German Confederation (secret society)
The German Confederation was a secret society founded in 1810 under the leadership of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn to liberate the German states from French occupation and to unite the Germans.
prehistory
As a member of the secret, student unitist order, Jahn had experience in the field of federal affairs and extensive acquaintances. With the new foundation it was about an alliance between all social classes. In 1808 he had already pursued this idea, also under the impression of Johann Gottlieb Fichte's speeches to the German nation , when he tried to formulate guidelines for a new German empire in his work Deutsches Volksthum . The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had to be dissolved under Napoleon's pressure in 1806, so that many German intellectuals had the impression of loss and insecurity. In 1810 Jahn saw the time had come to found a federation to enforce a free and unified Germany.
founding
In 1810, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Friedrich Friesen had already started gymnastics exercises on the Hasenheide near Berlin - today a park in the Berlin district of Neukölln - to strengthen the academic youth. This should now be built upon. Late in the evening on November 14, 1810, 12 friends came together in the Hasenheide and founded the German Confederation under Jahn's direction.
This was intended on the one hand to spread the general idea of freedom and unity for Germans, on the other hand to build a reliable team for an uprising against Napoleon.
The founding of the German Confederation is also described in another place for this day, in the excursion restaurant " Dusterer Keller ", a former wine press house in front of the Hallesches Tor . So probably on that day from the Hasenheide on the way back to Berlin one stopped at the inn a good one and a half kilometers away to drink to the Bund.
Members
Jahn, Friesen, Zeune, Otto, Preuß, Harnisch, Starcke, Feuerstein, Salomon Friedrich Stiebel , Max von Schenkendorf , Grashoff, Janke, Schroer, Turte, Graf vd Groeben u. a., probably also Karl Horn (main founder of the Urburschenschaft 1815 in Jena)
purpose
During a search as part of the demagogue persecution in 1819, a writing board with encrypted excerpts from the federal constitution was written on. This is said to have included the following:
“The purpose of the German Confederation is to preserve the German people in their originality and independence, to revitalize the Germanness and all dormant forces, to preserve our folklore, to protect and shield against secret corruption from within, against apparent bondage from outside and all tricks, lists and disruptions of prayer of melting and melting, working towards the finite unity of our fragmented, divided and separated people. Every confederate must be a born German - be free from crime, pure from vices and diligently strive to improve weaknesses, to see shortcomings and to put aside mistakes. Duties. Spotless purity in life, care for a good name, acquisition of general respect through consistent way of thinking and acting, consecrating oneself to fight for truth, law and fatherland. - Talking, teaching and acting against all and all foreigners - enliven the popular feeling, behave the willlessness and all the fantasies of the people's powerlessness and enemy superiority - become and remain German in general. "
The constitution itself is said to have been noted by Jahn in a federal book and buried in an iron ark. It could not be confiscated.
Since Prussia, like the other German states, was covered with French informers and police, the founders decided to run the federation as a secret society. They vowed secrecy and made all new members vow the same thing.
activity
The number of members is said to have increased gradually from 12 to 40 or 50. Contact was made with similar groups in Berlin and Königsberg . Bases in other cities were established.
Tasks within the federal government were assigned using old German terms: “folder”, “nurse”, “writer”, “cashier” or “pensioner”. Secret writing was used for secret communication.
The uprising and future plans were still general, but it was agreed that an important part of the work must lie in the patriotic education of the youth, especially the student youth. In addition, pressure should be exerted on the king's court to take up the confrontation with the "master". Jahn came into contact with high-ranking personalities of the Prussian court such as August Neidhardt von Gneisenau , Gerhard von Scharnhorst and Karl August von Hardenberg . The court took note of Jahn's undertakings, but was not yet ready to take up the conflict with Napoleon beyond a cautious benevolence. When Jahn began public gymnastics on the Hasenheide the following year, members of the court, including the Crown Prince, visited him there.
Tangible undertakings in French-occupied Berlin were dangerous; it was evidently a matter of attempts and a few exercises. Incidentally, gymnastics in the Hasenheide was the public side, the German Confederation was the hidden side of Jahn's activities.
disability
In 1812 there were searches and documents confiscated. "Government journalist" von Heiligenstaedt summarized the findings, but did not mention a federal book with a constitution. This obstruction and persecution of the German Confederation may have happened due to pressure from the French occupation or out of distrust of the Prussian authorities towards independent associations of subjects.
Departure
In the winter of 1812/1813, after Napoleon's disaster in the Russian campaign , the tide turned in Prussia. Prussia's change of side was prepared at court. Jahn and Friesen, the latter known for gymnastics and swimming, also urged the Prussian minister Hardenberg to found a group to collect volunteers from all German states for the fight against Napoleon. Apparently it was agreed in January 1813 to found such a force. Because even before the king was asked confidentially by Scharnhorst and officially by Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow to set up a free corps to be led by him, Jahn and Friesen arrived at the meeting point in Breslau on January 29, 1813 . There they recruited volunteers in the area and prepared everything to cope with the expected onslaught. On March 17th, the long-awaited appeal “ To my people ” by the Prussian king appeared. In the weeks before, and now increasingly, hundreds and finally several thousand volunteers poured into Wroclaw, some of whom were registered by Jahn in the “Zum Goldenen Szepter” inn. The Lützow Freikorps attracted numerous students, but also academics who were already active in the civil service - among other professional groups, especially through Jahn's extensive connections to many universities. With that the first goal - the fight against the occupiers - was achieved. The second major goal, the (at least small German ) unification of Germany, was no longer to be experienced by the federal brothers.
