The "Urgent Call for Unity" (German: Dringender Appell für die Einheit) was an appeal by the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (ISK) to defeat the Nazis. It was signed by nearly three dozen well-known German scientists, authors and artists in advance of the German federal election in July 1932.
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Background
The June 1932 appeal called for support of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD) in the Reichstag election in order to prevent the National Socialists from gaining control of the government. The appeal was unsuccessful, and Adolf Hitler was later appointed chancellor, after which the Nazis were able to consolidate power.
The appeal was published in the ISK's newspaper, Der Funke, in response to the growing strength of the Nazi Party. Placards were also put up all over Berlin.
Second attempt
On February 12, 1933, two weeks after Adolf Hitler was named Reichskanzler, the identical appeal was made to rally against Hitler in advance of the German federal election, March 1933. Placards appeared on February 14. This time, there were only 19 signatories, among them, Heinrich Mann and Käthe Kollwitz and her husband, Karl.
Immediate cultural repercussions
On February 15, 1933, the day after the new placards appeared, both Mann, then head of the poetry department, and Kollwitz were forced to withdraw from the Akademie der Künste, Berlin by Bernhard Rust, a Nazi who became the acting head of the Prussian Ministry of Culture on February 2, 1933, and with that, curator of the Akademie. Rust insisted that their presence endangered the very existence of the Akademie.
Akademie president Max von Schillings called a meeting of the entire Akademie that very evening, at which he announced the departure of Kollwitz and said that Mann would also have to quit, or he would himself quit. The minutes of the meeting report that there were protests from members because Mann was not present, nor had he been invited. The meeting was interrupted so Mann could be called by telephone, after which the meeting was resumed and Mann's resignation was announced. There were protests, including one from Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who then walked out. In the following days and months, numerous leading artists quit or were forced out of the institution. Alfons Paquet declared his solidarity in a letter on February 17. In March 1933, Paquet, Alfred Döblin and Thomas Mann (younger brother of Heinrich) quit. In April, Ricarda Huch quit. Max Liebermann, Paul Mebes, Otto Dix and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff quit in May 1933, after the Nazi book burnings. In July 1937, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ernst Barlach and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner quit.