Haenisch initially opposed World War I in 1914, but subsequently supported it. In a speech given to the 1916 SDP conference, he remembered the 'August enthusiasm': He became famous, during World War I, as a member of the Lensch-Cunow-Haenisch group, a nationalist tendency within SPD which based the support of the SPD for the "war credits" in the Reichstag on a Marxist theory suggesting that a German victory in World War I could be used by SPD, which was still a dominant force in European socialism, to transform Germany into a socialist state and to trigger socialist revolutions in the defeated countries. His associates in this movement were Heinrich Cunow and Paul Lensch, both former left-wing social democrats and Marxists close to Rosa Luxemburg. He became editor of Die Glocke from 1915.
When it became evident Germany would lose the war, Haenisch became part of the reformist stream led by later President Friedrich Ebert. In 1919 he became Prussian Minister of education and in 1922 Regional President of the Prussian region of Wiesbaden. Since Wiesbaden was under French occupation he was not allowed to reside there and continued to live in Berlin where he also served as a member of Landtag. Haenisch realized the increasing threat to German Parliamentary Democracy emerging from totalitarian communism and fascism, and became one of the founders of "Reichsbanner", a paramilitary organisation founded to protect the Weimar Republic and rallies of democratic parties like SPD, German Democratic Party and Zentrum. Haenisch died, aged 49, in Wiesbaden.
Family and children
Haenisch was married to a worker's daughter from Dortmund, and had four sons and a daughter, Elsa, who emigrated with her Jewish spouse to the United States in 1938 and died in Florida in 1988. One of his sons was communist theoretician Walter Haenisch, a victim of Stalin's great purge.
Works
Ferdinand Freiligrath: Wir sind die Kraft! Auswahl politischer und proletarischer Gedichte. Mit biographischen Skizze und erläuiterndem Nachwort von Konrad Haenisch. 3. Auflage. Gerisch, Dortmund 1910.
Die Hetze auf die Arbeiterjugend. Aus den Reden des Landtagsabgeordneten Konrad Haenisch in den Sitzungen des Preußischen Abgeordnetenhauses am 11. und 12. Mai 1914. Ebert, Berlin 1914.
Wo steht der Hauptfeind? Verlag der Internationalen Korrespondenz Baumeister, Berlin 1915.
Der deutsche Arbeiter und sein Vaterland. Verlag der Internationalen Korrespondenz. Berlin-Karlshorst 1915.
Sozialdemokratie und nationale Verteidigung. Buchhandlung Vorwärts, Berlin 1916.
Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie in und nach dem Weltkriege. Mit einem Anhang: Zur Bibliographie der sozialistischen Kriegsliteratur. Schwetschke, Berlin 1916.
Franz Klupsch: Die Judenhetze. Eine schwere Gafahr für den staatlichen und wirtschaftlichen Wiederaufbau Deutschlands. Mit einem Geleitbrief von Konrad Haenisch. Berlin 1920.
Neue Bahnen der Kulturpolitik. Aus der Reformpraxis der deutschen Republik. Dietz, Berlin 1921.
Lassalle. Mensch und Politiker. Mit einem Bildnis Lassalles von Jakob Steinhardt und 10 Faksimile-Beilagen. Schneider, Berlin 1923.
August Bebel. Schneider, Berlin 1923.
Johann Plenge: In den Umsturztagen 1918/19. Aus meinem Briefwechsel mit Konrad Haenisch. Mit einem Brief an Philipp Scheidemann vom 8. November 1918. Bredt, Münster.
