Lorenz Cantador

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Franz Laurenz Joseph Maria Cantador , also Franz Lorenz Joseph Maria Cantador (born June 1, 1810 in Düsseldorf , † December 1, 1883 in New York City ) was commander of the Düsseldorf vigilante group during the German Revolution of 1848/49 , later commander of a regiment of the northern states in the American Civil War . With Anton Bloem , Lorenz Clasen , Joseph Euler , Ferdinand Freiligrath , Moritz Geisenheimer , Paul von Hatzfeldt , Sophie von Hatzfeldt , Louis Kugelmann , Ferdinand Lassalle , Peter Joseph Neunzig , Carl Quentin , Hugo Wesendonck , Wilhelm Weyers and Julius Wulff he was one of the main actors the March Revolution in Düsseldorf.

Foundation and leadership of the revolutionary vigilante group in Düsseldorf

In the genre painting Workers in Front of the Magistrate , created from 1848 onwards , the Düsseldorf painter Johann Peter Hasenclever , who served as an officer in Cantador's militia, recorded the content and moods of the revolution of 1848 by means of a generalized scene in a council chamber. However, the relation to the scene is specific. On October 9, 1848, a delegation of 600 unemployed workers whose work the city of Düsseldorf could no longer carry out submitted a petition to the town hall. The view through the window of the council chamber, whose rococo décor symbolizes the outdated conditions of rule, shows a public mass demonstration at the foot of a statue of St. George with a black and red on an urban square that is modeled on the market square in Düsseldorf - is decorated with a golden flag .
Contemporary illustration of the festival of German unity on August 6, 1848 on Friedrichsplatz in Düsseldorf
Awakening Germania by Christian Köhler , 1849: The geniuses of justice and freedom appear to her, while bondage and discord plunge into the abyss.
Politics in Oyster House (politics of the oyster house) , paintings by Richard Caton Woodville , 1848: In this resulting in Dusseldorf genre picture is politicized by newspaper reports atmosphere and the inconsistent between generations rating of political events from the perspective of a contemporary American painter held.
Johann Peter Hasenclever : The farewell of the vigilante, oil on cardboard

Cantador came from a middle-class family with northern Italian roots who had settled in Düsseldorf in the 18th century and operated the textile trade there . In the political life of the city the family by some councilors, a councilor and was mayor already reached a high reputation as Cantador 1844, during the period of pre-March , the head of the shooting club St. Sebastianus was chosen and within the shooting club, a uniformed Jägercorps founded . Since the mid-1840s, Cantador - together with Hugo Wesendonck - also chaired the General Association of Carnevalsfreunde , one of the most notorious carnival societies in the Rhineland , whose satirical, provocative and caricaturing Prussian actions soon led to the Prussian Interior Minister's ban on society.

After the bad harvest in 1846, after the economic crisis year of 1847 and after the February Revolution that broke out in France in 1848, political unrest flared up in the Kingdom of Prussia with calls for democratic reforms and national unity. These riots quickly expanded into the March Revolution . During this time Cantador intervened in the events in Düsseldorf, the parliamentary seat of the Prussian Rhine Province . On March 18, 1848, the day before King Friedrich Wilhelm IV had approved the establishment of civil guards, he was one of the founders of a vigilante group that elected him commander on March 26, 1848 with 735 of 949 votes. By November 1848 around 2,500 men had joined it, among them Lorenz Clasen, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Johann Peter Hasenclever , Carl Hilgers , Carl Wilhelm Hübner , Rudolf Jordan , Ferdinand Lassalle, Carl Friedrich Lessing , Wolfgang Müller von Königswinter and Hugo Wesendonck. The vigilante group, which was later increased to around 3,500 men, was able to arm itself from older stocks of the Cologne artillery depot. The task of the vigilante group was to “protect legal freedom, maintain unity and peace among all members of civil society, and ward off any disturbance of public order”. The vigilante group was also the symbol of the democratic awakening and the seizure of power by the people. The armament of the people was based on the people's armed forces idea of ​​the French Revolution . Cantador had the vigilante parade in the city to demonstrate this to the representatives of the Prussian crown and the Prussian military.

