Christian Benjamin Geissler

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Christian Benjamin Geißler (born September 14, 1743 in Holzkirch near Lauban , † after 1809 ), known as the Liebstadt rebel , was the best-known spokesman for the Saxon peasant uprising of 1790 .

Life

The son of a Silesian village school teacher learned the trade of a rope maker in Görlitz . In 1765 he came to Liebstadt as a traveling journeyman , where he settled down and married the daughter of the manor manager Bretschneider. The Geissler couple had three children who died early. After the death of their children, they took in an orphaned girl as a foster daughter.

Christian Benjamin Geißler earned the championship title in Liebstadt. He then worked as a master rope maker, often having to travel across the villages to sell his goods. He got to know the life of the working population, their worries and needs, such as the high child mortality rate, but also their hopes and wishes. Between 1763 and 1789, the Electorate of Saxony pursued a policy of enlightened absolutism . The economic policy was more liberal than in most other German territories and there was free competition instead of state support for individual monopoly entrepreneurs. The aristocracy promoted the expansion of animal feed and the cultivation of beets and potatoes in agriculture. He also favored year-round stable feeding and the use of artificial fertilizers. Higher yields were achieved in the fields. However, this did not pay off for the farmers. They had to do additional labor and were obliged to keep sheep.

Due to poor harvests as a result of prolonged droughts in 1788, 1789 and 1790, the situation for Saxon farmers worsened. In May 1790, dissatisfied farmers from Wehlen and 15 other communities began to fight back. They drove away or shot the game that had become a plague and was kept for the electoral hunt. After the Saxon government ordered that game be reduced in Saxon Switzerland , the first unrest quickly subsided.

The uprising flared up again when the dissatisfied farmers found a mouthpiece in the Liebstadt rope maker Christian Benjamin Geißler. Geissler could read and had found out about the outbreak of the French Revolution . Influenced by the storming of the Bastille and the declaration of human and civil rights , he spread his self-written calls to village assemblies: “Dearest confreres!” , “Dear confreres!” And “Most Serene Prince!” Against nobility privileges, for the abolition of game reserves and for a fairer one Justice to the peasant.

On July 8th, 1790 Christian Benjamin Geißler announced the petition of the peasants to the Elector "Pro Memoria" in Börnchen :

The little town of Lauenstein is hereby made aware that after careful consideration the conclusion has finally been reached to make a happy revolution, and we are ready for our end goal of 16 to 18,000 men. Our own well-being requires this to be put into operation as quickly as possible, by learning that if we do not need to be serious, one of the bloodiest revolutions in the near future will break out. So our attitudes are this: that instead of making Saxony's misfortune even bigger, that it could even become a murder pit, with God's help we would wise to take counter-measures and make our beloved fatherland happy rather than unhappy. We want to take our dearest country father into our midst and want to introduce him to Saxony's misfortune and hardship so that he can continue to be happy with us and we can live with him calmly and happily. First we want to move all the way to the Dresden area with a sounding game and flying flag, and everyone has to stock up for a few days. A command from us will go to Pillnitz to present our sentiments to the elector, from there we will make a triumphant entry into the Dresden residence with our most dear regional father.

Our lecture is this:

  • 1. We demand that everyone and every person who has made Sachsenland unhappy up to now should be completely horrified of their dignities and offices and, after finding out about major frauds, their goods should also be confiscated and used for the common good.
  • 2. National Guard is erected in front of our Electors, one on foot and one on horseback. This must consist of men whom one can trust that they are always vigilant for the good of the country. The one on foot is always around the sovereign, and her boss must have a respectable waitress at court so that no more cheaters can sneak into our sovereigns. The guard on horseback is supposed to take care of the country and watch out for all injustices in the country.
  • 3. The excise system is set on one foot, so that Sachsenland cannot be exposed to God's judgment with so much disapproval of his holy name.
  • 4. Tighter barriers are placed on the owners of the manor so that they can no longer turn the land into a desert and wasteland of justice, as has been the case up to now.
  • 5. Furthermore, haying of the game is not tolerated, since this contributes much to the constant lack of fruit.
  • 6. Furthermore, no juris practici will be tolerated who have no real court appointment, in that these leeches suck the land in a pitiful way.
  • 7. Constitutional rules must be set for the spiritual ministerium, which are more in accordance with the honor of God and more salutary to our sacred Christian evangelical teaching than before.
  • 8. Important reminders have to be made about meat and drink taxes.

The approval of these points will be followed with the greatest zeal, and we are compelled not to be fooled in the slightest. It is high time to show that we are still the old brave and brave Saxons who have only become so faint-hearted before hand through tyranny and pressure, but now is high time to face the rift. For if we let ourselves be put to sleep this time, we will fall into such slavery, from which we can no longer hope to be saved. But this is also indicated to all and every locality at the same time that they open immediately after reading this, the meeting point of Lauenstein and Bärenstein is in Liebstadt , Geisingen , Altenberg and Glashütte and Dohna , but the place that should venture not to cite Respect can face fatal pillage and no part in any advantage gained. "

Geissler was denounced and secretly arrested on July 10, 1790. The peasants' protest march to the electoral palace in Pillnitz that he had planned fell into disrepair. The rebellious rope master was brought to the Fronfeste in Dresden , where he was sentenced to 15 years in prison on July 13, 1790. On September 27, 1790, a coroner claimed that Geissler was insane and obsessed with ideas like patriotism . Because of this finding, the Liebstadt rebel was transferred to Torgau as an alleged fool .

Copies of Geissler's appeals and petitions spread quickly. On August 3, 1790, the farmers at Schleinitz and Petschwitz in the Meißner area gave up their labor . They disarmed smaller military units and forced the nobility to sign waivers of compulsory labor and interest. After some farmers were arrested, the uprising expanded within two weeks, so that the Saxon government deployed 5,600 soldiers to crush the peasant uprising. On January 18, 1791, the government passed a law with the "Mandate against the tumult and rebellion" that was intended to stifle all further anti-feudal actions and threatened long prison sentences or the death penalty for violations.

In contrast to the nobility, the Saxon bourgeoisie did not react to the events of the French Revolution and the Saxon peasant uprising. To protect the interests of the nobility, a meeting of the Roman-German Emperor Leopold II , the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II and the Saxon Elector Friedrich August III took place in August 1791 at Pillnitz Castle . instead, who made a pact ( " Pillnitzer Declaration " ) against the French Revolution and the unrest in their own countries.

Christian Benjamin Geißler managed to escape from his imprisonment in Torgau in 1805. Wanted in a wanted list, he wandered through Saxony, Bohemia and Silesia before he was arrested again in 1807 after a tip from a beggar from Döbra . Geissler's friends and Majorate Carl Adolf von Carlowitz , however, obtained his pardon and release in 1809. The now sixty-six year old then lived with his foster daughter in Liebstadt. Geissler's further résumé is not documented, the date and place of his death have not been recorded; the former rebel may still be living with his foster daughter in Liebstadt in 1823.

A plaque on his former home in Pirnaer Strasse in Liebstadt commemorates Christian Benjamin Geißler.

literature

Footnotes

  1. Reiner Groß : History of Saxony . Edition Leipzig, 2001, ISBN 3-361-00505-1 , p. 177 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

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