of reading in a wide
range of German-American publications and
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Robert Reitzel
seldom anything in the manner of hard fact.
Yet one finds words of praise for the infamous
editor not only from the traditionalist Abend-
post in Detroit, but also from numerous per-
sons of widely divergent backgrounds, from
the professional revolutionary Johann Most in
Boston to Dr. Carl Beck, a respected surgeon
in New York City.
The relative high regard which an extremist
firebrand like Robert Reitzel enjoyed among a
very conventionally-minded populace is per-
haps not as enigmatic as it initially appears, for
closer inspection shows that there was not, in
fact, an irreconcilable disparity between the
more moderate views of the majority of the
German-American public and the liberal ten-
dencies of a decidedly smaller segment of the
population. Undeniably, a very vocal and
highly visible radical or lunatic fringe did exist.
Indeed the actions of a few short-sighted, po-
tential world reformers at the Chicago Hay-
market bombing and subsequent riot in 1886
did much to politicize and finally discredit the
activities of progressive thinkers of all persua-
sions, but the predominant majority of those
German-Americans who called themselves
free-thinkers or even socialists rarely espoused
principles more radical than the three-part
motto of the French Revolution: liberty; equal-
ity; and brotherhood.
Organizations, such as the North American
Turner Union, which were founded directly af-
ter the abortive revolutions of 1848 by expa-
triates who were anxious to realize the aims of
those European uprisings on American soil did
profess ideals which might be considered
vaguely socialistic even today. They oppose, for
example, the extreme concentration of wealth,
and political power in the hands of a few, the
exploitation of labor by capital, and they de-
fend the rights of the individual. Of course,
there were other ideas considered progressive
or even radical at the time which are all but
self-understood today. Among the demands for
change championed by the North American
Turner Union were: an eight-hour day; govern-
mental inspection of factories; child-labor laws;
no more sales of public lands to individuals or
corporations, except under very special condi-
tions for improvement of the land; and manda-
tory and free public education.11
Some organizations, however, did call for
changes which might be considered suspi-
ciously socialistic even today. 'The Platform of
the Radicals,"12 which was drawn up at a meet-
ing of radical thinkers in Philadelphia in 1876,
included many of the demands made by the
North American Gymnastic Union, but it in-
corporated as well calls for the elimination of
all indirect taxes, the dismantling of all mo-
nopolies, and the introduction of progressive
income and inheritance taxes with no taxes on
income at or below a level necessary for ade-
quate support of a family. Yet even in the first
flush of enthusiasm prior to 1860 the goals of
many groups which styled themselves socialis-
tic, communistic, or atheistic frequently re-
vealed nothing more dangerous or radical
than a deep belief and trust in man and nature
and the characteristic freedom inherent in
both.
Socialism seems in any case to have meant
different things to different people. In prac-
tice, the various groups frequently stood for
whatever ideas were thought to be progressive
at a given time, and there was confusion in the
minds of many as to the principles for which
each faction stood. Indeed, the ideals espoused
by one organization usually overlapped with
those defended by yet another, resulting in a
confusing array of goals and aims, the majority
of which were shared by all. The confusion was
exacerbated by the constant attempts of the
leaders of many factions to vie for the support
of the members of other factions. Wilhelm
Weitling, whose own brand of Handwerkerkom-
munismus never held much appeal for men like
Karl Heinzen who were more aristocratically
and theoretically inclined, gives a most incisive
and memorable description of the situation as
it existed in 1850:
Everyone wants to publish a newsletter, ev-
eryone wants to be the head of an organiza-
tion, everyone wants to found an immigrant
aid society, everyone wants singlehandedly to
be the spokesperson for a current popular en-
thusiasm. This person mixes decentralization
with socialism, that one atheism with rational-
ism, the next person is a socialistic gymnast,
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Robert Reitzel
the one after that is working for marked ad-
vances. The first person wants to introduce the
spirit into club meetings, the next person
mankind, the third the people, the fourth the
workers, this person the singers, yet another
the tailors, the gymnasts, the refugees, etc. And
hundreds of others want the same thing but
with a slight variation.13
From about 1860 on much of the ardor
