Franz Raveaux

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Franz Raveaux

Franz Raveaux (born April 29, 1810 in Cologne as François Raveaux ; † September 13, 1851 in Laeken near Brussels ) was a German democrat and revolutionary who became known throughout Germany through his participation in the revolution of 1848 .

youth

Franz Raveaux comes from a Republican family. His father Pierre Raveaux (* 1774 in Autun / Burgundy , † 1851 in Cologne) came to Cologne in 1794 as a professional soldier and magazine administrator with the French revolutionary troops via Mainz and Bonn. There he met his future wife Anne Maria Maaß (* 1776 in Cologne, † 1849), whom he married in Bonn in 1797. Franz Raveaux was born as the fourth of six children in Cologne's Severinstrasse 6938½ (former Carmelite monastery ) and, as a teenager, opposed despotic school forms when he attended the Cologne Carmelite high school from October 1820. In July 1823 he was expelled from school because of his involvement in a brawl with a group of Cologne craftsmen and the firing of a key box, and his subsequent attempt to graduate from the Düsseldorf painting school from 1825 also failed . He left her in December 1825.

soldier

Finally, in 1829, Raveaux entered the service of the Prussian army, where he joined a dragoon regiment. Here he messed with superiors, which led to a preliminary investigation against him. In order to avoid the threatened conviction, Raveaux deserted from a seven-month pre-trial detention in the Deutz military fortress to Belgium, where he joined the Belgian Revolution against the Kingdom of Holland in September 1830 and fought in Brussels for the liberation of Belgium from Dutch domination. In 1831 he went to Paris and joined the newly founded French Foreign Legion .

For this he moved to Spain to take part in the First Carlist War there from 1833 . In the course of this, he was taken prisoner in 1835. In the late autumn of 1836 he returned to Cologne, about which a police spy wrote a report for the Berlin State Security. According to this report, Raveaux came on November 21, 1836 by steamboat from Mainz to Cologne in possession of a Spanish passport.

Return to Cologne

First he was serving a three-week arrest here because he had deserted in 1830. He then married the Deutz porcelain dealer daughter Brigitta Neukirchen on October 5, 1837 (* December 28, 1818 in Cologne-Deutz , † October 3, 1879 in Wiesbaden-Biebrich ). The nature, duration and order of the professional activities of Raveaux in the next few years is unclear. Apparently he tried "with the help of his father-in-law ... (to) enter the trade in porcelain stoves ... without success". Neukirchen finally gave his son-in-law money in 1837 for a cigar shop on Kölner Hohe Strasse 78 (then Hochstrasse), which initially began successfully, but went bankrupt in 1838. After that, Raveaux worked as a writer and editor at Greven Verlag from 1840 . He moved to Blankenheim (Ahr) at the end of 1839 and founded a fashion business there, which also went bankrupt in 1841. His persistent dispute with the local bourgeoisie prompted Raveaux to publish his first brochure, The Mayor Election of Blankenheim , published anonymously in 1842 and written in Knittelversen .

From the summer of 1841 Raveaux worked as an emigration broker in the Eifel and Antwerp, arranging for the impoverished Ahr winegrowers to travel to the USA. The activity that was initially criticized in contemporary literature is put into perspective by the files in the Koblenz main archive. Rather, Raveaux (and partner Peter Josef Wichterich) had been very successful in promoting German citizens' emigration to America. On June 13, 1842, the two leaflets were printed, on which numerous emigrants confirmed the good quality of the mediation work of Raveaux and Wichterich. On June 26, 1842, the "notes" were discovered by the authorities and an investigation was initiated against both signatories. A complaint filed on June 30, 1842 against Raveaux and Wichterich, who from now on were strictly monitored by the authorities in order to be able to prove their criminal offenses, was discarded. Overall, the police investigations did not produce any useful information, so that the authorities (internally) no longer accused the two of them of “tempting” them to emigrate. On March 16, 1843, President Eduard von Schaper wrote to the royal government in Koblenz that it was not possible to prove that Raveaux and Wichterich had violated the law.