In the initial phase of the revolution, Cantador was one of the moderate forces who rejected the abolition of the monarchy by proclaiming a republic based on the French model , as the early socialist- inspired Düsseldorf Volksklub around Ferdinand Lassalle, Paul von Hatzfeldt and Julius Wulff sought. Programmatically, he was close to the democratic movement , whose main focus was on the idea of popular sovereignty , which was to be realized under the umbrella of a constitutional monarchy . On March 19, 1848, Cantador donated a black, red and gold flag to the St. Sebastianus riflemen , the symbol of German popular sovereignty and the national unity of Germany, which was then hoisted on the Düsseldorf City Hall . Together with Hugo Wesendonck, Cantador founded the Association for Democratic Monarchy , which due to the elections on May 1, 1848 , was able to send its chairman Hugo Wesendonck to the Frankfurt National Assembly and the members Joseph Euler and Anton Bloem to the Prussian National Assembly .

Cantador appeared at the festival of German unity on August 6, 1848, which was organized by men from the vigilante group, the Association for the Democratic Monarchy , Düsseldorf painters and members of the newly founded Düsseldorf gymnastics club after the election of Johann von Austria as " Reichsverweser " next to Lord Mayor Wilhelm Dietze as the main speaker. The event took place in Dusseldorf on the then Friedrichplatz place - in front of one of Karl Ferdinand Sohn designed and Dietrich Meinardus created Germania -Figur of wood, cardboard and canvas, with raised sword in her right hand, 15 feet high, and in front of a black and red golden standard with a double-headed, uncrowned imperial eagle as the coat of arms of the German Confederation adopted by the Frankfurt National Assembly in March 1848 . Germania and standard were festively illuminated with Bengal fires to the sound of the song Des Deutschen Vaterland . In the enthusiasm for national ideals, the artists' association Malkasten was founded on the same day .

When King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Visited his nephew Friedrich in Düsseldorf on August 14, 1848 during the Cologne Cathedral Building Festival and drove down today's Königsallee (then Kastanienallee) in an open carriage on the way from Bergisches Bahnhof to Schloss Jägerhof, he was caught by anti-Prussian protests received and pelted with horse droppings. This incident caused unrest among soldiers in the Prussian garrison on the evening of the same day, who finally attacked Düsseldorf citizens with drawn sabers. Cantador alerted the vigilantes, who managed to push the soldiers back into the barracks. When the soldiers began harassing citizens again the next day, Cantador had the troublemakers surrounded so that they could only return to their barracks, which earned him the praise of the Düsseldorf citizens. Nevertheless, on August 19, 1848, Cantador declared his resignation from the office of vigilante chief. He did this with a view to his political commitment, which he regarded as incompatible with the neutral position in the vigilante group. The previous deputy, Cantador's cousin Lorenz Clasen, was then entrusted with the command of the vigilante group. Cantador used the freedom of action gained in this way to speak at public meetings and to inspire the masses, around September 1848 in front of around 10,000 people in Neuss.

