Christoph Friedrich Cotta

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Christoph Friedrich Cotta (born August 7, 1758 in Stuttgart , † September 21, 1838 in Trippstadt ) was a lawyer and Jacobin in Mainz and Strasbourg .

Life

Christoph Friedrich Cotta was born in Stuttgart as the son of the court and chancellery book printer owner Christoph Friedrich Cotta (1730–1807) and his wife. His father published the ducal court newspaper from 1760 and a weekly economic paper from 1791 .

In Tübingen and Stuttgart

At the age of 17, his parents found their eldest son the job of a deceased uncle as a postal administrator in Tübingen . In 1783 he entered the office from a brother to law study. After he had published several papers on German constitutional law while still a student , he received his doctorate in law in 1786 .

In this subject he gave lectures since 1788 at the Hohen Karlsschule in Stuttgart, which had been elevated to university by Emperor Joseph II since 1781 . He also worked as a journalist for several years. He edited the Stuttgarter Zeitung and published a monthly “Teutsche Staatslitteratur”.

Supporter of the French Revolution

In July 1791, Cotta left the city of Stuttgart because he was spoiled for staying in his hometown and he was attracted to the French Revolution . He moved to Strasbourg , which at that time was becoming a magnet for Republicans from Germany, and acquired French citizenship . In Strasbourg, too, he had published the “Strasbourg Political Journal for Enlightenment and Freedom” from the beginning of 1792 in order to present the new political ideas to the German public.

When Marshal Nikolaus von Luckner assembled his army in the service of the National Assembly in the same year , Cotta was assigned to the general staff of Lieutenant General Custine as chancellor .

Republic of Mainz

So he came to Mainz and there, in order to win the people over to the idea of ​​annexing the left bank of the Rhine to France, he wrote two popular writings, which the French military leader distributed in thousands of copies among the inhabitants of the occupied areas:

  • From the state constitution in France to teaching the citizens and residents of the Archdiocese of Mainz and the dioceses of Worms and Speier
  • How good it could be for the people on the Rhine and the Moselle, November 30, 1792

As part of the restructuring of the general administration for the entire occupied area, he was hired as commissary for the German posts and as such issued an order on January 27, 1793 that all badges reminiscent of the predecessor states were to be removed from the postal system and the French national colors were to be used; all signing should also be done “in the name of the Franconian Republic”.

He took an eager part in the negotiations of the Mainz Jacobin Club , the Friends of Freedom and Equality ( Société des amis de la Liberté et de l'Égalité ). He was elected vice president of the club on January 29, 1793 and its president on February 27. From this date on, however, his trace in Mainz disappears; his name does not appear among the members of the Rhenish-German National Convention .

A few months later he is back in Strasbourg as an active member of the Jacobin Club and at the same time in a municipal office . After Eulogius Schneider's arrest , he was among the friends of those who on December 27, 1793 issued testimonies in his favor. Shortly afterwards, on January 10, 1794, he was arrested himself and sent to Paris to be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal there. Only after the end of the Great Terror did he regain his freedom on September 18th. In 1796 he was appointed for the second time to head the postal system in the German territories occupied by France. From that time on, however, he only found employment in subordinate positions. Politically, he continued to be involved in the publication of revolutionary-friendly publications and newspapers. The newspaper Rheinische Zeitung , published in Strasbourg on January 21, 1796, was a joint project by Mathias Metternich , also a Jacobin from Mainz, with Cotta. The newspaper was discontinued on June 30, 1796, as both Metternich and Cotta left Strasbourg to take part in preparations for an uprising in southwest Germany. From 1800 to 1810 he was a bailiff in Wissembourg , then privatized for a few years and in 1815 entered service in Württemberg and later in Austria. In April 1816 he was employed in the administration of Bavaria in their Rhine district in Landau , but after a while he was retired as redundant. He died on September 21, 1838 in Trippstadt. He was married on December 14, 1796 to Maria Sara Stamm (* August 31, 1771; † January 2, 1807), the girl whom Eulogius Schneider had chosen to be her bride immediately before his arrest.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alain Ruiz: Interférences franco-allemandes et révolution française , Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, University of Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux III , 1994, ISBN 2-86781-152-X
  2. ^ Susanne Lachenicht : Information and Propaganda. The press of German Jacobins in Alsace (1791–1800) . Munich 2004, p. 85.

Web links

Wikisource: Christoph Friedrich Cotta  - Sources and full texts