In 1843 Raveaux moved impoverished back to Cologne. Here he took over the post of editor-in-chief of the "Cölnische Anzeiger" published by Greven-Verlag. In January 1844, with a parental loan of 800 Thalers, he succeeded in establishing himself as a tobacco trader and property speculator in Cologne society and also achieved financial success. The shop was at the best address in 1845, Cologne's Hohe Strasse. Raveaux ran the shop until February 1849. By this time, the authorities had long since identified Raveaux as an enemy of the state and had begun to discriminate; but this could not detract from his popularity. In 1844 he first gained public attention when he ended the Cologne clique there when he was elected to the Board of Directors for the Association of Cathedral Builders . On January 1, 1844, he was also a member of the opposition in the Great Carnival Society , when he demanded a majority of votes for the election of the board and thus got himself into the "small council". There he was an opponent of the conservative President Peter Leven. Initially a member of the older "Hanswurstliche Parliament", the active hand-made speaker Raveaux accused his society Klüngel of preferring wealthy and despotism , left them in a dispute and founded the new society "The Younger Society" together with the "Iron Knights" in 1844 Called "The General Carnival Society". There was a lower membership fee in the general Carnival Society, which was free from fraud , than in the established one. After the separation into two carnival societies, there had been two Rose Monday parades in Cologne for two years. A uniform Rose Monday procession went in 1846 under the motto “procession of the general carnival society”.

Political activity

On November 10, 1844, Raveaux was elected to the preparatory committee of the Cologne General Aid and Educational Association, which is supposed to promote the welfare of the “working classes”. Raveaux only reappeared on August 2, 1846, when the traditional Martinskirmes were celebrated in Cologne . It was an annual fair in Cologne's old town, which in August 1846 gave rise to conflicts between the state, the affluent bourgeoisie and the Catholic Church on the one hand and the poorer population on the other. Citizens who returned quietly and who were not involved in the rioting were persecuted and attacked by the police and Prussian soldiers. The triggers were prohibited fireworks and young people throwing stones. Seven people were injured, some seriously, an uninvolved journeyman cooper was killed and later carried to his grave on August 6, 1846, accompanied by 5,000 people in the Melaten cemetery . Raveaux made sure with the city government that the soldiers remained in their barracks. On August 5, 1846, under the leadership of Franz Raveaux, an unarmed vigilante group was set up to protect the citizens.

Raveau summarizes the events in the city on August 26, 1846 in an 88-page document. In it he describes how the law enforcement officials tried to suppress the move on the second day of the fair, August 3, 1846, to the old market. These interventions of the police officers were Raveaux 'opinion, the cause of the serious riots on August 4, 1846, when 18 o'clock police and soldiers to Alter Markt occupied. When stones flew, the people were driven back by force of arms. As a result, soldiers 'houses were searched in numerous streets and bystanders' homes were demolished. Raveaux was a member of the reporting commission that should investigate the incidents and was appointed its president. However, the work of the commission was hindered by a house search of the members on August 25, 1846 by “General-Procurator” (today: Public Prosecutor) Heinrich Karl Wilhelm Berghaus, during which evidence collected was confiscated. The hearings of around 150 witnesses carried out by the Commission were interpreted as exercising judicial functions.

On October 14, 1846, Raveaux was elected almost unanimously to Cologne city council.

Interest in carnival

Raveaux is considered to be the founder of the political carnival. He pleaded for a "satirical examination of current events" in the carnival. With the establishment of the General Carnival Society , which split off in 1844 from the Cologne Carnival Society, which was supported by the upper class, the carnival opened up to a wider population. Raveaux was also active as a handicraft speaker and wrote small plays that were performed in the meetings of the Carnival Society. The motto of his Carnival society was "Liberty and equality in foolishness", derived from the motto of the French Revolution freedom, equality, fraternity . This was called in the French original "liberté, égalité, fraternité", and many Cologne citizens chanted the abbreviation "ELF" as a hidden criticism of the Prussians during the carnival.

On June 29, 1844, Franz Raveaux invited to a carnival meeting on the Rhine island of Nonnenwerth , which was followed by around 30 Rhenish carnival friends. In the run-up to the meeting, Raveaux had emphasized the apolitical character of the meeting, "since the Rhinelanders disliked politics". But the "Coblenzer Anzeiger" warned: "There would probably be other items that were very strange to the carnival to be discussed there." The police had prevented a major event through their measures. The Cologne police inspector Johann Nikolaus Brend'amour reported that they sang the song "Hanswoosch hät sich emanzipeet, hä is jitz under the age!" (Hanswurst has emancipated himself, he is now of age). Raveaux succeeded in arranging the Cologne Rose Monday Parade in 1845 through his General Carnival Society.