Cantador's moderate stance changed in the course of 1848 after the Rhenish-liberal Prussian March government under Ludolf Camphausen and David Hansemann had failed, Prussia had signed the Treaty of Malmö , which was perceived as treason , on the Schleswig-Holstein question , and news of the Shooting of the German-Catholic politician Robert Blum and the forced relocation of the Prussian National Assembly to Brandenburg an der Havel . On November 8, 1848, the majority of the vigilante group declared themselves to be the "armed organ of the revolution". On November 12, 1848, Lorenz Cantador declared at a meeting of the People's Club, to whose members he had kept in constant contact, that a fight might soon come. A commission was then formed to coordinate the building of the barricades. On November 14, 1848, the revolutionary forces in Düsseldorf called for the implementation of the tax boycott decided by the Prussian National Assembly, the implementation and monitoring of which the vigilante declared itself to be "permanent", i.e. wanted to be constantly active. On November 17, 1848, Lorenz Cantador was re-elected commander of the vigilante group. On November 18, Cantador, together with Ferdinand Lassalle and other delegates, went to the local authorities and enforced that some taxes should no longer be levied. On November 19, 1848, the vigilantes demonstrated their determination with a parade and 2,800 participants. On November 21, in addition to the Düsseldorf vigilante, the civil guards of Gerresheim, Bilk, Ratingen and Neuss paraded through the streets of Düsseldorf to reinforce the demands of the Prussian National Assembly. A little later, on Cantador's orders, the vigilante group searched the Düsseldorf post office for taxpayers' money, whereupon Düsseldorf's district president Adolph von Spiegel-Borlinghausen and division commander Lieutenant General Otto von Drigalski imposed a state of siege on November 22, 1848 and banned the vigilante group. When officers of the vigilante group then called for passive resistance and not to surrender the weapons, the Prussian Interior Minister Otto Freiherr von Manteuffel managed to convince King Friedrich Wilhelm IV., Who had not forgotten his unfriendly reception in Düsseldorf and the horse droppings intended for him, the Vigilante banned personally on November 25, 1848. On November 28, Cantador was questioned by the Ammon's State Prosecutor about the allegation that he had exceeded his powers to declare the vigilante's permanent status because a local council resolution was required to do so. The Prussian government, which Cantador regarded as a leading figure in the revolution and suspected him of having conspiratorial ties to Berlin, had him arrested on December 9, 1848, as had Ferdinand Lassalle and Wilhelm Weyers, the leaders of the tax refusal campaign, before. Until March 18, 1849, Cantador was held without a formal charge. After the arrest, the state procurator received a petition and a list of signatures, in which around 1500 citizens of the city demanded the release of Cantador. The Düsseldorf member of the Prussian National Assembly, Anton Bloem, wrote to the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal in Cologne on February 28, 1849, stating that Cantador had called for the defense of public order rather than an attack. On March 17, 1849, the authorities dropped the proceedings against Cantador. The following day, the anniversary of the March Revolution in Berlin, Cantador was released from custody, while Lassalle and Weyers remained in custody. Friedrich Engels attributed this in an article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung to the fact that Cantador had a lot of friends among the "Düsseldorf bourgeoisie " despite his political appearance .

During the so-called May riots in 1849 , Cantador came into the public eye again. At the beginning of this unrest, on May 7, 1849, the district president had again imposed a state of siege on Düsseldorf. On May 9, 1849, the doctor Peter Joseph Neunzig called from Cantador's house on the market square to openly resist the Prussian military and to support a "provisional government of the Rhenish Republic " founded in Elberfeld (→ Elberfeld Uprising ). Cantodor did not finish his speech, but pushed him away from the window of his house. By the morning of the following day, bloody barricade fighting broke out between members of the militia and the Prussian military. 16 deaths were to be mourned, among them the young painter Ludwig von Milewski . Cantador immediately fled to avoid being arrested again.

Escape and the second half of life in the United States

His escape took him via France to the United States, where his traces are initially lost. Cantador's economic situation was very precarious because he had used up his financial resources for his political cause. His Düsseldorf cloth business had come to a standstill during his detention. On April 30, 1851, Cantador wrote a letter from Philadelphia to Ferdinand Lassalle in which he expressed his hope that the revolution in Germany would soon break out again and that he would return with many like-minded people. In this letter he also reported on his failed attempts to set up a business for importing goods from France to the USA. In 1855 he joined the German Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia . In the American Civil War he served from 1861 in the 27th Pennsylvania Regiment in the Army of the Potomac of the Northern States, initially as a major. A little later he rose to lieutenant colonel (lieutenant colonel) the regimental commander and deputy Adolph Buschbeck on. Buschbeck was a member of the Prussian garrison in Düsseldorf and also emigrated to the USA for political reasons. In August 1862, Cantador fought in the Second Battle of the Bull Run . Brigadier General Adolph von Steinwehr praised his brave work. On October 26, 1862, Cantador was promoted to regimental commander. In this capacity he commanded the 27th Pennsylvania Regiment at the Battle of Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863 and at the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863 , where he contributed to the victory of the Northern States by holding an important position at the local cemetery . At the age of 53, he resigned from active military service on November 16, 1863 because of an injury that had broken open again and an inflammation of the pericardium and pleura, in order to then work in various civil professions. Due to his voluntary status, he was not entitled to any pension payments. He worked for Castle Garden Immigration Services in New York and for the Northern Pacific Railway . He lived in New York City and State and Portland, Oregon . From 1870 to 1873 he was listed as a member of the German Society of the City of New York . On December 1, 1883, Cantador died poor and forgotten in New York City, where he had last stayed with German friends. A state disability pension applied for on January 10, 1883 was granted one month after his death. Since Cantador had never married, he died without leaving a family.

