Demagogue persecution
The persecution of demagogues served the restorative suppression of aspirations for freedom in the German Confederation . After the Karlovy Vary resolutions they were the reaction to the national revolutionary spirit of the fraternities .
background
First wave
The most severe persecution occurred in the Kingdom of Prussia under Karl Albert von Kamptz . The Prussian Censorship Dict (1819) abolished the university professors' freedom from censorship . According to a cabinet order from 1820, “authorities, consistories, schools and universities should be cleared of dangerous errors, seducers and seduced persons”. The universities received government representatives as curators; the university judges became state officials who did not belong to the faculty and were appointed by the Prussian Ministry of Spiritual, Educational and Medical Affairs.
In 1822 a cabinet order stipulated the dismissal of clergymen in the event of political misconduct. Many years of official criminal proceedings followed, e.g. B. against Friedrich Schleiermacher and Ernst Moritz Arndt . Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette , who had written a letter of consolation to the mother of the executed Karl Ludwig Sand , was previously without trial on the orders of Friedrich Wilhelm III. (Prussia) deposed. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn had to stay restrictions subject and was to two years imprisonment convicted.
The crackdown on students, who were usually members of fraternities , was particularly sharp . In 1821 the cabinet order was issued that the suspicion of membership justified relegation without a judicial investigation. In 1824 all student associations were put on an equal footing with secret political associations. The power of investigation was thus transferred from the university to the political police, the criminal power from the universities to the criminal justice system . At the Supreme Court, ETA Hoffmann treated the delinquents with forbearance. On October 1, 1819, he was appointed a member of the "Immediatkommission for the investigation of treasonous connections and other dangerous activities", he attached importance to correct investigation procedures. That's why he ran into Kamptz several times, whom he exposed to ridicule in Master Flea . He died in 1822 before the criminal proceedings were concluded.
Around 1827/28 the first wave of demagogue persecution subsided.
Second wave
The Polish swarming and the Frankfurt Wachensturm followed the second wave of demagogue persecutions. Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Hesse were particularly tough . By 1836 the High Court sentenced over 200 students for high treason . All 39 death sentences were commuted to 30 years of imprisonment . Fritz Reuter was among those convicted . Ut mine fortress tid is the report that is still famous today. The often pronounced withdrawal of employability ruined the professional future of many students, especially the theology and teacher training candidates. Friedrich Wilhelm IV overturned most of the judgments when he took office. The persecutions initially ended with the German Revolution of 1848/49 .
literature
- Robert Develey : The persecution of demagogues from the perspective of the contemporary Swiss press 1819–1827 . Einst und Jetzt , Vol. 23 (1978), pp. 150-181.
- Georg Heer : History of the German Burschenschaft , Vol. 2: The demagogue time , 2nd edition. Carl Winter University Press, Heidelberg 1965.
- Andreas C. Hofmann: German university politics in the Vormärz between centralism, ›transstate‹ and »ideologies of statehood« (1815/19 to 1848) , Phil. Diss. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2014, complete, around a few figs. Version, Univ.bibl. Munich 2015/16, ISBN 978-3-00-050740-3 , http://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19647 .
- Harald Lönnecker : Students and Society, Students in Society - An attempt to provide an overview since the beginning of the 19th century , in: Rainer Christoph Schwinges (Ed.): University in public space (publications by the Society for the History of University and Science, 10), Basel 2008, pp. 387-438.
- Harald Lönnecker: Demagogue tracking , from: Lexicon on Restoration and Vormärz. German history 1815 to 1848 , ed. v. Andreas C. Hofmann. historicum.net (2011) (last accessed June 26, 2014).
- Albert Petzold: The Central Investigation Commission in Mainz , in: Herman Haupt (Hrsg.): Sources and presentations on the history of the fraternity and the German unity movement , Vol. 5. Heidelberg 1920, pp. 171-258.
- Egbert Weiß : Corps students in the pre-March period - “persecuted” and “persecutors” . Einst und Jetzt, Vol. 33 (1988), pp. 47-63; Supplements Vol. 34 (1989), p. 264 f.