Politics in the National Assembly

Franz Raveaux in the National Assembly (1848)

Infected by the events in France, where on February 24, 1848, the French King Louis-Philippe of Orléans was forced to abdicate in the February Revolution of 1848 , there is turmoil in the air everywhere in the Rhineland, and the authorities react nervously. The Cologne workers' demonstration of March 3, 1848 made a deep impression on public opinion in the Rhineland. The most spectacular action on that day was a demonstration of 2,000 to 5,000 craftsmen and workers who moved from Cologne's southern part of the city in front of the town hall. The Frankfurt National Assembly , which was to be prepared by a pre-parliament , was in the planning stage . Raveaux was elected a member of this preliminary parliament on March 26, 1848 in Cologne, and on April 13, 1848 the local council appointed him to a commission for the organization of the newly established Cologne vigilante group; here he becomes head of the second citizen company.

On March 18, 1848, he went to Berlin with a council delegation and witnessed the bloody suppression of the popular movement. From May 18, 1848 to June 18, 1849 he was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, and until May 17, 1848 a member of the Committee of Fifties .

The Raveaux proposal

The motion submitted by Raveaux to the Frankfurt National Assembly on May 22, 1848 raised the question of whether the mandate of the Frankfurt National Assembly was compatible with the mandate of the Prussian National Assembly - without this having to be discussed in a committee . The wording read: “The National Assembly should speak out in favor of those members from Prussia who are at the same time for the National Assembly in Frankfurt a. M. and had been elected for the Prussian Reichstag, is free to accept both elections ”. A previously issued order by the Prussian government rejected this compatibility. With the application, the question of the legislative decision-making power of the Paulskirche constitution was raised in the first few days of negotiations of the National Assembly : Was the National Assembly allowed to contest or even revoke decisions of the governments of the individual states?

The aim of the application was to edit the provisions on constitutions in the individual countries and thus to bring them into line with the principles discussed in Frankfurt. According to this, the decisive decisions should be reserved for the Paulskirche and should not be able to be thwarted by national parliaments. As a result, a compromise was reached, according to which the constitutional legislation of the National Assembly should take precedence over the decisions of the individual states, but did not necessarily have to override them.

In the Paulskirche Raveaux was a member of numerous commissions, in the rump parliament he was appointed Reich Commissioner in Baden . On August 3, 1848, on his return to Cologne, he was warmly welcomed by the population, and in September 1848 he went to Switzerland as envoy of the provisional central authority.

Activities from 1849

From May 1849 he took an active part in the Baden Revolution . He was the city commander of Mannheim and civil commissioner of the commander-in-chief of the Baden revolutionary troops. Although Raveaux was elected by the rump parliament on June 6, 1849 as one of the five imperial regents (here he was responsible for warfare), after the defeat in the Baden Revolution he had to flee to Switzerland in June 1849 . However, the Swiss authorities did not want to grant asylum to the heads of the Baden-Palatinate civil war. As early as July 16, 1849, the Swiss Federal Council had decided to expel all political and military leaders. Actually expelled by the confederates on June 30, 1849, he and his wife Brigitta wandered through France between 1849 and 1851 in search of asylum. Both were initially exiled in Strasbourg in October 1849 . In September 1850 both appeared in Nancy , on January 6, 1851 he arrived in Brussels . Here he found his last home in Laeken near Brussels.

Raveaux understood the Prussian counterrevolution as high treason against the first German democracy. But the reality was different. On June 22, 1851, in Raveaux's absence, a wanted poster ( arrest warrant ) was issued against him for conspiracy to overthrow the existing government. The Assisenhof (a jury) in Cologne sentenced him to death in absentia on July 8, 1851 for "participating in the Baden uprising as well as for taking over the imperial reign" in Cologne , whereupon he was symbolically executed on July 11, 1851 in Cologne's Alter Markt.

Raveaux was also known to his famous dialectical contemporaries Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx - who lived temporarily in Cologne. Friedrich Engels wrote in a letter dated May 6 or 7, 1851 to Karl Marx: “For this, the great Franz Raveaux reopened his clash polemics with Mr. Paul Franck and other donkeys in the 'Kölnische Zeitung'. He is ripe again to be elected to some national fool's house and to say: 'Gentlemen, the city of Köllen has had a great day!' "

On September 13, 1851, Raveaux died of tuberculosis in Laeken , where he is also buried. After the funeral, widow Brigitta traveled to Cologne for the funeral mass on September 24, 1851. Her father-in-law, Pierre Raveaux, spent the last days of his life there and died on October 17, 1851. Brigitta Raveaux stayed in her hometown until July 1852. After several stops, she returned to Brussels, where she married family friend Johann Ludwig Ehrstein in August 1853.

