Dorothea Pichelt

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Dorothea Pichelt (born April 26, 1790 in Nordhausen am Harz , † December 19, 1824 in Magdeburg ) was a German soldier in the Wars of Liberation .

Life

Dorothea Pichelt was born as the daughter of the white tanner Andreas Pichelt and Eleonore Schneegaß in the Free Imperial City of Nordhausen. She grew up with four siblings and is said to have learned to ride at an early age.

After the call for the formation of voluntary hunter corps in early February 1813, she left her parents' house unnoticed and was thought to have disappeared. She took a large amount of money with her and bought a horse, a uniform and weapons for it. Then she joined the Freikorps formed east of the Elbe as Theodor Pichelt as a Dragoons (26th Regiment), with whom she later also came through Nordhausen. As a woman, she is said to have remained unrecognized. Together with two other soldiers, she saved the squadron leader's life, for which she was honored with a commemorative coin. After the victorious Prussian troops entered Magdeburg, she confessed to the sergeant that she was a woman. The commander publicly praised Dorothea for her patriotism and merit.

Later she is said to have married a sergeant named Geiger. In historical newspapers she is called Dorothea Geiger . She died in Magdeburg of "throat consumption" and was solemnly and respectfully buried in the garrison cemetery / military cemetery. A monument erected for them was removed when the cemetery was redesigned. On October 18, 1913, a memorial plaque was placed on the house where he was born by the Nordhausen History and Antiquity Association:

In this house became the fighter
in the wars of freedom
Dorothea Pichelt
born on April 26, 1790.

The memorial plaque was destroyed together with the birthplace in the air raids on Nordhausen in April 1945 .

See also

literature

  • Ernst Günther Förstemann, Friedrich Christian Lesser : Historical news of the formerly imperial and the holy. The free Roman city of Nordhausen was printed there in 1740. Revised and continued. Eberhardt, Nordhausen 1860.
  • Felix Haese: German heroines and helpers in the wars of freedom. Haack, Nordhausen 1913.
  • Heinrich Heine: Our homeland - local history of Nordhausen and the surrounding area . Schroedel, Halle ad p. 1914, p. 115 f.
  • Ulrike Müller: Women's Places in Thuringia - The Northausen Region. VDG, Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-89739-304-2 .
  • Nordhausen personalities from eleven centuries. Geiger, Horb am Neckar 2009, ISBN 978-3-86595-336-0 .
  • Susanne Wosnitzka: violinist, Johanna Dorothea (Dorothee) Elis [abeth?], B. Pichelt (bow / biegel / mirror), pseudonyms "Theodor Pichelt", "Karl Biegel / mirror". In: Eva Labouvie (Ed.): Women in Saxony-Anhalt. Volume 2: A biographical-bibliographical lexicon from the 19th century to 1945. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2019, ISBN 978-3-412-51145-6 , pp. 168–171.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Der Baierische Volksfreund , Volume 2, Munich, January 11, 1825, p. 22. Digitized and Augsburgische Ordinari Postzeitung , Nro. 7, Saturday, January 8th, 1825, p. 3. (digitized version) . The military cemetery to the north of the main train station was largely destroyed in World War II and leveled around 1970. In its place there is now a school. See Hans-Joachim Krenzke: Magdeburg cemeteries and burial places. in: Landeshauptstadt Magdeburg / City Planning Office Magdeburg (ed.): Documentations of the City Planning Office Volume 60, Magdeburg 1998, p. 151.Digitalized pdf part 2 .
personal data
SURNAME Pichelt, Dorothea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pichelt, Theodor (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German freedom fighter under Napoleonic rule
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1790
PLACE OF BIRTH Nordhausen
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1824
Place of death Magdeburg