As was stated later in an interrogation of the demagogue persecution, Jahn is said to have dissolved the German Confederation as early as February 1813, roughly with the words: “Well goodbye, it's all over now, everyone now do his duty, our vow has been taken. “Another statement puts this dissolution in May 1814. However, there is also talk of the consultations of the former federal brothers within the Lützow Freikorps.
Aftermath
Jahn's popularity in Berlin was at its height in 1817. On his now well-known work "Deutsches Volksthum" he gave a lecture at the university in the summer semester that attracted several hundred listeners. However, Jahn disliked the ministry with several of his clear expressions of opinion, especially with his toast to the students of the Wartburg Festival , which he brought out one evening in autumn 1817. He was therefore not allowed to continue his lecture in the winter semester. In 1819, after the murder of the writer August von Kotzebue by the fraternity member Karl Sand , the fraternity, which had emerged from the Lützow Freikorps, was widely persecuted . Jahn in particular, as the engine of student politicization since 1810, came into the focus of the authorities and was arrested. The poet and judge ETA Hoffmann led the investigation into the Jahns case and those around him. Jahn played down his role at the time, which was supported by his friends who were also interrogated. Hoffmann came to a mild verdict in 1820, despite accusations made by Government Councilor Jahnke, a former member of the secret German Confederation: Jahn should be released because no treasonable tendencies had become apparent in him. However, Jahn was held in custody for another five years on orders from a higher authority, as he was seen as the spiritual father of the student resistance alongside Fichte and Ernst Moritz Arndt .
It is not known to what extent the connection between the former conspirators lasted later. However, it can certainly be assumed that they were able to build on a certain understanding and trust in encounters and undertakings in the following years and in the major events.
meaning
The "German Confederation" was a nucleus of the Lützow Freikorps and the general German fraternity founded in 1815. This took its colors black and red (later also gold) from the Lützowern and spread the slogan "Honor, Freedom, Fatherland" at the Protestant German universities. In 1810, Jahn and his federal brothers gave a decisive impetus to the German national movement.
Sources
Only a few testimonies from this secret society have survived, precisely because the members had committed themselves to complete silence.
Some documents were created by the demagogue persecution after 1819, when former members of the German Confederation were interrogated and their homes searched among the fraternities persecuted. The most important source is the constitution cited above, which appeared in excerpts in 1819 and in cipher on a writing board. Starcke, a member and now a fraternity member, handed them in during an interrogation. It may therefore also be that he made this panel at a later date in order to show the German Confederation more clearly as not directed against the Prussian king.
Other messages come from later memoirs of those involved; B. of the Jewish student Salomon Friedrich Stiebel from Frankfurt. When he was studying in Berlin around 1811, his friendship with Jahn led him to attempt to punish a collaborator - which, however, had no consequences.
literature
- Günter Jahn: The student days of the unitist FL Jahn and their significance for the prehistory and early history of the fraternity 1796-1819. In: Christian Hünemörder in connection with Günter Cerwinka u. a. (Ed.): Representations and sources on the history of the German unity movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Published on behalf of the Society for Fraternity History Research. Vol. 15. Winter, Heidelberg 1995, ISBN 3-8253-0205-9 , pp. 1-129 (pp. 88-93).
- "Turnvater" Jahn and his patriotic environment: letters and documents 1806–1812 edited by Hans-Joachim Bartmuß , Eberhard Kunze, Josef Ulfkotte. 2008
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jahn, Günther: The student days of the unitist FL Jahn and their significance for the prehistory and early history of the fraternity 1796-1819, in: Representations and sources for the history of the German unity movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, Vol. 15, Heidelberg 1995 , Pp. 1–129.
- ↑ German Volksthum
- ↑ November 14 (year 1810) in: Daily facts of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (at the DHM ) without reference to the source (Sigel Rud0980).
- ^ A b Official report of ETA Hoffmann 1820, quoted in: Heinrich Pröhle : Friedrich Ludwig Jahns Leben. Berlin 1855, p. 350 .
- ^ A b Official report of ETA Hoffmann 1820, quoted in: Heinrich Pröhle: Friedrich Ludwig Jahns Leben. Berlin 1855, p. 351 .
- ^ Official report of ETA Hoffmann 1820, quoted in: Heinrich Pröhle: Friedrich Ludwig Jahns Leben. Berlin 1855, p. 365 .
- ^ Official report of ETA Hoffmann 1820, quoted in: Heinrich Pröhle: Friedrich Ludwig Jahns Leben. Berlin 1855, p.369f. .
- ^ Salomon Stiebel: Memories from the German Wars of Liberation of 1813 and 1814. Frankfurt a. M. 1847.