Friedrich Daniel Bassermann

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Friedrich Daniel Bassermann in a lithograph from 1842

Friedrich Daniel Bassermann (born February 24, 1811 in Mannheim , Grand Duchy of Baden ; † July 29, 1855 there ) was a German entrepreneur and liberal politician .

He was one of the most popular MPs in the Second Chamber of the Assembly of Estates of the Grand Duchy of Baden and was instrumental in creating the first freely elected parliament for a German nation-state , the Frankfurt National Assembly .

As chairman of the constitutional committee and undersecretary of state in the interior ministry of the provisional central authority , he contributed significantly to the imperial constitution . As a publisher, he founded the Deutsche Zeitung, one of the most influential newspapers in the run-up to the revolution of 1848/49.

family

Louis Coblitz : Portrait of the Bassermann couple, parents of Friedrich Daniel Bassermann

Bassermann came from a well-known Baden-Palatinate merchant family . His great-grandfather Johann Christoph Bassermann married the wealthy widow Katharina Parvinci in 1736 and bought the inn "To the Three Kings" in Heidelberg from his mother-in-law , which laid the foundation for the rise of the Bassermanns. After marrying Wilhelmine Reinhardt, daughter of the Mannheim mayor and cloth merchant Johann Wilhelm Reinhardt , his father Friedrich Ludwig Bassermann worked as a merchant and banker, one of the most important Mannheim entrepreneurs and in particular in the trade in wine, tobacco, grain and fabrics. The family house was on Mannheim's market square. Friedrich Daniel, named after his grandfather, was the second oldest and the oldest son of six children reaching adulthood.

Friedrich Daniel Bassermann was married to the pastor's daughter Emilie Karbach (1811–1872) and had five children, including Emil Bassermann-Jordan , owner of the winery of the same name in Deidesheim and Otto Friedrich Bassermann , who continued to run Bassermann Verlag after his father's death.

education and profession

After finishing high school , Bassermann began as an apprentice in the Mannheim iron trading business of his uncle Johann Ludwig Bassermann in 1826 and continued his commercial training at trading companies in Paris and Le Havre that were friends with his family . From 1829 he attended lectures in physics , chemistry and botany at the University of Heidelberg , followed by practical drug training in Nuremberg . During his time in Heidelberg he became a fraternity member in Erlangen and probably also in Heidelberg in 1829/30 with the old Heidelberg fraternity . After he had recovered from typhoid fever in Nuremberg , he completed his training by staying at Julius Stettner in Trieste and Faber & Cie. in London . In 1832 he took part in the Hambach Festival with his friends Erhard Joseph Brenzinger , Mathy and Alexander von Soiron . At the end of 1833 he went into business for himself by acquiring the drug business , a pharmaceutical, chemical and colonial goods wholesaler, the Giulini brothers in Mannheim , with financial support from his father . After Baden joined the Zollverein , he was able to expand his company considerably in a short time, making him a respected businessman and well-known member of society in his home town.

This is particularly reflected in his commitment to Mannheim's cultural life. He was appointed to the theater committee of the National Theater and was a member of the art association and the music association. In 1835 he was one of the founding members of the casino , a civic reading club.

Political career

Baden Second Chamber

In 1838 Bassermann became active in local politics for the first time through his election to the Small Citizens' Committee , which he chaired from 1839. Like David Hansemann in Aachen, Ludolf Camphausen in Cologne or August von der Heydt in Elberfeld, he was one of those liberal politicians who had their political base in the local authorities. In the larger cities, apart from a few Hanseatic cities, these had largely ousted the traditional notables .

In the following year he already belonged to the Hallgarten circle around Johann Adam von Itzstein . In 1841, Bassermann became a member of the Second Chamber of the State Assembly in Baden as a representative for Mannheim . There he was quickly one of the most prominent opposition politicians "due to the unreserved openness of his speeches" and was friends with other well-known MPs such as the popular Mannheim lawyer Friedrich Hecker, who was elected to the Second Chamber in 1842 , with whom he later got into fundamental political conflicts. The bon mot uttered by Bassermann in a speech in the Second Chamber, "that the people are not there for the government, but the government for the people", made it well known in the German Confederation . In the Second Chamber, Bassermann gained influence in addition to his commitment to civil liberties, in particular as an expert in Baden customs , finance and transport policy , where he was particularly committed to the construction of railway lines in the Grand Duchy. In addition, Bassermann also worked on the first and second editions of the State Lexicon by Karl von Rotteck and Carl Theodor Welcker .

