✚8612✚ German pre WW1 Worker Cyclist Federation Solidarity ARB membership badge

Original German Worker Cyclist Federation Solidarity ARB membership badge - pre WW1, IN VERY NICE CONDITION, FIRST FORM - RARE BADGE, SIZE: 37 mm

HISTORY OF THE ARB:

German Worker Cyclist Federation "Solidarity" ("ARB", short for Arbeiter-Radfahrer-Bund "Solidarität") was founded in 1896 in Offenbach and re-founded in 1951 in Frankfurt / Main. With its several hundred thousand members ARB was the largest cycling federation in the world. In May 1896 18 delegates from cycling clubs decided from twelve cities on the 4th Congress of Workers' Cyclists in Offenbach  to unite to the German Worker Cyclist Federation "Solidarity". Three years earlier, in Leipzig mostly socialist members, established a central organization with an explicit political program. The federal government was prohibited, although the Socialist Laws (1878 to 1890) no longer applied. In Offenbach the new federation largely depoliticized the program.