Early years Wilhelm Christian Weitling was born in
Magdeburg,
Westphalia, the son of Christiane Weitling and Guilliaume Terijon. Weitling's father was a young French officer who was
billeted in occupied Prussia, who met and fell in love with Weitling's mother, a household maid. His parents never married, with his father dying in the ill-fated 1812
French invasion of Russia. Weitling was raised in dire poverty, frequently in the care of others while his mother eked out a meager living as a maid and cook. His formal education was minimal, limited to elementary study in the public school of Magdeburg and such reading as he was able to do on his own at the local library. He was raised as a
Roman Catholic through the age of 12, and read the Bible attentively, retaining an ability to quote scripture throughout his life. In keeping with the dual nationality of his birth, Weitling was bilingual in
French and
German, learning
English as well as the basics of
Italian later in his life. Weitling was
apprenticed to a tailor at an early age, living with his master and learning the skill of tailoring garments for women and men thoroughly. He became a
journeyman at the age of 18, leaving his hometown to travel across the
German states in search of employment. He landed in the city of
Leipzig in 1830, where he began to take an interest in politics and to try his hand at the writing of satirical poetry. He made his way to
Dresden in the fall of 1832 and from there to
Vienna in 1834, where he worked fabricating artificial flowers and decorations for women's clothing. In the fall of 1837 Weitling immigrated to
Paris, a city which he had briefly visited two years before. He would remain there for four years, becoming deeply involved in the radical political ideas of the day, in particular the writings of
Fourier,
Owen and
Cabet.
Political activity After joining the
League of the Just in 1837, Weitling joined
Parisian workers in protests and street battles in 1839.
Tristram Hunt called his doctrine "a highly emotional mix of
Babouvist communism, chiliastic Christianity, and millenarian populism": In conformity with the work of the Christian radical
Felicité de Lamennais, Weitling urged installing communism by physical force with the help of a 40,000-strong army of ex-convicts. A prelapsarian
community of goods, fellowship, and societal harmony would then ensue, directed by Weitling himself. While
Marx and
Engels struggled with the intricacies of industrial capitalism and modern modes of production, Weitling revived the apocalyptic politics of the sixteenth-century
Münster Anabaptists and their gory attempts to usher in the
Second Coming. Much to Marx and Engels's annoyance, Weitling's giddy blend of evangelism and protocommunism attracted thousands of dedicated disciples across the Continent. In 1838, he published his first work,
Die Menschheit, wie sie ist und wie sie sein sollte (The human race as it is, and as it should be), which was translated into Hungarian and other languages. In 1841, after the abortive rebellion of the
Blanquists, he went to
Switzerland, visiting
Geneva,
Vevey and
Langenthal in the
canton of Bern, and finally settling in
Zürich in 1843. At all these places, he promoted the doctrines of communism with his preaching and publications, including the 1842 work
Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit (Guarantees of harmony and freedom). Weitling's work
Das Evangelium eines armen Sünders (The Poor Sinner's Gospel) came out in 1845, but by this time the attention of the Swiss authorities had been attracted. He was arrested and prosecuted for
revolutionary agitation, including
blasphemy on account of having published a text which depicted
Jesus Christ as both a communist and the
illegitimate child of
Mary. Found guilty, he was given a six-month sentence. On his release, he was deported back to Prussia. He resided for a time in
Hamburg, but then left on a journey which took him to London,
Treves,
Brussels and New York City. In Weitling's 1847 book
Gospel of Poor Sinners, he traced communism back to early Christianity. Upon the outbreak of the
revolutions of 1848 in Germany, Weitling returned to Germany, preaching his communism to little effect. When the revolutions failed in 1849, he returned to New York thus becoming one of the
Forty-Eighters. His book
Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom was praised by
Bruno Bauer,
Ludwig Feuerbach and
Mikhail Bakunin, the latter of whom Weitling was to meet in
Zürich in 1843.
Karl Marx, in an article from 1844, referred to Weitling's work as the "vehement and brilliant literary debut of the German workers," Although
John Spargo suggested that "what won from Marx this high-sounding praise was simply the fact that Weitling's appeals were addressed to the workers as a class", Marx himself emphasized Weitling's theoretical and philosophical "brilliance," which compared favorably to the more "economically" inclined English workers and the more practical "politically" oriented French workers.
American years Weitling continued his activism on behalf of communism in the United States. In January 1850, he began the publication of a monthly journal,
Die Republik der Arbeiter. By the end of the year, it had a circulation of 4,000. Toward the end of his life he turned from activism to technological and astronomical studies. For seven years, he was register at Castle Garden. He received nine patents for improvements to
sewing machines, among which were double stitch, button hole and embroidery attachments. He received a patent for a dress-trimming crimper which he had worked on for 17 years, and on his death left several unfinished machines. He participated with the experimental German-American settlement of
Communia, Iowa. Weitling died in New York City. A widow and six children survived him. == Works ==