Cholera uprising in Koenigsberg
The cholera uprising in Königsberg was an uprising of several hundred people at the end of July 1831 in Königsberg , which claimed eight dead and numerous injured. The occasion was the popular discontent with the municipal measures to combat a cholera - epidemic .
history
Cholera first came to Europe from Russia in 1830 . When it broke out in the provincial capital of East Prussia in the summer of 1831 , the police forbade all traffic. The High President Theodor von Schön opposed the excess of severity in vain. Strange rumors made the rounds of the excited population . So Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel with his observatory and the "silver balls" - rocket signals given in Pillau - was made responsible. The common people were particularly offended by the fact that all the sick were taken to hospitals and the dead were buried quickly and quietly. Doctors and medicines should be to blame for deaths. On top of that, another Tatar storm should threaten.
revolt
The first riots occurred among the pallbearers in Löbenicht . Ringleaders arrested there were forcibly freed. In turmoil , the city came when in Sackville , a carpenter apprentice had died and would be buried in haste - he had finished the bottle of Einreibungsmittels. The prescribing doctor was charged with a poisoner. When the carpenter was due to be buried on July 28, 1831, a crowd armed with stones and clubs gathered together. The guard at the Königstor was overrun and the New Cemetery was stormed. In the meantime the two pallbearers who had been freed had been arrested again and taken to the Inquisitorium . Streamed there from the cemetery, the crowd was made to part; But rabble and riot-minded youngsters formed new groups who moved noisily to Königsberg Castle and, pushed away from there, to the old town market . By the hard appearance of the police in anger advised they stormed the police station, the officers compelled to flee and hit everything, including the residence of the Chief of Police Schmidt , short and small.
As windows were thrown and shops looted in the suburbs at the same time , troops from the Königsberg garrison were alerted . Warnings from General Karl August Adolf von Krafft were drowned out in the hoots. Friedrich von Wrangel rode against the headless crowd at the Old Town Market and was almost torn from his horse. Thereupon the cuirassiers of the 3rd Cuirassier Regiment , who stopped in a side street, were allowed to advance, but they were pushed back with stone throws and club throws. The infantry now intervening fired and cleared the place, which was soon occupied by demonstrators again .
Student help
Meanwhile unexpected help came. While the tumult in the suburb was soon smothered by the artillery troops lying there, citizens and around 100 students had gathered at the Kneiphöfisches Rathaus , the last ones who were still in town at the beginning of the semester break. In order to stand up for peace and order, they went to the main guard with batons and shotguns , marked with white armbands and led by the university judge Grube . From there it went closed and "in a very calm and serious move" to the old town market. A small infantry division followed. The crowd backed away but did not release the police building. The students made their way into the house against stones and clubs. The rioters fled and three were arrested.
No sooner had the students returned to the main station than the crowd gathered again. Grube intervened again with his students, dispersed the rioters and brought back around 40 prisoners, some of whom were wounded. As further unrest was feared, stripes ran through the city in the following nights . Students guarded the endangered buildings such as the Albertus University , the Kypkeanum , the Königsberg observatory and the new Koenigsberg Zoological Museum , which Karl Ernst von Baer has just moved into with his collections . But everything stayed calm.
Gleanings
The citizens judged the actions of the military and civil authorities quite sharply and negatively. On the other hand, she appreciated the prudent, determined and superior demeanor of the students. They were also publicly praised by the Academic Senate and the Oberpräsident v. Nice, from the Prussian State Ministry and from the Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm IV. As Rector magnificentissimus of the university, he emphasized that the students "without a professional job" would have exposed themselves to two threats, the "indignant mob" and the "possible infection of a terrible disease". The liberal classical philologist Christian August Lobeck also spoke at a celebration of the "highly charitable gathering of noble sons of the Albertina", who "not only played a strong role in suppressing a popular uprising, but did not shy away from taking care of the sick themselves".
A student and six protesters lost their lives in the riot. Of the 16 badly wounded rioters, one died after a few days. By the military 44 were Common and five officers wounded by the citizens and students. 13 The property damage amounted to 14,660 thalers .
literature
- Barbara Dettke: The Asian Hydra. The cholera of 1830/31 in Berlin and the Prussian provinces of Posen, Prussia and Silesia . De Gruyter, Berlin 1995. ISBN 978-3-11-014493-2 . GoogleBooks (p. 124–140: The Königsberg Civil War )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfram Siemann (2007)
- ↑ a b c d e f g Hans Lippold: The cholera uprising of 1831. At that time, the noble sons of the Albertina restored order . Ostpreußenblatt , May 11, 1968
- ↑ Grube and the Students (1929)
- ↑ Prussische Provinzial-Blätter (1832)