Adolph Majer

Ludwig Adolph Majer (born April 12, 1821 in Neuenbürg ; † 1868 ) was a German pharmacist and revolutionary . In the revolution of 1848/49 he first appeared in the Heilbronn area through speeches and publications and was therefore the first 1848 revolutionary imprisoned on the Hohenasperg . He broke out in February 1849 and led a free group in the Baden Revolution . After the failure of the revolution, he worked for the Communist League in London , France and Switzerland . Finally he emigrated to the United States in 1852 , where he worked as a doctor in New York .

Life

origin

Majer was born in 1821 as the son of the forester Friedrich Karl Majer. From autumn 1835 to Easter 1840 he completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist with the pharmacist Ulmer in Nürtingen , which was followed in 1844 by the pharmacist examination (state examination) in Tübingen . He then stayed in Switzerland for over a year and also traveled to Italy and France. From 1846 he was back in Germany and worked as a pharmacist's assistant (i.e. as an employee without his own pharmacy) first in Neckarsulm , then in Wimpfen , Cannstatt , Sinsheim and Heidelberg . In addition, he wrote articles for the Stuttgart newspaper Der Observer , the organ of the democrats, in which he developed socialist ideas to solve the economic crisis of the time in the famine year of 1846. In February 1847 he had a passport issued to London in order to “further educate himself in his field”. At that time Majer lived with his parents at Stettenfels Castle in Untergruppenbach near Heilbronn , where his father was a forest ranger. He has been described as 6 feet tall, slender, with light brown hair and blue eyes.

Public appearances and editorial work

Like many pharmacists, Majer took part in the revolutionary processes of 1848 and 1849. In Heidelberg, where he attended philosophy lectures, in 1848 he became a member of the board of the newly founded workers' association there. In March 1848 he was first noticed by speaking at citizens' meetings in the Heilbronn area, for example in Flein , Gruppenbach and Neckarsulm , where he called for the violent overthrow of the existing government and the introduction of the republic . A meeting on March 30, 1848 in the Heilbronner Aktiengarten caused a sensation, at which Majer also called for "the violent reversal of the existing situation". At the end of March, Heinrich Güldig 's publishing house in Heilbronn published Majer's brochure The French Revolution with Relation to Germany , in which he sharply condemned the system of government that had existed since then as a “betrayal of humanity and humanity” and presented his ideal of a social and democratic republic in which all the privileges of the Birth and possession are abolished. From April 1, 1848, Majer was the editor in charge of the democratic Heilbronn daily newspaper Neckar-Dampfschiff, which was also published by Heinrich Güldig . As King Wilhelm I of Württemberg had proclaimed freedom of the press a month earlier (de facto abolished previous censorship ), Majer was able to incorporate his republican ideals into his articles.

Majer's public appearances and articles on the Neckar steamship met with some violent rejection from the part of the Heilbronn population loyal to the monarchy and the authorities. The fact that the theologian David Friedrich Strauss , who lives in Heilbronn, called him a “runaway pharmacist's assistant” was one of the more harmless terms. The state- loyal Heilbronner Tagblatt described Majer as a "republican emissary", "who preached anarchy and revolution in pathological excitement and political madness". After news of the revolutionary events all over Europe came to Heilbronn and in March 1848 in the nearby noble towns of Neuhütten , Weiler and Maienfels the peasants, oppressed by taxes to the landlords , had burned the files of the tax offices , and soldiers were rumored to have been killed in the process (in truth nobody perished), the bourgeoisie of the city feared for their property and their life. Among the approximately 12,500 residents of Heilbronn, around 800 were industrial workers, around 1,500 more worked in craft businesses, and there were 700 soldiers in the city. Majer's appearance aroused fears that he wanted to initiate the violent overthrow in Heilbronn.