As early as 1841 he sold his business to his younger brother Julius Bassermann due to his political career, which left him no time for trading, and devoted himself entirely to politics. In 1843, as part of the holiday dispute , in which the Baden government wanted to refuse the leave and thus the performance of their mandate to officials who had been elected for the opposition to the Second Chamber, the rejection of the government budget and forced the Germans with the first parliamentary motion of no confidence History of the resignation of the conservative ministry under Blittersdorf . The more flexible line of the ministers Boeckh , Nebenius and especially Bekk , who followed Blittersdorf , made it possible for the Grand Duchy of Baden to return to the progressive politics of Winter and to further profile Bassermann as an opposition politician.

German unity as a political program

In the same year, Bassermann and Karl Mathy founded what would later become the Bassermann'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung in Heidelberg . Their best-known publication was the liberally oriented Deutsche Zeitung, which argued in favor of a German nation-state, published on July 1, 1847 by Georg Gottfried Gervinus , Ludwig Häusser , Gustav Höfken , Karl Mathy and Karl Mittermaier .

First edition of the Deutsche Zeitung on July 1, 1847

In addition to its strong political influence, the importance of the Deutsche Zeitung was primarily due to its role as a central network for liberals from various German states who worked for the newspaper as correspondents, reporters, supervisory boards and in other functions. The liberal movement thus had an organ for developing common positions. As a co-founder, publisher and most important financial supporter of the newspaper, which is considered intellectual and leading in its quality standards, but also because of the fact that distribution is deliberately aimed at the entire German Confederation , Bassermann finally became the mouthpiece of the liberal movement in the states of the German Confederation and a pioneer of the German unification movement.

On April 15, 1844, in a speech to the Second Chamber, Bassermann demanded, following a motion from Welcker in 1831, that an all-German parliament be convened to create a German nation-state. Although this demand was rejected by the Baden government under Alexander von Dusch as being outside the competence, it hit the nerve of the times in almost all states of the German Confederation. As a result, Bassermann was an often invited speaker at political public assemblies and was hailed as one of the most popular politicians in southern Germany.

Bassermann's political program, which in addition to the question of German unity dealt in particular with issues of economic, trade and financial policy, was also reflected in the Heppenheim conference on October 10, 1847, when Bassermann organized it together with Mathy, Itzstein and Hansemann played an essential role. The conference results published by Mathy in the Deutsche Zeitung propagated the promotion and expansion of the customs union - supported by Bassermann only after initial resistance - in order to achieve the state-political unity of Germany, as well as an economic program in general that placed personal freedom rights in the foreground and the processes of change clearly supported the industrial revolution .

In the revolutionary mood shortly before the outbreak of the French February Revolution , Bassermann justified in the session of February 12, 1848 in a detailed speech in the Baden Second Chamber his request, which had been made a week earlier, “that by representing the German chambers of estates at the Bundestag a sure means to achieve common Legislation and uniform national institutions will be created ”. In doing so, he justified the demand for indirect representation of the people in the German Confederation with the safeguarding of political freedoms and the strengthening of the feeling of nationality and unity, as there was a “prevailing aversion of the nation to its highest authority” in relation to the German Confederation. Confidence can only be restored through a constitution. Bassermann thus set one of the decisive signals for the triggering of the March Revolution in Germany. The movement resulting from this demand led to the Heidelberg Assembly on March 5, 1848, which in turn initiated the pre-parliament from March 31 to April 5 in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt . Bassermann took part in both events and, together with other moderate liberals, was able to work towards ensuring that the majority present saw the creation of a constitution in consultation with the German Confederation within the framework of a constituent national assembly and not the creation of a revolutionary government called for by Hecker and Struve Task was viewed. Subsequently, Bassermann, as a shop steward appointed by the Baden government, was Vice-President of the Committee of Seventeen , which prepared work on a new Reich constitution.

