SPD Activism
Initially a member of the Centre Party, Laufenberg joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the early 1900s. He became associated with a faction on the left of the party led by Wilhelm Schmitt and Peter Berten and when this group gained the upper hand within the Düsseldorf party in 1904 Laufenberg was appointed editor of the party organ Volkszeitung. Laufenberg also worked as an educationalist within the party, offering basic courses on socialism to party members of Düsseldorf. At this point in his career Laufenberg endorsed orthodox Marxism and supported Clara Zetkin in her ideological struggles with revisionists like Gerhard Hildebrand. He left the city in 1908 when he moved to Hamburg, leaving the Düsseldorf group without their leading intellectual.
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