Threatening letter affair
The threatening letter affair of 1823 was the reason for radical police state measures against suspected and feared opposition efforts in the Electorate of Hesse .
background
The background to the affair was, on the one hand, the autocratic regime of Elector Wilhelm II of Hesse-Kassel (* 1777; † 1847) and his fear of the reactions it triggered in his environment and among his subjects. On the other hand, the German Confederation had passed the Karlovy Vary resolutions , which sanctioned precisely this rigorous police-state policy.
In addition, there were special events in the electoral state: Already at the beginning of 1822 there was a sudden death of a lackey of Prince Elector Friedrich Wilhelm (* 1802, † 1875), which the elector rated as a failed poisoning attack on his son.
A few days before the threatening letter affair began, the elector had dissolved the most potent opposition circle in his state, the Schönfeld circle around his wife, Electress Auguste (* 1780; † 1841), from whom he had separated. Immediately afterwards he went to Nenndorf to relax . The political atmosphere in the electoral state was very tense due to the previous events.
Threatening letter affair
In Nenndorf he received an anonymous letter threatening him with death if he did not fulfill three ultimate demands:
- Granting a constitution
- Exclusion of his mistress and later second wife, Emilie Ortlöpp , who later became Countess Reichenbach-Lessonitz (* 1791, † 1843), from all influence on government affairs
- Refrain from personal corporal punishment of subordinates
The writing is called as the sender hundred young men of one mind and one heart [...], which united to the death [have] to your destruction, for the liberation of their suffering brethren of your Tiraney. The letter fit exactly into the enemy image of a reactionary-minded sovereign, since the sender presented himself as a secret group or from the circle of the fraternities . The real sender could never be determined.
consequences
The elector immediately set up a commission of inquiry, including Johannes Hassenpflug , who worked closely with the Mainz central investigation commission . The investigation turned against
- the members of the dissolved Schönfelder Kreis
- Illuminati Order
Arrests were made. The perpetrator or perpetrators could not be identified.
Rating
The threatening letter affair is the special Kurhessian expression of the wave of persecution against oppositional forces, which was triggered as a result of the Karlovy Vary resolutions. In Kurhessen the mistress of the sovereign was added as a particularly spicy note in this conflict, a problem that Wilhelm II forced to his de facto abdication eight years later. The threatening letter affair noticeably increased the political tensions in the Electorate of Hesse and contributed significantly to the potential for conflict, which then led to a particularly violent reaction in the revolution in 1830, which led to a constitution that was particularly restrictive for the sovereigns - for the circumstances at the time.
literature
- Rüdiger Ham: Ludwig Hassenpflug: statesman and lawyer between revolution and reaction. A political biography. = Studies on historical research in modern times 50. Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-2764-5 .
- Johann von Horn: The conspiracy against the elector Wilhelm II of Hessen-Cassel is presented according to its history and criminality. Ilmenau 1824.
- Philipp Losch: History of the Electorate of Hesse: 1803 - 1866. Kassel 1922; Reprint: Kassel 1972.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The wording in the copy by Ludwig Hassenpflug reproduced in: Ham, p. 90f.