The Frankfurt National Assembly

Bassermann in 1848 (steel engraving after a painting by A. Friedmann)

In the subsequent election to the Frankfurt National Assembly , Bassermann was elected a member of parliament by the electors from several Baden constituencies, but also from the Frisian constituency Kniphausen and the fourth Lower Franconian constituency in Stadtprozelten , whose election he accepted. From the first day of the meeting, on May 18, 1848, Bassermann was in Frankfurt, later he had his family follow him and moved into an apartment with them on Bleichstrasse.

From August 9, 1848 until Heinrich von Gagern's resignation as Prime Minister on May 10, 1849, Bassermann was Undersecretary of State in the Interior Ministry of the Provisional Central Authority . He was twice as envoy for this makeshift executive in the Prussian capital Berlin . As chairman of the thirty-member constitutional committee of the National Assembly set up in the fifth session on May 24, 1848, Bassermann was one of the central politicians in the National Assembly and, together with Gagern, one of the fathers of the Paulskirche constitution. Guided by realpolitical principles, as the leading representative of the casino faction , he strove for the small German unification of Germany in a constitutional monarchy under Prussian leadership:

"My creed was the draft of the 17s, of whose hereditary emperor, however, I declared even then that events than the assembly would have more to do with him."

The change in the political landscape caused by the March Revolution meant that Bassermann, who was a leading speaker for the opposition in the Baden Second Chamber, which was then considered the most liberal parliament in the German Confederation, became a center-right man. which was attacked by the rapidly emerging radical democratic and early socialist left around Friedrich Hecker and Gustav Struve for socio-political reasons, but in particular because of a lack of radicalism . Conversely, Bassermann regarded it as one of his most important tasks that the movement brought about by the March Revolution did not turn into the anarchy he feared, but instead remained on the path of parliamentarism and negotiations with the existing governments of the German Confederation. Already in April 1848 Bassermann had opposed the political mobilization of the popular masses and the demand for a revolution with a radical overthrow of the political situation in the Baden Second Chamber :

“Nothing is more dangerous than to induce a reaction by exaggeration in the mind; it can happen that in the end, many citizens, in a misunderstanding, say: Better no freedom than no order. "

In doing so, he contradicted the left , which called for a more radical solution and actively sought it through appropriate agitation and several popular uprisings such as the Hecker uprising in Baden . These actions were particularly influenced by the hunger riots caused by the bad harvests of 1846 and 1847 and the economic situation of the day laborers, artisans and smallholders affected by the breakup of traditional social structures. In doing so, the left fought not only the aristocracy and the clergy , but everyone they believed to be profiteers of the old corporate order and the new economic changes triggered by the industrial revolution, including the wealthier merchants and industrialists who opposed the clientele of the radical democrats benefited directly from the new order.

The left accused these groups of people of not being interested in the republic and equality, but only in improving the economic freedom of a few, namely the economic framework conditions for the haves. For the radical democratic left, Bassermann was a “pepper sack” and a “traitor to the people”, Karl Marx called him “Brutus Bassermann” in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung . Julius Bassermann experienced this attitude briefly and succinctly in 1848 from irregulars with the words "What Bassermann means should be a bullet in the head and a stab in the body".

Discussion in the Paulskirche. Bassermann (with white trousers) is standing on the right in the group in front of the presidium desk. Lithograph after a painting by Paul Bürde.

Based on Bassermann's speech on November 18, 1848 in the Frankfurt National Assembly about the situation in Berlin:

“I arrived late, but was still wandering the streets and must admit that I was frightened by the people I saw in them, especially near the meeting room of the estates. I saw figures populating the street that I don't want to depict. "

the winged word arose from the Bassermann figures . The passage was used in particular by Bassermann's left opponents, who viewed this statement as a bourgeois stance on the problems of poverty and wanted to prove that Bassermann did not want to see the material problems of the majority of the population behind the revolutionary movement. Conversely, Bassermann's figures were brought into the field by the conservative-reactionary side against the policy of the casino faction, as the mob named therein was not in a position to act as sovereigns of a nation-state.