which had been born of the dream of actualiz-
ing freedom from oppression in Europe was
channelled into more directly American con-
cerns, such as homesteading and naturaliza-
tion. The majority of immigrants tended to em-
phasize these and other specifically American
concerns even more during the period follow-
ing the Civil War, and socialistic rhetoric re-
ceded into the background. Many of the mem-
bers of organizations which called themselves
liberal were small businessmen, more con-
cerned about making productive business con-
tacts than refashioning the political system. At
one point Reitzel himself warns: "Naturally
anyone who comes to us to find a forum for his
personal vanity, anyone who comes to us to
find material advantage for his business, any-
one who comes to us just to socialize, will de-
part very quickly."14 Although expressed nega-
tively, as that which is undesirable, the
sentiment makes it obvious that there were at
least sufficient numbers drawn to free religion
for precisely such reasons that Reitzel found it
necessary to mention the problem. One's sus-
picions are confirmed upon reading Heinrich
Hoehn's remarks in Der Nordamerikanische
Turnerbund und seine Stellung zur Arbeiter-Bewe-
gung about those members who are "products
of our capitalistic system" (1). He explains: "I
mean those people, who join a dozen clubs or
small groups in the hopes of gaining customers
or some other advantage for their little busi-
nesses" (1).15
Other sources, too, reveal the problem in
maintaining truly socialistic principles which
resulted from the increasingly large propor-
tion of members who were businessmen and
professionals and whose ardor for socialistic
and communistic ideals had cooled consider-
ably. The groups would meet, usually on a
weekly basis, to listen to a lecturer whose pur-
pose it was to educate the assembly spiritually
and intellectually with an edifying talk on the
latest scientific discoveries, taxing the rich, the
moral character of a life patterned after nature
rather than religion, or perhaps the beauty of
literature and the arts. The primary concern of
any speaker's audience was, however, more
likely to be the liquid and solid refreshments
which were scheduled to conclude the
evening's festivities rather than the speech it-
self. Many of the buildings in which such meet-
ings took place were mortgaged to brewery
owners who extracted the privilege of main-
taining a public house on the premises.
The frequent complaints of the more serious
adherents of liberal philosophies lead one to
conclude that for many the appeal of an
evening at the Turnverein or Free Thought So-
ciety was more of a social than of a scholarly
nature. The scattered comments of various
speakers, reviewers, and historians dealing with
freethought and other liberally-oriented
groups indicate that the membership was not
always made up of persons whose primary in-
terest was the serious pursuit of the ideas pro-
fessed at such meetings. In fact, the lack of seri-
ousness on the part of some supporters is
frequently cited as the reason for the limited
success of such groups.16
Thus even organizations which bore the
word socialistic in their name, as well as many
other German-American groups dubbed lib-
eral by the public at large, probably served a
much more broadly cultural function than has
usually been assumed. Hermann Schlüter dis-
cusses the confusion within the Gymnastic
Union concerning the meaning or significance
of the word sozialistisch, which appeared in
early versions of the group's name:17
The socialism of the American Gymnastic
Movement was more a name than a representa-
tion of truly socialistic principles. The group
was never a proletraian organization and the
socialism which was expressed among its mem-
bers was a mix of bourgoise radicalism and
vague socialistic leanings, which had their ori-
gin more in sympathic feelings than in actual
understanding or philosophical conviction.18
It was very difficult to maintain support over
an extended period for controversial theories
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Robert Reitzel
which heralded the freedom of the individual
in a country where the matter was already
largely an accomplished fact. Freethought or-
ganizations faced chronic difficulties in at-
tempting to maintain the interest of their
members in the professed ideals of the organi-
zations. With the passage of time most Ger-
man-American organizations that had debated
the burning intellectual issues of contempo-
rary Europe altered their predominantly politi-
cal stance and shifted their attention to cul-
tural concerns.
Robert Reitzel, too, although he never really
lost interest in the social and political issues of
the day, became increasingly concerned with
cultural, and specifically literary, matters. His
appeal and the appeal of Der arme Teufel cer-
tainly extended far beyond the circle of wild-
eyed radicals with |