ADLER, FRIEDRICH

ADLER, FRIEDRICH (1879–1960), prominent figure in the Austrian labor movement and secretary of the Socialist International. The son of victor adler , he was born in Vienna, studied physics in Switzerland, and lectured at Zurich University. Adler, who was baptized at the age of seven and later renounced Christianity, had no religion. Adler returned to Austria at the age of 32 and entered active political life. During World War I he attacked the policy of the Austrian government and criticized his own Socialist party for supporting it. In order to awaken the public conscience against the horrors of war he shot and killed Count Sturgkh, the prime minister, in a Vienna restaurant on October 21, 1916, and was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to 18 years imprisonment, and, under the amnesty which followed the fall of the monarchy in 1918, he was released. Adler was one of the founders of the left-wing International Working Union of Socialist Parties in 1921. From 1923 to 1939 he acted as secretary of the Labor and Socialist International. During World War II he lived in the United States but returned to Europe after the defeat of Germany. While he had many contacts with Zionist Socialists and although he had a Jewish marriage, he believed in assimilation and opposed Jewish national aspirations. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Braunthal, Victor und Friedrich Adler (1965). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration, 1 (1980), 6–7, incl. bibl.; R. Ardelt, Friedrich Adler. Probleme einer Persönlichkeitsentwicklung um die Jahrhundertwende (1984). (Robert Weltsch)