Franz Hebenstreit

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Franz Hebenstreit von Streitenfeld (born November 26, 1747 in Prague , † January 8, 1795 in Vienna ) was one of the heads of the Viennese democrats, generally known as the Viennese Jacobins . He was a social utopian based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Étienne Gabriel Morelly , Jean Meslier and Gabriel Bonnot de Mably . His friend and colleague Andreas Riedel called him a communist without further ado , which is probably the first time this term was used in German-speaking countries.

Life

Hebenstreit was the son of a philosophy professor at Charles University in Prague . After studying philosophy and law himself, he joined the Austrian army, first the Uhlans. As a commoner, he felt discriminated against the aristocrats and deserted in 1773. His plan was to flee to America to fight in the local revolution . But the Prussians caught him and put him in their army. After five years he was able to flee and returned to the Austrian army.

After a rather slow career, he found himself in 1791 in Vienna as Oberleutnant. He went back to college and became a Freemason . With a lot of sympathy for the French Revolution , he soon found himself in the circle of like-minded people around Andreas Riedel . Until the death of Emperor Leopold II , he and Riedel's group had little to fear, as the emperor himself was a supporter of the constitutional monarchy . Andreas Riedel, who promoted the Hebenstreit more and more, belonged to the emperor's inner circle of advisors and even wrote the draft for a constitution.

However, Leopold II's son, Emperor Franz II , had other goals when he ascended the throne in 1792. Andreas Riedel was sent into early retirement and any prospect of reform and quasi revolution from above was gone. Nevertheless, the friends still met and discussed politics, utopia and Maximilien de Robespierre . During this time, Hebenstreit wrote his poem "Homo Hominibus" ("Man among people"), written in Latin hexameters , with over 500 verses, in which he addressed the contrast between the poor and the rich.

His "Eipeldauerlied", which can be seen as a revolutionary song, became known to the Viennese. As the repression got worse and the conservatives got stronger and stronger, Hebenstreit in particular thought aloud about revolution and subversion. He even built a model of a chariot. A former cavalryman himself, he wanted to provide the French revolutionary army and the Polish rebels with an effective weapon against the difficult-to-defeat Austrian and Russian cavalry. Plans of the war machine were smuggled into Paris. Shortly afterwards, on June 24th, 1794, the arrests began in Vienna.

To what extent the allegations raised in the following show trials were based on reality, the claims of the informers, especially the book printer and later first head of the Kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei Joseph Vincenz von Degen , or at the request of the police chief of Vienna, Johann Anton Graf Pergen , and whose investigator, Franz Josef Graf Saurau , was based on making the group look more dangerous than it actually was, is an open question. Hebenstreit was convicted of high treason ("not judiciary, but political justice") and hanged, others like the magistrate Martin Joseph Prandstätter committed suicide in prison. Some, such as B. Riedel, were only liberated by Napoleon's troops.

The trial of Hebenstreit was "repeated" in 2010 in the Vienna City Hall as a historic event, with the accused being rehabilitated posthumously. Univ.-Prof. Hubert Christian Ehalt , constitutional lawyer Heinz Mayer , judge Beate Matschnig and judge Norbert Gerstlberger.

Hebenstreits head was on display in the Vienna Crime Museum until 2012 , it was removed after protests. The Café Hebenstreit, which opened next to the Republican Club - New Austria at the end of the 1980s, is named after the Viennese Jacobin . The café is located at Schottentor, not far from the Hebenstreit execution site.

literature

  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Hebenstreit, Franz von . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 8th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1862, p. 181 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ernst Wangermann: From Joseph II to the Jacobin trials. Vienna, 1966.
  • Alfred Körner: The Viennese Jacobins. Metzler, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-476-00238-1 .
  • Franz Hebenstreit 1747–1795. Man among people. Edited, translated and commented on his writings along with an introduction by Franz Schuh. (Writings from the Karl-Marx-Haus. Issue 11). Trier 1974, DNB 750992816 .
  • Alfred Körner: Franz Hebenstreit (1747–1795). Biography and attempt at an interpretation . In: Yearbook of the Association for the History of the City of Vienna. Vol. 30/31 (1974/75), pp. 39-62.
  • Helmut Reinalter (ed.): Jacobins in Central Europe. Innsbruck 1977, ISBN 3-85123-023-X .
  • Edith Rosenstrauch-Königsberg: circles and centers. Essays on the Enlightenment in Austria at the end of the 18th century. Deuticke, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7005-4632-7 .
  • Leslie Bodi: Thaw in Vienna. Böhlau, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-205-98360-2 .
  • Alexander Emanuely : Outcome: Franz Hebenstreit (1747–1795). Silhouettes of the Viennese democrats. 1794. Encyclopedia of Viennese Knowledge, Portraits, Volume II, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902416-42-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hubert Christian Ehalt, quoted in Rehabilitation of a Democrat. In: Wien.at aktuell , magazine for employees of the City of Vienna, No. 6/2010, p. 14.
  2. ↑ Gerhard Fellerer: Hubert Christian Ehalt: He is simply different and special , in: BravDa, Art, Literature, Satire , Heft 1/2, Wiener Neustadt 2020, p. 2 f.
personal data
SURNAME Hebenstreit, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Jacobin
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1747
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1795
Place of death Vienna