Gaibacher festival
The Gaibach Festival (also known as the Constitution Festival ) took place on May 27, 1832 in the municipality of Gaibach, which was part of the Lower Main District, in the then Kingdom of Bavaria . It was one of the festivals that, like the much larger Hambach Festival in the Palatinate, were celebrated against the withdrawal of civil rights and for the national unity of Germany in the period of Vormärz .
Historical background
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The most decisive experience in the run-up to the Gaibach Festival was the secularization and mediatization of the year 1803. The Duchy of Würzburg was dissolved and given to the Electorate of Bavaria . Gaibach, which was then in the hands of the Counts of Schönborn, was assigned to the newly formed Volkach Regional Court. However, the counts were able to retain some of their old sovereign rights, such as lower jurisdiction .
The Bavarian state, which later became the Kingdom of Bavaria , tried to promote juridification by passing a constitution and thus to upgrade its subjects to citizens who had many rights. With the constitution of May 26, 1818 , Max Joseph I guaranteed the citizens human rights and permanent representation of the people. Count Franz Erwein von Schönborn-Wiesentheid honored this development by commissioning the construction of the constitutional column on the Gaibacher Sonnenberg.
The reform period was suddenly interrupted under Max's successor Ludwig I. Under the influence of the Polish November Uprising and the Paris July Revolution of 1830 , he had censorship tightened. The censors took action against the liberal “Bayerische Volksblatt” from Würzburg in particular. The population of the Lower Main District feared a curtailment of their rights and planned to hold a big festival in front of the monument, which symbolized the new freedom.
prehistory
From 1830, there had been minor moves to the Sonnenberg in Gaibach. However, the number of participants was very small at this early stage. From May 1832 leaflets were circulating describing the planned festival and being distributed as invitations throughout the Lower Main district. First, the organizers discussed the relocation of the festival to the Sanderrasen in the Würzburg district of Sanderau , for economic reasons played a role. Ultimately, however, the choice of Gaibach remained.
On May 15, 1832, a first draft of the program was published in the “Bayerischer Volksblatt”. The event should be opened with a service in the Neumann Church in Gaibach, various speeches should be given at noon and the festival should end with a large fireworks display on the Sonnenberg. There were no longer any major changes to this program, but some details were changed.
procedure
morning
On Sunday, May 27, 1832, 5,000 to 6,000 people had made the way to Gaibach and had come to the planned celebration. The majority of the celebrants came from the Würzburg area and the Lower Main district. The second largest group were the participants who had come to the community from other Franconian districts, the Obermain district and the Rezat district. People from the rest of Bavaria also appeared.
The festival began with a service in the Trinity Church. Then the participants moved to the Sonnenberg to the constitution column. They sang the so-called "Mailied", which was originally written by the Polish rebels and was translated into German.
Speeches began to be made in front of the column. The word of welcome was given by the Würzburg lawyer Andreas Bernhard Quante , who referred to the term “folk festival” and criticized the Bavarian government. He was followed by Bamberg's mayor, Franz Ludwig von Hornthal , who praised the constitution of King Maximilian Joseph and listed the threats to it from the current government.
The third speaker was the mayor of Würzburg, Wilhelm Joseph Behr . Originally he did not want to speak at all, but now criticized the previous speakers and listed the government's misconduct. He described the constitution as the most unjust in all of Germany . As a consequence, he planned to write a letter to the king listing the wrongdoings. Behr received great applause for his speech.
He was followed by the Würzburg MP Ziegler as a speaker. The speeches that were given in the morning concluded with Dr. Thomas Lovell Beddoes from England, who had written a satire on aristocracy in Germany and the British Kingdom and was now presenting it. Then the participants went back down to the village to have lunch.
Noon and afternoon
The lunch break was devoted to deliberations on the letter to the king that Behr had brought up. The invited guests dined in the rooms of the Schönborn castle and were entertained by the Count of Schönborn . Another part took their lunch at the local inn, while the majority lingered in front of the house. During this time, the festival participants gave short speeches on Hambach, Poland and England.
It was only around 5 p.m. that they set off again towards the Sonnenberg. The accompanying band played the revolutionary Marseillaise and the so-called revolutionary anthem. Behr criticized this in his second speech, in which he pointed out that only German songs should be played at the event. He also renewed his proposal to send a letter to the king and called for the establishment of a "state association".
The mayor's speech was celebrated frenetically by those present. Behr was carried through the crowd on the shoulders of the other participants. Some of the party attendees shouted for the establishment of a republic while the signature list for the letter to the king was passed around. By the evening almost 2000 signatures were collected in this way. The festival ended with fireworks, a Bengali fire was lit in the bowl of the constitutional column.
consequences
The Bavarian authorities described the festival as a “great democratic conspiracy” and soon took action against the speakers. The Bavarian King Ludwig then demanded an address of allegiance from his officials, which was rejected by most of the participants. The authorities took particularly tough action against the mayor of Würzburg, Joseph Behr. He was deposed by the city council that same year.
The lawyer Joseph Habersack filed a complaint against Behr at the Volkach Regional Court for high treason and treason . The former mayor was arrested on January 24, 1833. In the Lower Main District, the troops were put on standby because there were fears of protests against the arrest. Because of the explosive nature of the proceedings, it was withdrawn from the Volkach court soon afterwards and the case was negotiated first in Würzburg and later in Munich.
In 1836, Behr was found guilty. He first had to apologize and pay later came to changing cities in which he too imprisonment was condemned. He was only pardoned in 1847 and then lived in a secluded life in Bamberg. His complete rehabilitation took place on March 6, 1848. The compensation amounted to 10,000 guilders and a pension.
literature
- Hermann Leeb: Bavaria and the constitution of 1818 . In: Ute Feuerbach (Ed.): Our Main Loop. 1993-2007 . Volkach 2008.
- Herbert Meyer: The constitutional column and its history . In: Ute Feuerbach (Ed.): Our Main Loop. 1993-2007 . Volkach 2008.
- Herbert Meyer: Joseph Behr and the Gaibacher Festival of 1832 . In: Ute Feuerbach (Ed.): Our Main Loop. 1978-1992 . Volkach 2008.
Individual evidence
- ^ Leeb, Hermann: Bavaria and the constitution of 1818 . P. 62.
- ↑ Meyer, Herbert: Joseph Behr and the Gaibacher Festival of 1832 . P. 114 f.
- ↑ Meyer, Herbert: Joseph Behr and the Gaibacher Festival of 1832 . P. 120.
- ↑ Meyer, Herbert: The constitution column and its history . P. 185.
- ↑ Meyer, Herbert: The constitution column and its history . P. 185.
- ↑ Meyer, Herbert: Joseph Behr and the Gaibacher Festival of 1832 . P. 123.