Adler was born on 24 June 1852, in
Prague, the son of a
Jewish merchant, who came from
Leipnik in
Moravia. His family moved to the
Leopoldstadt borough of
Vienna when he was three years old. He attended the renowned Catholic
Schottenstift gymnasium, together with
Heinrich Friedjung one of the few Jewish students, whereafter he studied
chemistry and
medicine at the
University of Vienna. Having graduated in 1881, he worked as assistant of
Theodor Meynert at the psychiatric department of the
General Hospital. In 1878, he had married
Emma Braun. Their son
Friedrich was born in 1879. From 1882 to 1889, the couple resided at 19 Berggasse in the
Alsergrund borough of Vienna, an address that later became famous as the office of
Sigmund Freud (the present-day
Sigmund Freud Museum). Adler initially supported the
German national movement led by
Georg von Schönerer and worked on the 1882
Linz Program. However, Schönerer's increasingly
antisemitic policies, culminating in the amendment of an
Aryan paragraph, led to an estrangement with Adler, who focussed on
social issues. From 1886, he published the
Marxist journal
Gleichheit (
Equality), covering the working conditions of the
Wienerberger brick factory and agitating against the
truck system. After
Gleichheit was banned, he issued the
Arbeiter-Zeitung (''Workers' Newspaper'') from 1889. Adler travelled to
Germany and
Switzerland, where he met with
Friedrich Engels,
August Bebel and
Karl Liebknecht. He was charged several times for his activities and spent nine months in prison. Adler, a both moderate and charismatic
social democrat, was able to unite the Austrian labour movement under his leadership, fighting against the anti-socialist laws implemented by the
Cisleithanian government of Minister President
Eduard Taaffe in 1884. At an 1888 conference in
Hainfeld he formed the Social Democratic Workers' Party and became its first chairman. As a member of the
Imperial Council parliament from 1905, he played a leading role in the fight for
universal suffrage, finally achieved under Minister President
Max Wladimir von Beck in 1906, whereafter the Social Democrats emerged as winner from the
1907 Cisleithanian legislative election. An active supporter of the
Second International, Adler tried to maintain the unity of the Austrian Social Democrats beyond ethnic conflicts and backed the idea of the
United States of Greater Austria replacing the
Dual Monarchy. Before
World War I, Adler was leader of what is now called the
Social Democratic Party of Austria in Vienna. He publicly backed the Imperial government's decision to go to war, but had private misgivings. Entering the new Austrian government in October 1918, he advocated the unification of the rump Austrian state with Germany but died of heart failurecoincidentally on the last day of World War Ibefore he could pursue this project. He was the father of
Friedrich Adler. Psychiatrist
Viktor Frankl is named after Adler, his father was a socialist and admirer of him. == See also ==