Eccarius, Johann Georg

Born Aug. 23, 1818, in Friedrichroda; died March 1899 in London. Figure in the German and international working-class movement.

A tailor by profession, Eccarius was a member of the League of the Just and, later, of the Communist League; when the Communist League split in 1850, he sided with K. Marx. In London he was a leader of the German Workers’ Educational Society. Eccarius helped found and took part in the First International; he served as a member of the General Council from 1864 to 1872, as general secretary from 1867 to 1871, and as corresponding secretary for America from 1870 to 1872. After the London Congress of the International in 1871 he aligned himself with reformist trade union leaders, and he supported the bourgeois and reformist elements in the International. After the First International ceased its activities, Eccarius took part in the trade union movement.