Berlin Zeughaussturm
The Berlin Zeughaussturm on June 14, 1848 was the most violent unrest since the barricade uprising on 18/19. March 1848 in Berlin and led to the resignation of the Camphausen - Hansemann government .
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prehistory
The more radical revolutionaries demanded legal recognition of the revolution inside and outside the Prussian National Assembly . On June 8, the Berlin printer, Julius Berends, submitted a motion to the National Assembly that “the assembly wanted to declare on record in recognition of the revolution that the fighters of March 18 and 19 would have done something for the fatherland.” a moderate majority of the House rejected the application and thus supported the Camphausen-Hansemann government. The consequence was that it provoked the extra-parliamentary agitation, which reached its climax in the armory storm.
The events and the consequences
The Berlin armory , as the central military depot in the city, was viewed with suspicion by the supporters of the revolution as a possible starting point for counter-revolutionary actions by the army . The immediate cause were inciting speeches by a speaker by the name of Urban, who on the morning of June 14, 1848, had expressed in front of the assembled workers that they were entitled to arms because of their right to arm the people and that they should demand this right.
This demand was popular because the mass of the population not members of the initially formed the revolution actually vigilantes could be because their relatives had to pay their equipment themselves. Therefore, the slogan was picked up by the crowd, which first went to the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin , the then temporary seat of the National Assembly. There the demonstrators were driven back by the Berlin vigilante groups at gunpoint, which resulted in two deaths and several wounded. Thereupon the crowd moved to the armory on the evening of June 14th to stock up on weapons on their own. The guard failed to stop the demonstrators, who broke into the building and looted. Not only were weapons taken with them, but war trophies and regimental flags were also destroyed. In the course of the night, a hitherto unthinkable constellation of military and vigilante groups succeeded in driving out the occupiers and collecting most of the weapons again.
The arsenal storm not only led to the resignation of the Berlin Police President Julius von Minutoli, also under pressure from the royal court in Potsdam, and later to the condemnation of some military, but it was one of the main factors behind the resignation of the Camphausen-Hansemann Ministry.
In the Berlin vigilante group, commander Blesson was blamed for the embarrassing behavior of his troops. He had only taken over command from Friedrich von Aschoff at the beginning of June 1848 and resigned on June 15, 1848 in the wake of the armory storm. Major Otto Rimpler was elected the new "interim vigilante commander".
Stephan Born , who had been involved in the disarmament of the demonstrators as a member of the vigilante group, later reported that there were a noticeably large number of young drunks among them, and expressed the suspicion that interested forces on the part of the counter-revolution had consciously promoted the events around the revolution to discredit. The then prosecutor and democratic politician Jodocus Temme also expressed himself in the same way and even claimed that he could prove that the reaction was involved. Corresponding evidence for this representation does not yet exist.
literature
- Klaus Herdepe : The Prussian Constitutional Question 1848 . Neuried, 2002, ISBN 3-936117-22-5 , p. 239 f.
- Michael Hettinger (ed.): Eyewitness reports of the German revolution 1848/49: A Prussian judge as a champion of democracy . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1996, ISBN 3-534-12756-0 , p. 166.
- Wolfram Siemann : The German Revolution of 1848/49. Darmstadt, 1997, v. a. Pp. 140-143, p. 142.