Södel bloodbath

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A violent action by soldiers of the Grand Duchy of Hesse against residents of the village of Södel and what was then Wölfersheim on October 1, 1830 is described as the Södel bloodbath .

research

The files on the Upper Hesse Revolution in the Hessian State Archives in Darmstadt burned in the Second World War . From documents, eyewitness and newspaper reports, etc., a very precise picture of this rebellion in the pre-March period can nevertheless be drawn. For a long time, the rebels were largely assumed to have economic motives. In the late 19th century they were vilified as the “ meanest rabble ” and “ expectoration of humanity . This picture has since been corrected. Köhler points out that the rebels had chosen the political slogan“ freedom and equality ”. This slogan is also confirmed by the eyewitness reports of the Södel bloodbath.

prehistory

The cause of protests in the Grand Duchy of Hesse was the misery the rural population found themselves in these days. In the province of Upper Hesse in particular , double taxes had to be paid, once for the state and once for the landlords. Rapid population growth and bad harvests and tariffs also weighed on the population. With the accession of the Grand Duchy of Hesse to the Prussian Customs Union , the number of customs duties increased. Trade with Kurhessen and Frankfurt was made more difficult. That is why customs riots arose .

The Södler pastor Georg Ludwig Theodor Eigenbrodt wrote in his second report about the events at that time: “ The year 1830 is characterized by an event of its own. In that year ... the Elector Hessians were also in great excitement due to the expulsion of King Charles X of France and forced their elector to introduce a constitution; but especially in Hanau announced the war in the local customs posts and other nearby customs posts ... ”This movement in September 1830, also known as the“ Potato War ”, quickly spread from the Kurhessische area to the province of Upper Hesse.

According to Müller, around 6,000 farmers, craftsmen and workers are said to have been involved. In Büdingen , craftsmen and farmers with the cry: “ Long live freedom and equality !” Already gathered on September 19th. From there, a bunch went on September 29th through the county of Ysenburg to Ortenberg . In all localities the civil servants, pastors and rent officials were dealt with in the same way. The captured papers were burned. In Ortenberg, the rebels split into two groups that met again in Nidda . On the way to the next destination Friedberg , a third train came from Glauburg in Bingenheim .

From then on the revolutionaries called themselves the “ Black Corps ”. The Bingenheim rent official had fled, and fires were lit in the castle courtyard and in Bingenheim Castle . On the afternoon of September 30th, a deserter arrived at the Grass farm near Hungen , where he had previously served as a farmhand, and warned the manager that they wanted to burn files on the farm at around 10 or 11 at night, coming via Echzell and Berstadt . At that time the farm belonged to the Minister of State Karl du Thil . Only the Kohden tailor Georg Wagemann, who arrived from Salzhausen at noon in Bingenheim, ended the chaos and had the fire extinguished.

course

The Södler pastor wrote a report to Major General Zimmermann, who commanded the Hessian troops advancing via Friedberg: " ... concerning the excesses perpetrated by a rebel gang in my apartment on the night of September 30th to October 1st. That and how a bunch of bandits from Wölfersheim, consisting of a few hundred, entered our village yesterday at around 10 p.m. with furious shouts and the shouting: "Long live freedom" and burned official and private papers with the mayor's diabolical shouts, and how These cannibals, who stood in the midst of horror cheering like black devils from the smoke of the paper that had already been burned in Bingenheim and Wölfersheim, lit by the fire burning in the middle; and how the younger residents, for fear of being taken away, had initially fled because they The local mayor himself became the gang who gave their number, which should be placed at the rear, as terrible have reported ... After the car was almost finished by the mayor, part of the gang went to Melbach . "

There is a watercolor of the events in Wölfersheim by the Frankfurt painter FA Ramadier (c. 1833). This shows how armed men penetrated the village over the bridge at the White Tower. “ In the center of the watercolor pen drawing at the front, a woman with a pewter jug ​​can be seen handing a drinking cup to a man in a long blue coat armed with a saber. Another man belongs to the group who waves the tricolor ... A man in knee breeches is pointing his saber at him. It probably depicts a nobleman or an official who opposes the leaders. In the background five more revolutionaries approach, with flails on their shoulders. “The picture is dated to 1830. The artist writes: “ Wölfersheim in der Wetterau. 2 hours from Friedberg, where the rebels were defeated by the Grand Ducal Darmstadt military in late 1830. "Ramadier calls the scene" drawn from nature . "