Arrested on the Hohenasperg

After the Oberamt Heilbronn reported several rebellious speeches by Majer in the area to the chief magistrate Gustav Rümelin and also testified that Majer had called for violent measures, Rümelin summoned Majer in the afternoon of April 3, 1848. Majer appeared with Terzerol loaded , did not allow himself to be arrested and fled after threatening the police and bailiffs with a pistol. Rümelin refrained from a formal search for Majer, as he feared tumult. That same night, however, between midnight and 1 a.m., the night watchmen from Heilbronn picked up Majer and took him into custody. Rümelin had him removed from the city immediately and taken to the Hohenasperg for pre- trial detention . On the following day he published a report in the Heilbronner Tagblatt about the events surrounding Majer's arrest.

Majer was the first prisoner to be brought to the Hohenasperg because of his involvement in the revolution of 1848/49. He soon received company from other inmates such as Affenwerner , his cell neighbor, and Gottlieb Rau . On August 5th, 1848 Majer u. a. sentenced to a fortress sentence of 3 years and 7 months for preparatory acts of high treason ; on September 12, the High Tribunal upheld the decision. On October 21, the Württemberg Crown Prince Karl reduced Majer's sentence to two years in the fortress by means of an act of grace . In addition to the significant reduction in the term of imprisonment, this mainly meant that Majer did not have to work and could move freely within the fortress.

Participation in the Baden Revolution

On October 8, 1848, a newspaper erroneously reported Majer's flight from Hohenasperg, which the government in Swabian Mercury denied. On February 18, 1849, however, he actually broke out of his arrest in the fortress in the evening and was searched for on the following day. He escaped to Strasbourg , was able to avert the usual deportation of political refugees to the interior of France with reference to an illness and then made contact with revolutionaries from Baden. During the Baden Revolution , Majer himself went to Baden with the intention of bringing the revolution to Württemberg from there. In Constance he wrote for the democratic Seeblätter , and his brochure Nachklänge vom Hohen-Asberg appeared in Zurich , Switzerland , in which he again presented his political views. Together with the Ulm editor Bernhard Schifterling, he put together his own freischar , consisting mainly of Württemberg citizens , the Swabian Corps , which was stationed in Donaueschingen , where in March 1848 the anger of the residents against the princes of Fürstenberg had been particularly violent. With this group, Majer took part in battles near Hirschhorn , Ladenburg and Gernsbach . A plan by Struve to march Majer with a 150-man Swabian corps from Donaueschingen via Schramberg and Oberndorf to Stuttgart on June 24th became obsolete after the defeat at Waghäusel . After a series of raids on Württemberg territory, which he carried out with around 60 men, Majer retreated to Baden, fleeing from Prussian troops, where he moved to Constance on July 7th. The plan to occupy the Reichenau failed, but Majer's troops were able to conquer the Mainau 's wine stocks . On July 11th, the fighters from Majer's corps near Konstanz transferred to Switzerland, where the authorities sent him on to St. Gallen . He was wealthy enough to be able to live there at his own expense in the Gasthof Laterne from July 12th , and wrote another brochure entitled Würtemberg's Behavior towards the Southwest German Revolution , which appeared in St. Gallen in autumn 1849.

Emissary for the Communist League

On February 7, 1850, the Ludwigsburg jury sentenced Majer in contumaciam (in absentia) to life imprisonment . The court court of Constance followed on August 16 with an absentee conviction of six years in prison for involvement in high treason. He was also threatened with deportation in Switzerland. To avoid it, he requested in July 1850 a passport to America, mounted also on July 24 in Le Havre the ship, the journey but broke out in England , and joined in London to that of Karl Marx re-founded League of Communists of. Marx nicknamed Majer The Swabian Savior because of his sense of mission .

