Theodor Barth


Theodor Barth was a German liberal politician and publicist. He was a member of the Reichstag between 1881 and 1884, between 1885 and 1898, and between 1901 and 1903.

Career

Barth started his political career with the National Liberal Party. He soon rejected the Manchesterism of the old liberals, though, and claimed that liberalism needed a social programme. To that end, he sought the cooperation of the Social Democrats, and at multiple times voted against his own party. In the German Freeminded Party, founded in 1884, Barth would soon find himself opposed to the leadership of Eugen Richter. When the Freeminded Party split in 1893, Barth became a member of the Freeminded Union, instead of the Freeminded People's Party of Richter. In 1903, Friedrich Naumann would join the Freeminded Union as well. Barth however would found the Democratic Union in 1908, together with Rudolf Breitscheid and Hellmut von Gerlach, after the Freeminded Union's participation in the Bülow-Block coalition in the 1907 elections.
Barth founded the liberal weekly Die Nation in 1883 and remained as editor until his death in 1909.