The rebels, which had already quarreled among themselves, were attacked and driven out by residents from Melbach , Södel, and Wölfersheim after they had already marched into the places mentioned. The sub-forester Bender arrested a rebel drum " and thus gave the first occasion for the strongest resistance ." Nine rebels were captured, including their alleged leader, the tailor Georg Wagemann. The rent master of the Schenk zu Schweinsberg in Melbach, Johann Georg Konrad Leopard, wrote that " a swarm of rebels or mutineers " attacked his place of residence, but the " mutineers " from their own people together with the Wölfersheimers and Södlers " got such blows that some of them were close to death . "For Koehler, Pastor Eigenbrodt was the driving force behind the resistance against the rebels and he therefore calls" the events that took place on the following day "for the clergy" all the more incomprehensible . "The government reacted after the unrest became known by sending military personnel and imposing martial law against “ group of foreign insurgents .” People who were found with a weapon should be convicted by a court martial. Prince Emil of Hesse took over command of the troops . In an appeal from Vilbel on October 1, 1830, he addressed the “ honest inhabitants of the province of Upper Hesse ”: “ The military power entrusted to me, which is already within your borders, is strong enough to suppress the rebels and protect every legal citizen to grant . "

When the news that several insurgents had been discovered behind the village, Chevaulegers from Butzbach were put on the march. Another part of the troops marched into Södel. Pastor Eigenbrodt emphasizes that some of the soldiers were drunk when they arrived in Södel. He particularly condemns the guilt of the officers. Many residents of Wölfersheim and Södel were gathered on the " Freie Platz ", today " Kirchplatz ". There an officer ordered the arrest of a grand ducal soldier from the 4th Landwehr Regiment in uniform who was present because he believed he had deserted. Other people were also arrested as suspects for no apparent reason. This caused resentment among the population. Pastor Eigenbrodt: “ The men were choked as if one wanted to break their necks, they were hit, stabbed and kicked. a very good man - the sub-forester - was wounded with sword cuts and stabs, then dragged at a gallop by the riders to the village, there on the head so carved that his brain and eyeball were bare, when he was passed out, he was hit twice more shot ... "The sub-forester Johann Caspar Bender died on October 5th" as a result of a deplorable misunderstanding, and innocently severely wounded in the head . "A resident who was able to hide behind beansticks was shot after without hitting him. However, the shots were seen by the other soldiers as an attack on them, so that the inhabitants of Södel and the Wölfersheimers located there were now hunted. A barn door was riddled with holes because a man was hiding behind it, but he was unharmed. The Wölfersheim master cooper, Carl Schneider, was caught outside the village and left lying after he was beaten up, then a rider shot him in the abdomen. In his death entry, Pastor Bus from Wölfersheim also took a clear position on the excess of violence among soldiers. The hand of a craftsman from Wölfersheim was so smashed that he was unable to work. An old man from Södel who was picking apples was hit in the neck by the bullet. They also targeted women and children with their sabers. A heavily pregnant woman from Södel was severely abused in this way. When the Mayor of Södel, Johannes Hensel, wanted to put a stop to the Soldateska, he too was threatened and could only flee into a ditch filled with mud. Ultimately, the house of two poor families was completely demolished because an ax found was deemed sufficient to accuse one man of rebellion. The soldier arrested was so badly mistreated that he had to be treated in hospital for 14 days. A resident from Södel got physically healthy, but lost his mind over the events. One source names two dead and six wounded. According to Karl Buchner's report in the Allgemeine Zeitung , the soldiers “were mostly drunk ... According to military law, getting drunk is in itself a fault; so it doesn't even apologize - and then the officers! "

Wölfersheim narrowly escaped the same fate. Here, too, a rider shot his carbine out of carelessness. Again they wanted to see this as an attack on the soldiers, but here the Wölfersheim Lieutenant, Adjutant of the 28th Landwehr Regiment and Mayor Johann Ernst Heyer managed to prevent even worse by courageous behavior. Here an officer is said to have said: " At Södel they were shot down like birds from the trees ."

Aftermath

The commander immediately apologized for the misunderstanding. A few days later, however, the press reported that the soldiers had taken action against rebels without reporting the error. The rulership of Solms-Lich , in which Södel lay, had turned to Prince Emil and expressed the wish for a military trial against the guilty military. The prince replied that such occurrences were inevitable in the crackdown on rioting and that the place should be satisfied with the assurance that it was an unfortunate misunderstanding. There was public displeasure about the slow judicial investigation, first before the civil courts and later the courts-martial. Claims that rebels were cracked down on was not withdrawn until many months later. Twenty-three soldiers were eventually charged, twelve of them including a. also two officers, Captain von Bechtold and Lieutenant Beck, acquitted. A Chevauxlegers corporal was sentenced to three years in prison and an officer to six months of imprisonment.