memory

  • The city of Düsseldorf honored their son by naming Cantadorstrasse in the Stadtmitte district and by a memorial relief by the sculptor Willi Hoselmann in the arcades of the administration building at Marktplatz 6 .
  • In memory of Lorenz Cantador, the Düsseldorfer Gesellschaft für Rechtsgeschichte eV has awarded the Cantador Medal since 1993 .

See also

literature

  • Hanna Gagel: The Düsseldorf School of Painting in the Political Situation of Vormärz and 1848 . In: Wend von Kalnein (Ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 .
  • Winfried Lierenfeld: Soldier of Freedom: The Life of Vigilante General Lorenz Cantador 1810-1883 . Ruhr-Echo-Verlag, Bochum 2009, ISBN 978-3-931999-14-8 .
  • Herman Lohausen, Düsseldorfer Gesellschaft für Rechtsgeschichte (ed.): Clemens Amelunxen reminds of Lorenz Cantador (1810–1883) . Kalkumer Verlag, Düsseldorf 1990.
  • Dieter Niemann: The revolution of 1848/49 in Düsseldorf. Political parties and citizens' initiatives are born . Düsseldorf 1993.
  • Christian Reinicke: Laurenz Cantador (1810-1883) . In: Petitions and Barricades. Rhenish Revolutions 1848/49 , edited by Ingeborg Schnelling-Reinicke, Münster 1998, pp. 129–131.
  • Christian Reinicke: "Liberty Guard" - The vigilante groups . In: Petitions and Barricades. Rhenish Revolutions 1848/49 , edited by Ingeborg Schnelling-Reinicke, Münster 1998, pp. 125–129.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lothar Schröder: 1848 - the Rhineland awakes . Article from July 31, 2012 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on July 15, 2017
  2. ↑ Kathrin DuBois: Carl Wilhelm Hübner and the consequences . Article for illustration no.261: Workers in front of the magistrate, around 1848/50 . In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its International Radiation 1819–1918 , Volume 2 (catalog), Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , p. 310 f.
  3. ^ Friedrich Schaarschmidt: On the history of Düsseldorf art, especially in the XIX. Century , published by the Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia , Verlag August Bagel, Düsseldorf 1902, p. 81, online
  4. ↑ The client of the picture was the lawyer John HB Latrobe in Baltimore, the son of the architect Benjamin Latrobe . Although the plot of the picture takes place in an oyster restaurant on the American east coast, it captures the atmosphere of the pre-March period and the revolution in Düsseldorf, where the painter lived, which was shaped by political discussions. The speed with which the fresh oysters have to come to the table in the restaurant can be seen as a parable of the fast pace of political news and events. The painter adopted the motif of the newspaper as a symbol for the public of political news from Johann Peter Hasenclever and Wilhelm Kleinenbroich . The original picture is now part of the collection of the Walters Art Museum . A copy of the picture, which the painter later made, he named A New York Communist Advancing an Argument .
  5. ↑ Cantador's great-grandfather, Anton Cantadore, immigrated to Düsseldorf from the Piedmontese Toceno in 1735 . - See detailed biography of Cantador in: Astrid Küntzel: Laurenz Cantador (November 29, 2013), website in the portal rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de , accessed on January 5, 2014
  6. ^ Hugo Maximilian Wesendonck in the portal Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck , website from March 13, 2010, accessed on January 16, 2014
  7. ↑ Jonathan Sperber : Rhineland Radicals. The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848-1849. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1991, ISBN 0-691-00866-3 , p. 100 ( online )
  8. ↑ a b Astrid Küntzel: Laurenz Cantador (November 29, 2013), website in the portal rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de , accessed on January 5, 2014
  9. ^ Albert Boime : Art in an Age of Civil Struggle 1848–1871 . University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007, ISBN 978-0-226-06328-7 , p. 550 ( online )
  10. ↑ Helmut Bleiber, Karl Obermann: Men of the Revolution of 1848 , Volume 1, edited by the Prehistory and History of the Revolution of 1848/49 Working Group, Central Institute for History (Berlin, East), Akademie-Verlag (GDR), 1988, p. 104
