Johannes Ronge - Political Activities

Political Activities

Ronge took part in the political struggles of 1848 and was prominent as a democratic leader. He was obliged to flee to London, where he signed in 1851, with Arnold Ruge, Gustav Struve, Gottfried Kinkel, and others, a democratic manifesto to the German people, and where he became the leader of a free congregation. While in London, Ronge was subject to surveillance by The Police Union of German States because his wife's sister was married to Carl Shurz, whom they viewed as an emissary of communism.

Marx and Engels wrote "Heroes of the Exile" in 1852 in which they ridiculed Ronge and others who fled Germany following the failed revolution.

Ronge and his wife moved to Manchester, England, where they founded a kindergarten. In 1860 they relocated to Leeds, as other supporters of the kindergarten were disturbed by Ronge's religious views, and opened another kindergarten.

In consequence of the amnesty granted by the Prussian government, in 1861 he again made his appearance in Breslau. He founded a reform association in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1863, and endeavored to revive the waning German Catholicism. In 1873, he moved to Darmstadt, and there edited a paper in promotion of his plans. Ronge sought to interest liberal Jewish congregations in a common free religion, and in the 1870s and 1880s he agitated energetically against spreading antisemitism. He died in Vienna in 1887.