The work of the constitutional committee headed by Bassermann reached a first milestone on December 28, 1848, when the Reich Law on the Basic Rights of the German People of December 27, 1848 was promulgated in the Reich Law Gazette, which granted the German people extensive basic rights with immediate effect. Bassermann was clear that against the background of the beginning counter-revolution, especially in Prussia and Austria, the constitution was in danger and urged the National Assembly to accelerate the negotiations. "I'm afraid that particularism in Germany is advancing faster than our constitution."

After long and controversial negotiations, especially about the future form of government, the National Assembly passed a complete imperial constitution on March 28, 1849 on the basis of a constitutional monarchy . This provided for a hereditary head of state who, according to the political situation at that time, could only be the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . The small German solution without the German-speaking part of the multi-ethnic state and empire of Austria was thus a valid decision.

Caricature of the National Assembly. From left: Heinrich von Gagern, Alexander von Soiron , Carl Theodor Welcker and Bassermann.

In his first mission as Reich Commissioner from November 7 to 17, 1848 in Berlin, Bassermann himself negotiated this solution with the Prussian government and Friedrich Wilhelm IV, pointing out in particular the danger posed by the radical left to the social order. that threatens if the states of the German Confederation do not bind themselves to a constitutional nation-state. On April 3, 1849, Bassermann was part of the 32-person imperial deputation that Friedrich Wilhelm offered the German imperial crown in Berlin.

Bassermann's life's work collapsed when Friedrich Wilhelm rejected the crown and thus destroyed the work of the National Assembly. Since the suppression of the October uprising in Vienna and after the opposition split into radical democrats and moderate liberals, the Prussian king believed he was strong enough to reject any understanding with the National Assembly. The escalation of the March Revolution that followed with the ultimately hopeless imperial constitution campaign , which once again assumed civil war-like proportions due to the republican and partly socialist-motivated May uprisings , for example in the context of the Baden Revolution , the Dresden May uprising , the Palatinate uprising and unrest in the Prussian Rhine province not just the Prussian strategy.

It also finally led to the disavowal of the moderate liberals, who were now attacked both from the left as traitors to the revolution and from the right as complicit in the republican chaos . In view of Prussian politics, Marx scornfully noted that "Bassermann, the Spökenkieker, himself has become a 'Bassermannian figure'". Bassermann's second stay as Reichskommissar in Berlin was from April 26th to May 10th, 1849, during which he wanted to persuade the Prussian king to accept the imperial dignity through extensive concessions and constitutional changes, even beyond the will of the radicalizing and slowly dissolving National Assembly , not successful. On May 21, 1849, nine days before the end of the National Assembly in Frankfurt , Bassermann, like many Liberals in the days before and after, resigned his mandate because, in his opinion, “the resolutions of the National Assembly since May 4 no longer exist Unification of Germany, but [promote] civil war ”. In view of the rampant violence, many liberals withdrew from politics and waited for the defeat of the radical democrats, which finally came with the fall of the Rastatt fortress in Baden on July 23, 1849, and for the phase of conservative reaction that followed.

After the National Assembly

Bassermann's grave in Mannheim

Although Bassermann still supported the Erfurt Union designed by Radowitz and ended unsuccessfully , by taking part in the Gotha Assembly in June 1849 and becoming a member of the Volkshaus of the Erfurt Union Parliament for the ninth Rhenish constituency in Kreuznach in 1850 , he himself felt that his political positions were no longer in demand and their health was affected by the defeat. His son judged:

“Today it is quite understandable to me if this inherently healthy body had to wear itself out completely in the two years. Father was the main spokesman for his party and always had to be ready to face attacks from the left. […] Since the day was not enough to prepare for everything that could possibly come the next day, the nights were used as a help, so that he usually did not sleep more than 2-3 hours. The actual collapse in health occurred after his return from Berlin, resp. after the definitive rejection of the imperial crown by Friedrich Wilhelm IV soon afterwards. "

In the memorabilia dictated to his son in 1849, he accused the failure of a constitutionally anchored nation-state in bitter terms against the behavior and “short-sightedness” of the radical left. In 1851 he left the Baden Second Chamber and limited himself to his mandate, which he had acquired in the same year, in the large citizens' assembly of his hometown Mannheim, to which he belonged until his death. He could no longer build a bourgeois life after politics. Bassermann died by suicide in 1855 , he shot himself (ill and handicapped by an eye disease) one day after his parents' golden wedding anniversary.