  11. ↑ On July 1, 1848, the German-Catholic MP Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck presented his bill on The Democratic Monarchy to the Prussian National Assembly ( online ). Using the term democratic monarchy , Julius Froebel carried out similar thoughts in his book The King and the People's Sovereignty in 1848 ( online ).
  12. ↑ Euler, Familie , page in the duesseldorf.de portal of the Düsseldorf City Archives, accessed on August 18, 2013
  13. ↑ Bloem, Anton Joseph (1814–1884), Attorney at Law , page in the duesseldorf.de portal of the Düsseldorf City Archives, accessed on August 18, 2013
  14. ↑ The figure, the standard and the spectacle of the illumination were captured in a watercolor by the American painter Emanuel Leutze . - See Sabine Schroyen on cat.-no. 46 Festival of German Unity in Düsseldorf in front of the statue of Germania, 1848 . In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 2, p. 72
  15. ↑ Another illustration of the event is preserved on a wood engraving in the Stadtmuseum Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf . - Cf. Hugo Weidenhaupt : Brief history of the city of Düsseldorf . Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1983, p. 108
  16. ^ Friedrich Schaarschmidt: On the history of Düsseldorf art, especially in the XIX. Century , published by the Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia , Verlag August Bagel, Düsseldorf 1902, p. 183 f. ( online )
  17. ↑ Clemens von Looz-Corswarem: With horse droppings and whistles against the king? , city history website in the portal duesseldorf.de , accessed on September 21, 2012
  18. ^ Hanna Gagel: The Düsseldorf School of Painting in the Political Situation of the Vormärz and 1848 . In: Wend von Kalnein (Ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 78
  19. ^ Friedrich Engels: Lassalle . Article of May 2, 1849 in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 287. In: Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels . Works , Volume 6, published by the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED , Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1961, p. 454 ( online )
  20. ^ Hugo Weidenhaupt : Brief history of the city of Düsseldorf . Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1983, ninth revised edition, p. 109
  21. ↑ Jonathan Sperber: Rhineland Radicals. The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848-1849 . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1991, ISBN 0-691-00866-3 , p. 368 ( online )
  22. ↑ Jürgen Herres: The Prussian Rhineland in the revolution of 1848/49 . In: Stephan Lennartz, Georg Mölich (Hrsg.): Revolution in the Rhineland. Change in political culture in 1848/49 . In: Bensberger Protocols (series of publications by Thomas-More-Akademie Bensberg) , Cologne 1998, issue 29, pp. 13–36
  23. ↑ Ferdinand Lassalle: Postponed letters and writings . Volume 2, page 53 , accessed on the portal Historische-kommission-muenchen-edUNGEN.de on September 28, 2012
  24. ↑ 27th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers , website of the portal pa-roots.com about the missions of the 27th Pennsylvania Regiment in the American Civil War, accessed on September 21, 2012
  25. ↑ Stephen W. Sears: Chancellorsville . Mariner Books, New York 1996, ISBN 0-395-63417-2 , p. 463 ( online )
  26. ↑ David L. Valuska, Christian B. Keller: Damn Dutch. Pennsylvania Germans at Gettysburg . Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg / PA, 2004, ISBN 0-8117-0074-7 , p. 146 ( online )
  27. ^ Website of the Düsseldorfer Gesellschaft für Rechtsgeschichte eV , accessed on September 20, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Cantador, Lorenz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cantador, Franz Laurenz Joseph Maria; Cantador, Franz Lorenz Joseph Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Commander of the Düsseldorf vigilante group during the German Revolution of 1848/49
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH December 1, 1883
Place of death New York City