The liberal

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Title page of the first edition from March 1, 1832

The Liberal : Freiburg Political Papers was a liberal newspaper that appeared daily in Freiburg im Breisgau from March 1, 1832 to July 25, 1832 on 4 pages and was banned by the Baden government in Karlsruhe after only five months and 145 issues.

The idea for the newspaper arose while the press law was being debated in the second chamber in 1831. Karl Fromherz , professor of chemistry at the University of Freiburg , suggested the title Der Freisinnige in a letter to Karl von Rotteck on November 11, 1931 . Freiburg political papers . As one of the initiators of the newspaper, Fromherz tried to get Rotteck to cooperate with this letter, after he had already secured the support of Carl Theodor Welcker . He held further discussions with Johann Georg Duttlinger , Joseph Merk , a member of the second chamber and court judge in Freiburg, and Franz Julius Schneller , the Freiburg professor of history. The importance that Fromherz attached to Rotteck's cooperation, he expressed in the letter: "Just judge for yourself what success a political paper must have, of which one knows: Rotteck, Welcker, Duttlinger are employees."

Another argument from Fromherz was that there had to be a newspaper to give substance to the law. That something is in the government paper is not enough. In addition, there has been no paper close to the opposition in Baden because of the severe censorship. The four newspapers permitted in the Grand Duchy were the Karlsruher Zeitung , a semi-official government paper with a focus on court and foreign policy, the Mannheimer Zeitung , which is close to absolutist forces , the Freiburger Zeitung and the Konstanzer Zeitung , both of which limited themselves to local, non-political reporting.

The liberal people were to be financed by subscribing to shares, and the capital of approx. 4000 florins made available in this way was to earn interest at 5%. The interest rate was deliberately chosen to be low, the shares were not a cheap investment, but only served to keep the newspaper going. The liberal should not make any profits, even though the price for the annual subscription of 10 fl was well above the 7 fl of the Freiburger Zeitung.

Rotteck, Welcker and Duttlinger agreed with the conception, so that Welcker could announce the first edition for March 1st on February 2nd, 1832. He had deliberately set the date on this date, as it was the day the new liberal press law came into force. The Freiburg Liberals celebrated this day with a feast. Then students with torches moved in front of the Rotteck and Welcker apartments. As if a new era was now approaching, Welcker spoke again after midnight from the third floor of his apartment at Breisacher Tor to the some free Germania, and downstairs, their throats hoarse from an improvised bard chant by Herr von Reichlin-Meldegg , the students of all stood Faculties, young Germany.

Welcker adopted Fromherz's text as the programmatic declaration of the new newspaper: “The liberal devoted his energies to the great cause of the constitution throughout Germany. He is in the liberal sense, frankly and fearlessly, but worthy prudent and far edited by passionate exaggerations being. " .

With the implementation of the Karlsbad resolutions , the pressure exerted by the Frankfurt Bundestag on the Baden government to withdraw the liberal press law increased. When Karlsruhe gave in to the pressure, Der Freisinnige was banned after only five months. Even if the newspaper only existed for a short time during the Hambach Festival , it set a clear signal for freedom of the press. The memory remained, and so freedom of the press was one of the basic demands of the Baden revolution . On March 1, 1848, the Karlsruhe government announced the reintroduction of the Press Act of 1831, which, however, was withdrawn when the uprising in Baden was suppressed in 1849.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fromherz to Rotteck, November 11, 1831, in: Stadtarchiv Freiburg K 1/25 estate of Karl von Rotteck. Regarding the letters to Rotteck in particular: Rüdiger von Treskow: Illustrious defender of human rights! The correspondence of Karl von Rotteck . Vol. 2: Letter gestures , Freiburg / Würzburg 1992.
  2. ↑ The "Liberals" and the struggle of the Baden liberals for freedom of the press 1831/32 . In Rainer Schimpf. Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): The beginnings of liberalism and democracy in Germany and Austria 1830–1848 / 49 . Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 2002, pp. 157-190.
  3. ^ Oskar Haffner: From the beginnings of public political life in Freiburg . In: Journal of the Society for the Promotion of History, Antiquity and Folklore 36, 115, 1920.
  4. ↑ Freiburg newspaper , No. 33, February 2, 1832.
  5. ^ Negotiations of the assembly of estates of the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1847 and 1848 , Second Chamber, March 1, 1848, XXXII. Meeting, 1. Minutes, pp. 44–45.