Naumann, Friedrich (1860–1919)

German politician and writer. He was a founding member of the Democratic party and its first chairman in 1919. His influential book Mitteleuropa/Central Europe (1915) urged a union of Germany and Austria-Hungary and a new, more humane and democratic organization of industry after World War I.

Naumann was born in Stormthal near Leipzig. A Lutheran pastor, he soon became active in the Christian-Social movement and worked to broaden the base of Wilhelmine Germany through cooperation between the workers and the established classes. In 1896 he founded a National-Social Union (which had nothing to do with the later Nazis). He was a member of the Reichstag (parliament) from 1907, sitting for the Progressive party.