The journalistic exposure of Södel's bloodbath is due to the Darmstadt lawyer and journalist Karl Friedrich August Buchner. Manfred Köhler was the first to point out Buchner's importance in this context. Buchner's report, On the history of the unrest in Upper Hesse in the Allgemeine Zeitung, was based on eyewitness reports and information from Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz and was also described as correct by Rev. Eigenbrodt. The Allgemeine Zeitung states: “ Most of the arrests of rioters took place by individual communities themselves, without commission; Of these communities, special mention should be made of: Södel, Wölfersheim, Melbach, Florstadt . ”“ Only occasionally blood was shed in them, but not rebel blood, not to enforce the martial laws. “The Martial Law was enacted on October 1st, 1830. and withdrawn by a decree on October 23, 1830. A week after the events in Södel, a delegation from the town arrived at the Grand Duke in Darmstadt. The district judge of the Lich district initiated an investigation. “ Right at the beginning, the Ober-Appellationsgerichtrat von Hombergk from Darmstadt appeared, on behalf of the State Minister, together with an actuary, in the insurgent communities, but his task was only to lead a police investigation to be carried out by various regional courts. “Buchner's report completely refuted the presentation in a separate edition of the Großherzoglich Hessische Zeitung of October 3, 1830, in which it was claimed that rebels had been persecuted and beaten in Södel. This untruth, which was also widespread in other newspapers, was not clarified until 1831.

The arrested rebels fared hard. " The prisoners were sitting in various places around 200. " The tailor Wagemann from Kohden was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the Marienschloss Rockenberg . After serving his sentence, he is said to have emigrated to America with his wife and children.

reception

The events in Södel are of particular importance, as it was one of the reasons why Georg Büchner founded the Society for Human Rights in Gießen . He wrote the pamphlet of the Hessische Landbote , which Friedrich Ludwig Weidig from Butzbach revised. In the Landbote, they denounced, among other things, that the revolt was put down by soldiers who themselves came from the ranks of the rural population and were paid by their taxes:

For those 900,000 guilders your sons must swear to the tyrants and keep watch over their palaces. With their drums they drown out your sighs, with their pistons they smash your skulls when you dare to think that you are free people. They are the legal killers who protect the legal robbers, think of Södel! Your brothers, your children were fratricides and parricides there.

In 1831, under the influence of the events, Weidig published a “ Teutsches Gesangbuch ” and dedicated it to “ To the bones of the families of Wölfersheim and Södel who became unhappy on October 1st, 1830. "

What happened in Södel on October 1, 1830, was reproduced incorrectly or imprecisely by contemporaries, but also later. The Solms-Braunfels secretary Kießling in Hungen wrote, “ The military had been stopped in their march at Södel and Wölfersheim because these communities had resisted the troops with weapons. "

Even Büchner's sister Luise Büchner remains ambiguous: “ Prince Emil, a brother of the Grand Duke, was sent to Upper Hesse, and three military columns were supposed to include the uprising when a bloody meeting near the village of Södel quickly ended the matter, but also left a terrible bitterness . "

Finally, the official catalog on the occasion of the exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of the “ Hessian Landbote ” presents the events inaccurately: “ On September 30, the uprising, which is approaching the Upper Hessian government center in Giessen with drums and calls for freedom, is led by Butzbacher Chevaulégers under the order of the prince Emil was bloodily depressed near the village of Södel. "

