author
Paul Eltzbacher
1868–1928
Best known for a landmark study of anarchism, this German legal scholar wrote with unusual clarity about political ideas that were often treated only as slogans. His career also moved through university teaching, public office, and the turbulent ideological debates of early 20th-century Germany.
1 Audiobook
Anarchism
by Paul Eltzbacher
About the author
Born in Cologne on February 18, 1868, Paul Eltzbacher trained in law and built his career in German universities, teaching in places including Halle and Berlin. He was a jurist as well as a prolific writer on civil, commercial, and economic law.
He is most widely remembered for Der Anarchismus (1900), a comparative study of major anarchist thinkers that helped make the subject more accessible to a broader readership. Rather than writing as a movement insider, he approached anarchism as a legal scholar, organizing and explaining a wide range of ideas with a methodical style that gave the book lasting influence.
Eltzbacher's later life brought him into politics as well as scholarship, and his views shifted sharply in the unsettled years after World War I. He died in Berlin on October 25, 1928. Today, he is chiefly of interest as a striking example of how one writer could move between careful academic analysis and the fierce ideological struggles of his time.