August Schärttner

August Schärttner (born January 31, 1817 in Hanau , † February 22, 1859 in London ) was a leading figure in the German gymnastics movement and the revolution of 1848/49 .

Life

He was the son of the master cooper Karl Ludwig Schärttner and also learned his trade. Little is otherwise known about his childhood and youth. In 1837 he was one of the first members of the newly founded gymnastics community in Hanau , of which he became chairman in 1841. In 1843 he was a founding member of the voluntary Turner fire brigade , from which the Hanau volunteer fire brigade emerged . The gymnastics management of the Feldberg gymnastics festivals in 1844 and 1847 was in his hands.

In the revolution of 1848/49, Schärttner was a member of the Hanau People's Commission, co-signer of the Hanau ultimatum of March 9, 1848 to the sovereign, the Elector of Hesse-Kassel , and led the delegation that presented the Elector with the ultimatum in Kassel . He was a leader in advocating civil and political freedom in the Electorate of Hesse and Germany . Since the elector gave way to the pressure of the ultimatum and granted the required basic rights, August Schärttner was given an enthusiastic reception on his return to Hanau. Then he tried to stabilize the situation in Hanau again.

In addition, he was significantly involved in the first and second gymnastics days in Hanau in April and June 1848. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was his guest at the first gymnastics day . During the second gymnastics day, the gymnastics movement split into a German Gymnastics Federation and a German Democratic Gymnastics Federation . August Schärttner was elected chairman of the latter.

Under his leadership as a major, the Hanauer Turnerwehr called on June 2, 1849 to defend the imperial constitution of the revolutionary troops in Baden . After the defeat in the battle near Waghäusel , the Hanau gymnasts had to flee to Switzerland and were interned in Bern . August Schärttner emigrated to London via Le Havre . There he first worked as a waiter for a German landlord on Maddox Street, where he met his future wife, Mary Elizabeth Pawell. At the beginning of 1851 he bought an inn at 27 Long-Acre-Street, which he ran under the name “Zum Deutschen Haus” , a center for German emigrants. Among his guests were: Gottfried Kinkel , Karl Schurz , Gottfried Semper and August Willich .

On October 2, 1857, he was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison in the Hanau Turner trial for high treason .

He was a member of the Communist League and the Communist Workers' Education Association . In the League of Communists, as an advocate of another, imminent revolution in Germany, he came into opposition to Karl Marx and separated from him on the occasion of the split in the league in 1850.

He died in London at the age of 42.

Commemoration

In Hanau a multi-purpose hall ( August-Schärttner-Halle ) and a street are named after him; in Rodgau a street. In Leipzig, the Schärttnerhalle in the building complex on the site of the former German University of Physical Culture (DHfK) is named after him.

literature

• Gerhard Bott : August Schärttner and his Hanauer Turnerwehr . In: Hanau city and country. A home book for school and home . Hanau 1954, pp. 380-382.
• Harald Braun: August Schärttner - a picture of life . In: Stadtzeit (1998). History magazine on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the revolution and gymnastics movement Hanau 1848–1998, p. 134f.
• Karl Geisel: The Hanauer Turnerwehr. Their use in the Baden revolution of 1849 and the Turner trial (Hanauer Geschichtsblätter; 25). Elwert in Komm.Hanau 1974, ISBN 3-7708-0506-2 .
• Martin Hoppe : Hanauer street names . Verlag Peters, Hanau 1991, ISBN 3-87627-426-5 .
• Karl Siebert: Hanauer biographies from three centuries. Hanauer Geschichtsverein , Hanau 1919 (= Hanauer Geschichtsblätter NF 3/4 ), pp. 173–176.
• Ernst Julius Zimmermann : Hanau city and country. Cultural history and chronicle of a Franconian weatherwave city and former county . 3. Edition. Verlag Peters, Hanau 1978, ISBN 3-87627-243-2 (reprint of the Hanau edition 1919).