Adler, Viktor

Related Category: Austria and Hungary, History: Biographies

(vĭk´tôr äd´lər), 1852–1918, Austrian socialist politician and journalist, founder and leader of the Austrian Social Democratic party. Initially a German nationalist, he became a Socialist after meeting Engels and Bebel in Germany and Switzerland. He published Arbeiter Zeitung, the main socialist organ, and founded the Austrian Social Democratic party, advocating federalism and autonomy for peoples of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He entered parliament in 1905 as a spokesman for universal suffrage. His goal of a unified Austro-Hungarian party was frustrated when Czech Social Democrats broke away. Prominent in the Second International, he also worked for a peaceful settlement of the war at a Socialist conference in 1917. When the Austro-Hungarian empire was collapsing, he advocated Anschluss with Germany. He was named foreign secretary of German Austria, but died on Nov. 11, 1918, one day before the republic was proclaimed.