Until his death, Franz Raveaux had composed subversive carnival songs, which he regularly sent to Cologne. Within a few years, Raveaux rose to become a Cologne folk hero, a respected member of the Paulskirche in Frankfurt and a strategist in the imperial constitution campaign.

Raveaux as namesake

literature

Web links

Commons : Franz Raveaux  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Raveaux (11): a biographical sketch ( memento of the original from June 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Franz Raveaux archive @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / raveaux.bibliofil.de
  2. ↑ Klaus Schmidt, Franz Raveaux: Carnivalist and pioneer of the democratic awakening in Germany , 2001, p. 15
  3. ↑ Christina Frohn, Carnival in Aachen, Düsseldorf and Cologne from 1823 to 1914 , 2000, p. 106
  4. ↑ Gisela Mettele, Bürgertum in Köln 1775-1870 , 1998, p. 256, footnote 641
  5. ↑ Axel Koppetsch, Franz Raveaux (1810-1851) , 1998, p. 315
  6. ^ Franz Raveaux, The mayor election of Blankenheim , 1842 (PDF; 80 kB)
  7. ^ Karl Leopold Kaufmann, From the Life of Franz Raveaux (1810-1851). In: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter, 5th year, 1935, pp. 183–190
  8. ↑ Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz, inventory 441 / no. 5107, pp. 501-580 and inventory 403 / no. 7184, pp. 1-47
  9. ↑ Appendix 6, pp. 567-568
  10. ↑ Gisela Mettele, Bürgerertum in Köln 1775-1870 , 1998, p. 309
  11. ↑ Julius Meyer, The great conversation lexicon for the educated classes , 1850, p. 566
  12. ↑ Helene Klauser, Cologne Carnival between Uniform and Lifestyle , 2007, p. 141
  13. ↑ Peter Fuchs (ed.), Chronik zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln , 1991, p. 132
  14. ^ Franz Steger, Supplementary Conversations Lexicon Volume 4 , 1849, p. 573 ff.
  15. ↑ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th and their consequences , 1846, p. 6
  16. ↑ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th and their consequences , 1846, p. 10
  17. ^ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th and their consequences , 1846, p. 14
  18. ^ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th with their consequences , 1846, p. 26 f.
  19. ^ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th and their consequences , 1846, p. 32
  20. ^ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th with their consequences , 1846, p. 54 f.
  21. ^ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th and their consequences , 1846, p. 16
  22. ↑ Helene Klauser, Cologne Carnival between Uniform and Lifestyle , 2007, p. 142
  23. ^ Ulrich S. Soénius (Ed.), Jürgen Wilhelm (Ed.): Kölner Personen-Lexikon. Greven, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , p. 439.
  24. ↑ Neue Rheinische Zeitung of February 28, 2009, Klaus Schmidt, Urstunk - Part 1
  25. ↑ LHAK Order 403, No. 7061, p. 168 ff.
  26. ^ Nico Ehlscheid, The History of the Cologne Carnival , 2010, p. 13
  27. ↑ Georg Mölich / Thomas Paul Becker, Revolution im Rheinland , 1998, p. 20
  28. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronik zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln , 1991, p. 136
  29. ^ Peter Fuchs (ed.), Chronik zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln , 1991, p. 137
  30. ^ Franz Raveaux, The Cologne Events of August 3rd and 4th and their consequences , 1846, p. 37
  31. ↑ Georg Mölich / Thomas Paul Becker, Revolution im Rheinland , 1998, p. 27
  32. ^ Franz Wigard, Stenographic Report on the Negotiations of the German Constituent National Assembly in Frankfurt am Main, 1848 , Volume 1, p. 44
  33. ↑ Theodor Mommsen, Die Unwollte Revolution , 1998, pp. 180 ff.
  34. ↑ Rheinische Lebensbilder , Volume 11, 1988, p. 145
  35. ↑ ADB, p. 469
  36. ^ Friedrich Engels / Karl Marx, The Correspondence Between Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx , 1844 to 1883, Volume 1, p. 179
  37. ↑ DEA The Electronic Archive, Letter from Engels to Marx ( Memento of the original dated December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dearchiv.de
  38. ↑ Helmut Reinalter, Enlightenment, Vormärz, Revolution , Volumes 22-25, 2002, p. 75
personal data
SURNAME Raveaux, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Raveaux, François (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German revolutionary of the March Revolution
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1851
Place of death Laeken