August Brass

August Heinrich Brass (also: Braß , born July 30, 1818 in Berlin ; † December 8, 1876 in Wochowsee ) was a German author and journalist. At first he was democratically revolutionary before he supported Otto von Bismarck with journalism.

Life

Memorial plaque , Alexanderplatz, Berlin-Mitte

Brass, the son of a court advisor, attended the Friedrichstädtische Gymnasium in Berlin and studied philosophy and history at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität . He then worked as a journalist and writer. He wrote novels, non-fiction and political writings. In 1843 he wrote a chronicle of Berlin, Potsdam and Charlottenburg . In 1844 he published the five-volume Kolporta novel The Mysteries of Berlin . He copied the model Les Mystères de Paris by Eugène Sue . Although he recognized the socially critical aspect of the role model, he primarily exploited the sensational motifs with a view to the public interest.

As a staunch democrat, he took an active part in the March Revolution in Berlin in 1848 . On March 18, 1848, he fought on the barricades on Alexanderplatz in Berlin. A plaque commemorates the location of the barricade: "Here on Alexanderplatz / the barricade fighters under the soldier August Brass / and the veterinarian Friedrich Ludwig Urban / successfully defended their location from March 18 to 19 / against General Johann Carl von Möllendorff ." In the same year he wrote a printed report on the fighting.

In 1849 he became a soldier in the Baden people's army, which fought against the anti-revolutionary forces during the imperial constitution campaign. His poem on German colors speaks for his leftist position: “You black-red-gold, in night and gray / Your shimmer must be dimmed. / The gold of freedom was stolen from it / The black, we throw it out ourselves. / The red just stayed. // So we want to with fresh courage / color the banner again, / we color real, we color well, / we color it with tyrant blood, / this time it shouldn't spoil! (...) "

After the failure of the revolution in 1849, he fled to Switzerland as an emigrant. There, too, he wrote accounts of the revolution in Germany. In 1859/60 he was editor-in-chief of the "Neue Schweizer Zeitung" and the "Grenzpost."

After an amnesty was issued, he returned from exile in 1861. In Berlin he bought the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in 1862 . The newspaper was big German and democratic. He employed Wilhelm Liebknecht , Robert Schweichel and Lothar Bucher as editors .

With bribes, Bismarck ensured that the “Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” reported more and more in the spirit of the Prussian government. Brass therefore gradually began to change the political orientation of the paper in the interests of Bismarck. Wilhelm Liebknecht then gave up his position on the sheet. Brass proved to be too headstrong to follow all of Bismarck's instructions. It broke. In 1872 he sold the paper, which now became even more of a mouthpiece for Bismarck and received 30,000 marks annually as a kind of 'printing allowance'.

Works (selection)

• The Prussian Fatherland. Colorful stories from Prussia's past, legends of cities, castles, etc. Monasteries from the days of the pagan u. Knighthood u. of recent history, along with a gallery of valuable [...] steel engravings. Berlin, 1841
• Borussia. People's history of the Prussian state. 3 vols. Berlin, 1841/42
• Chronicle of Berlin, Potsdam and Charlottenburg, from the origins of these cities to the most recent times. Berlin, 1843 digitized
• The mysteries of Berlin. 5 vols. Berlin, 1844 digitized vol. 4
• The executioner of Berlin. A historical-romantic story from the 17th century. Berlin, 1844
• The proselyte. Novel from the last years of Friedrich Wilhelm III's reign . Berlin, 1846 digitized
• The ghost house. A ghost story from Berlin's present. Berlin, 1847
• Berlin's barricades. Their creation, their defense and their consequences. Berlin, 1848 digitized
• Three beautiful, new, red songs, made this year. Berlin, 1848
• The bell on Sanct Nicolai. Historical story from Berlin's prehistory. Berlin, 1849
• The struggle for freedom in Baden and the Palatinate in 1849. St. Gallen, 1849 digitized
• Father's curse. Stories from the North American War of Independence. Hamburg, 1850 digitized
• What is need. A political study. Geneva, 1860 digitized

Individual evidence

1. ^ Norbert Bachleitner: The English and French social novel of the 19th century and its reception in Germany. Amsterdam 1993, p. 419.
2. ↑ Entry on luise-berlin.de
3. ↑ Peter Reichel: Black-Red-Gold. Brief history of German national symbols after 1945. Munich 2005, p. 21; August Bebel: From my life. Part 1. Berlin 1946, p. 50.
4. ^ Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Correspondence October 1864 to December 1865. Berlin 2002, p. 1352.
5. ↑ August Bebel: From my life. Part 1. Berlin 1946, p. 50, digitized.
6. ^ Jörg Requate: Journalism as a Profession. Göttingen 1995, p. 316; Heinz Höhne: The big smear. In: Der Spiegel No. 47, 1984.

Web links

Commons : August Brass  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Short biography and information on the work of August Brass at Literaturport
• Part of the estate of August Brass