literature

  • Georg Beckel: On the history of the unrest in Upper Hesse in the autumn of 1830 . in: Friedberger Geschichtsblätter 4, 1914–1921, p. 11 f., p. 15 f., p. 19 f.
  • Christoph Crößmann: The unrest in Upper Hesse in the autumn of 1830 . Diss. Giessen 1928.
  • Paul Görich: Revolutionary rioters burned official files . in: Heimat im Bild No. 26, 2000.
  • Manfred Köhler: The Södel bloodbath. In: Eugen Rieß: 1200 years of Södel , Volume 1: The story , Rockenberg 2002, pp. 177–189.
  • Friedrich Ludwig Weidig: Collected writings , edited by Hans Joachim Müller, Darmstadt 1987; therein: Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, Teutsches Gesangbuch. In favor of the families of Wölfersheim and Södel , who became unhappy on October 1st , 1831.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.zum.de/Faecher/D/BW/gym/Buechner/landbote.htm under point 2
  2. ↑ The writer Georg Büchner ( Memento from June 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Sentence: This is how the "Södel bloodbath" occurred in September 1830 in the Wetterau, where grand ducal soldiers "ended" a protest march of impoverished villagers.
  3. ^ Richard Mucke, The political movements in Germany from 1830 to 1835 with their political and constitutional consequences . Leipzig 1875, p. 13.
  4. ↑ cf. Manfred Köhler, The Södel bloodbath on October 1, 1830. in: Eugen Rieß, 1200 years of Södel. Vol. 1: The story. Rockenberg 2002, p. 177ff, here p. 177.
  5. ↑ The report can no longer be found, but was published by one of Eigenebrodt's successors in office. Georg Beckel, On the history of the unrest in Upper Hesse in the autumn of 1830 .
  6. ↑ Hans-Joachim Müller, Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, Collected Works , Darmstadt 1987. P. 579
  7. ^ Manfred Köhler, Södel Bloodbath , p. 178.
  8. ↑ Christoph Crössmann, The unrest in Upper Hesse in the fall of 1830 . Diss. Giessen 1928, p. 77.
  9. ↑ Adolf Staubach, The unrest in and around Hungen in the years 1830 and 1848. in: FGBLL 3, p. 161f.
  10. ↑ 2001 acquired by the Butzbacher Museum .
  11. ↑ Toni Seib: A colorful watercolor on the Södel bloodbath. The Butzbacher Weidig Archive has acquired the only known picture of the peasant unrest in Upper Hesse . in: Frankfurter Rundschau of October 6, 2001
  12. ↑ Hans-Joachim Müller, Weidig. Collected works , p. 579 f.
  13. ↑ Manfred Köhler: Das Blutbad von Södel , Rockenberg 2002, p. 181
  14. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. Supplement No. 279 of October 6, 1830, p. 1115 f.
  15. ↑ cf. Christoph Crößmann: The unrest in Upper Hesse in the autumn of 1830 . Diss. Gießen 1928, p. 34 ff.
  16. ↑ Manfred Köhler: Das Blutbad von Södel , Rockenberg 2002, p. 182.
  17. ↑ Cf. Georg Beckel Georg: On the history of the unrest in Upper Hesse in the autumn of 1830 . in: FGBll 1914, no. 4, pp. 11, 15 f., here p. 16.
  18. ↑ cit. according to Herbert Meyer: The families (= 1200 years of Södel, vol. 2, no. 59) Rockenberg 2002, p. 66 f.
  19. ^ Herbert Meyer: Family Book Wölfersheim. Family book of the evangelical-reformed parish from 1637. German local clan books for personal and family history series B Volume 233, No. 1072, Darmstadt 2001, p. 312 f.
  20. ^ Franz Gerhard: From the old and the young Falck . FGBll 1925, p. 75 f., Here p. 76.
  21. ↑ cf. Christoph Crößmann: The unrest in Upper Hesse in the autumn of 1830. Diss. Gießen 1928, p. 34 ff.
  22. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. Supplement No. 199 and 200 of November 22, 1830, p. 787.
  23. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. Supplement No. 199 and 200 of November 22, 1830, p. 787.
  24. ^ Manfred Köhler, Södel Bloodbath, p. 189.
  25. ↑ On the person see Walter Gunzert, " Buchner, Karl Friedrich August " in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 2 (1955), p. 704 [online version]; URL: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn116821914.html .
  26. ↑ Manfred Köhler, Södel Bloodbath , pp. 181f.
  27. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. Extraordinary Supplements No. 197 and 198 of November 21, 1830; P. 785f, Decision: Nos. 199 and 200 of November 22, 1830, p. 793f.
  28. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. Supplement No. 199 and 200 of November 22, 1830, p. 793.
  29. ^ General newspaper Munich . 1830, 10-12, p. 1158.
  30. ↑ Conversation dictionary of the latest times . In four volumes, Vol. 2, Leipzig 1833, p. 438
  31. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. Supplement No. 199 and 200 of November 22, 1830, p. 793.
  32. ↑ Manfred Köhler, Södel Bloodbath, pp. 186f.
  33. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung of November 22, 1830, p. 787.
  34. ↑ Manfred Köhler, Södel Bloodbath, p. 181, note 13.
  35. ^ Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, Collected Writings . (Ed.) Hans Joachim Müller, Darmstadt 1987, pp. 19-82.
  36. ↑ Adolf Staubach, The unrest around and in Hungen in the years 1830, p. 163.
  37. ^ Luise Büchner, German History from 1815–1870. Twenty lectures given in the Alice Lyceum in Darmstadt . Leipzig 1875, XII, p. 216.
  38. ↑ Georg Büchner. Life, work, time. Exhibition on the 150th anniversary of the "Hessian Landbote". Marburg 1985, p. 69.