Proudhon found an ardent disciple in Wilhelm Marr, who at that time stood at the head of the German Democratic Union of manual workmen of "young Germany" in Switzerland. Born on May 6, 1819, at Magdeburg, Marr was originally intended for a merchant's calling, but after his stay in Switzerland (1841) gave it up entirely, and turned his attention to a political and literary career. At first, attracted by Weitling's Communism, he later on came into decided opposition to it from his accentuation of the individualist standpoint, which he, as an ardent follower of Feuerbach, pursued according to Proudhon's rather than Stirner's views. In conjunction with a certain Hermann Doeleke, Marr endeavoured to instil these views into the above-mentioned Swiss workmen's unions. His programme was quite of a negative character; as he himself describes it: "The abolition of all prevailing ideas of Religion, State, and Society was the aim, which we followed with a full knowledge of its logical consequences." Doeleke called it the "theory of no consolation"[7] (_Trostlosigkeits-theorie_). In December, 1844, Marr published a journal in Lausanne called _Pages of the Present for Social Life (Blaetter der Gegenwart fuer sociales Leben)_, to promote the literary acceptance of this theory. "With remorseless logic," says Marr himself (_Das junge Deutschland_, p. 271) "we attacked not only existing institutions in State and Church, but State and Church themselves in general; and as a first attempt, which we in the second number made in the shape of an article upon the Tschech outrage, produced no ill consequences for us, our audacity grew to such a pitch that Doeleke often preached Atheism, and the word 'Atheism' was to be seen at the head of his articles. I did the same in the department of social criticism, while, following the example of Proudhon, I put before my readers at the very beginning the final consequences of my argument." For a time the Government did not interfere with Marr's propaganda, but in July, 1845, it stopped the publication of his journal, and Marr was soon after expelled from the country. This was the end of the results of his propaganda in Switzerland; for in the popular reflex of Marr's doctrines we can hardly find more than the Radicalism of German Democrats, as preached by Boerne, coloured by a few traces of Proudhon's teaching. This shade of opinion was then quite modern; we recognise it in Alfred Meisener, Ludwig Pfau, and the Vienna group, even in Boerne, who died in the forties; the doctrine was part of the spirit of the age, and did not need to be derived from Proudhon. [7] Wilhem Marr, _Das junge Deutschland in der Schweiz_, p. 135. Leipsic, 1846.