In contrast to Marx and Friedrich Engels , Majer wanted to continue the armed struggle, the revolution, immediately, and therefore took the side of Marx's opponents, the Sonderbund around Karl Schapper and August Willich . As a secret federal emissary, he was first in Paris from December 1850 , then in Switzerland, especially in the French-speaking part. Starting in March 1851, he was naturalized in the municipality of Salez from his Swiss place of residence Altstätten and applied to be released from the Württemberg state association. With his demonstratively revolutionary demeanor, he repeatedly drew the attention of the police, was arrested several times, but was released so quickly that the suspicion arose that he was a police spy and that his escape from Hohenasperg was already a game with the people of Württemberg Authorities. Because of Majer's political activities in Geneva and other communities in French-speaking Switzerland and after investigations by the Paris police against him became known, the Swiss Federal Council ordered his expulsion on March 29, 1852 and also refused his naturalization on April 10.

emigration

Switzerland had expelled him, and in Württemberg and Baden the prison was waiting for Majer. He had meanwhile also fallen out with the leaders of the anti-Marx faction in the Communist League, so he could no longer count on support in England either. There had also been investigations against him in France. So in September 1852 he finally emigrated to the United States . Adolf Cluss reported Mayer's arrival in mid-September in a letter to Karl Marx.

Majer settled as a doctor in New York , where he is proven in 1860. His parents had both died by this time, disinheriting him to nullify the property confiscation accompanying his conviction. In the presidential election campaign of 1860 in Indiana , he supported Carl Schurz in his efforts to win the votes of the German-speaking population for Abraham Lincoln . During the Civil War , Majer worked as an army surgeon for the Union troops from 1862 to 1864 .

Works

• The French Revolution with relation to Germany , Heilbronn 1848
• Echoes from Hohen-Asberg , Zurich 1849
• Würtemberg's attitude towards the south-west German revolution , St. Gallen 1849

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Wolfgang Caesar: Pistol instead of pestle . The pharmacists from 1848/49. In: Deutsche Apotheker-Zeitung . 138th year, no. 29 . Deutscher Apotheker-Verlag, July 26, 1998, ISSN  0011-9857 , ZDB -ID 399-2 , p. 2716-2725 (especially pp. 2720-2721) ( partly online ).
2. ↑ ZDB -ID 130536-0 , The Watcher in the journal database
3. ↑ Albrecht Krause (see literature) writes 6 Zoll (p. 268), which is certainly an oversight.
4. ↑ quoted from Ute Fuchs (see literature), p. 44
5. ↑ Heilbronner Tagblatt from April 6, 1848, quoted from Ute Fuchs (see literature), p. 71, and Albrecht Krause (see literature), p. 266
6. ↑ ZDB -ID 348222-4 , the Seeblätter in the journal database
7. ↑ James A. Rawley: Edwin D. Morgan 1811-1883. Merchant in Politics . Columbia University Press, New York 1955, p. 117

literature

• Ute Fuchs: The “Neckar Steamship” in Heilbronn. An investigation into the history of communication. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1985, DNB 861205537 , pp. 43–46, 71–72 ( Small series of publications by the Heilbronn City Archives. 16)
• Albrecht Krause: The Swabian Savior: Adolph Majer from Heilbronn . In: Hohenasperg or an early dream of democracy . Leinfelden-Echterdingen, DRW-Verlag 1998, ISBN 3-87181-417-2 , pp. 261-281
• Werner Föll: Majer, Adolph. In: Revolution in the Southwest . Edited by the working group of full-time archivists in the Baden-Württemberg Association of Cities. Info-Verlag, Karlsruhe 1997, ISBN 3-88190-219-8 , pp. 258-259
• Maier, Adolf . In: Heinrich Raab: Revolutionaries in Baden 1848/49. Biographical inventory for the sources in the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe and in the Stadtarchiv Freibur [g]. Edited by Alexander Mohr . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-17-015373-0 , p. 591
• Wilhelm Steinhilber: The Heilbronn vigilante groups in 1848 and 1849 and their participation in the Baden May Revolution of 1849. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1959, DNB 454862369 , pp. 135-137, 143, 158

Web links

Commons : Adolph Majer  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files