To my people
With the appeal to my people , the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III turned. on March 17, 1813 in Breslau to his people , "Brandenburg, Prussia, Silesians, Pomerania, Litthauer" and asked for support for the fight against Emperor Napoleon I. On the same day, Prussia declared war on France .
The appeal was published in the Silesian metropolis of Breslau, to which the king had gone at the end of January 1813 because his security was endangered in the capital Berlin due to the French occupation. With the appeal, the monarch addressed his people directly for the first time in Prussian history. In this respect, the appeal stands for the beginning of a change in the relationship between the king and the people.
The text was drafted by the Prussian State Councilor Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel . It was distributed by printing in the Silesian privileged newspaper on March 20, 1813, published since January 3, 1742 by the Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn publishing house in Breslau .
The appeal that conjured up the unity of the crown, state and nation was preceded in February by the formation of a people's army as well as the volunteer hunters and the Lützow Freikorps . In this way Prussia was able to bear the brunt of the wars of liberation alongside Russia .
At the same time as the appeal to My People , the king also donated the Iron Cross as a war award without distinction of class, but dated its deed of foundation back to March 10th in order to establish a connection with his deceased wife, Queen Luise , whose birthday was March 10th . At the same time, the king's sister-in-law, Princess Marianne von Prussia , published her appeal by the royal princesses to women in the Prussian state , thereby initiating the movement “ I gave gold for iron ”.
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Individual evidence
- ↑ On the events, see Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann: König in Preussens Große Zeit , Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-88680-327-9 , pp. 365–372