His tomb in Mannheim's main cemetery consists of a broken column on a coffered base made of yellow sandstone.

Works (selection)

  • Germany and Russia. 1839.
  • Letter to a member of parliament about the question of the redundancy of the Bavarian constitutional law. 1843.
  • Speech by the Undersecretary of State F. Bassermann, Member of the City Process (Bavaria). 1848.
  • Speech given at the 146th session on the Häusser report, concerning Baum's motion on the submission of an electoral law to call a constituent assembly. 1848.
  • The untrue report. 1848.
  • Pictures from the life of a famous statesman. 1850.
  • Memorabilia. 1923.

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Daniel Bassermann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald Lönnecker : Robert Blum and the fraternity. 2006, p. 9 , accessed December 14, 2012 .
  2. ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen : 1848. The unwanted revolution. The revolutionary movements 1830–1849 . Frankfurt, 1998, p. 91.
  3. ^ Heinrich von Treitschke : German History in the Nineteenth Century, Part 5 , Leipzig 1927, p. 322; quoted in Gall, p. 248.
  4. ↑ Censored in the minutes of the meeting of the estates, quoted from Gall, p. 236.
  5. ^ Gall, p. 249.
  6. ↑ see Ulrike von Hirschhausen : Liberalismus und Nation. The Deutsche Zeitung 1847–1850 . Droste, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-7700-5215-3 .
  7. ↑ See Roland Hoede: The Heppenheimer Assembly of October 10, 1847. Verlag W. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-7829-0471-0 .
  8. ^ Negotiations of the first and second chambers of the assembly of estates of the Grand Duchy of Baden, quoted from Wolfgang von Hippel: Revolution in the German Southwest. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1998 (= publications on political regional studies of Baden-Württemberg. Volume 26), p. 94 f.
  9. ^ Hippel, Revolution. P. 95.
  10. ^ Friedrich von Weech:  Bassermann, Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 127.
  11. ^ Bassermann, Memoirs , p. 158.
  12. ^ Gall, p. 271.
  13. ^ Negotiations of the First and Second Chamber of the Assembly of Estates of the Grand Duchy of Baden , quoted in Gall, p. 314.
  14. ↑ Anonymous threatening letter dated Mainz, January 3, 1848, quoted from Bassermann, Memorable , p. 286.
  15. ↑ Karl Marx: The debate about Jacoby's motion , in: Neue Rheinische Zeitung, No. 48 of July 18, 1848, quoted from http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/marx/nrz/me05_222.htm ( Memento from 29. June 2004 in the Internet Archive ) as well as Karl Marx: The state procurator “Hecker” and the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” , in: Neue Rheinische Zeitung , No. 129 of October 29, 1848, quoted from: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de /marx/nrz/me05_440.htm ( Memento from June 29, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ Quoted from Gall, p. 315.
  17. ^ Franz Wigard : Stenographic report on the negotiations of the German constituent national assembly in Frankfurt am Main, Volume 5, Frankfurt a. M. 1848, p. 3407 .
  18. ↑ see for example Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Works . Vol. 8: Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany . Dietz, Berlin 1960, p. 78, quoted from: [1] and Gall, p. 272.
  19. ↑ Shorthand. Report, quoted to Mommsen, Unwanted Revolution. P. 265.
  20. ^ Karl Marx: The Prussian kick for the Frankfurters. In: Neue Rheinische Zeitung. No. 287 of May 2, 1849, quoted from http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/marx/nrz/me06_459.htm ( Memento of June 29, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ↑ According to Best / Weege, p. 90. Gall, p. 323, mentions on the other hand May 13, 1849; Ernst Bassermann in the appendix to Bassermann, Memoirs , p. 297, May 19.
  22. ↑ Quoted from Gall, p. 323.
  23. ^ Notes by Emil Bassermann-Jordan, approx. 1905, in the appendix by Bassermann, Memoirs , p. 298.
  24. ^ Bassermann, Memoirs , p. 159.
  25. ^ W. Münkel: Die Friedhöfe in Mannheim (SVA, 1992) p. 72.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on September 8, 2006 in this version .
personal data
SURNAME Bassermann, Friedrich Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and liberal politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1855
Place of death Mannheim