Georg Fein

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Georg Fein. Image on the Hambach cloth

Georg Fein (born June 8, 1803 in Helmstedt , † January 26, 1869 in Diessenhofen , Canton Thurgau , Switzerland) was a German publicist and democratic politician from Vormärz . He was the editor of the liberal-democratic newspaper Deutsche Tribüne , worked in exile in Switzerland, the USA and other countries as the founder and organizer of workers' education associations and wrote political poems (including Now Brothers We Are At The Square - Song of the United Craftsmen) .

Life

Youth and years of study

Georg Fein was the son of the Mayor of Helmstedt and later General Director of the Westphalian state domains Georg Fein senior . His brother was the law professor Eduard Fein . He attended high schools in Magdeburg and Blankenburg as well as the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. From 1822 he studied law in Göttingen , Berlin , Heidelberg and Munich , where he also dealt with political and political studies. He was mainly influenced by CJA Mittermaier , Friedrich Christoph Schlosser , Karl Heinrich Rau and Georg Friedrich Sartorius . In Jena he belonged to the original fraternity , in Heidelberg and Göttingen he also joined the local fraternities in 1818/1820 . However, a degree was probably not completed. Fein was financially supported by his well-to-do mother. He moved mainly in the circles of poets and artists and wrote poems and fiction articles for magazines himself. Among his college friends in Göttingen was the later political journalist Karl Weddo von Glümer (1798–1876), in Munich he made friends with Harro Harring . Christian Dietrich Grabbe was one of Fein's friends .

Editor of the "Deutsche Tribüne"; Deported to Braunschweig

At the beginning of August 1831 Johann Georg August Wirth offered him the position of co-editor of the Deutsche Tribüne . Fein initially worked as a freelancer and from November 1831 as editor of the liberal-democratic newspaper, which appeared in Munich and from January until it was banned in March 1832 in Homburg and Zweibrücken in the Rhine-Palatinate. He also played a notable role in the Rhenish Palatinate Press and Fatherland Association ; several issues of the Deutsche Tribüne were given to the club members free of charge in order to increase the circulation of the newspaper. As a precaution, Fein did not take part in the Hambach Festival at the end of May ; His portrait was later added to the Hambach cloth with a total of 16 portraits of the leading liberals. Fein was a speaker at the folk festivals in Bergen on May 31st and Wilhelmsbad on June 22nd, 1832. In July 1832 he was deported from Hanau to Braunschweig because of his involvement in revolutionary activities.

As an opposition journalist, Fein was under police supervision in Braunschweig. Nevertheless, he distributed revolutionary pamphlets and was active in a craftsmen's reading club, which in December 1832 led to criminal proceedings at the Braunschweig district court. To avoid the threat of arrest because of his alleged involvement in the Frankfurt Wachensturm , he fled to Switzerland via France in April 1833.

exile

In exile in Switzerland , Fein worked from December 1833 as editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . Just a few months later, in August 1834, he had to resign from the editorial office because of his anti-reactionary articles. In the same month he set up a movement for craftsmen's associations in Zurich, which led to his expulsion from the canton of Zurich. Fein now turned to Liestal , the capital of the liberal New Canton of Baselland . In February 1835 he joined the secret society Junge Deutschland , whose central committee he chaired from August 1835 to February 1836. Due to political differences, however, Fein resigned from Junge Deutschland in March 1836 . In June 1836 he was expelled from Switzerland.

After his expulsion, Fein, who was financially independent after a large inheritance, began an unsteady wandering life under changing camouflaged aliases. He first went to Paris, where he probably took part in meetings of the League of Outlaws and published in the magazine Der Geächtete , which was published by the early socialist emigrant organization. After police interrogation and imprisonment in February 1837, he turned to London, where he founded a German reading club. In September 1837 he moved to Oslo. In the next few years he traveled a lot to Strasbourg and back to London, Paris and Switzerland. In 1842 he published Hoffmann von Fallersleben's preface to his political poems, which had been deleted by the Saxon censors, with its own afterword in Strasbourg. In the same year he illegally published the liberal publication Woher und woin ?, which had previously only been circulated privately . of the Prussian State Minister Theodor von Schön . It had probably been leaked to him from among the democrat Johann Jacoby and - just like the detailed afterword to the memorandum written by Fein - caused a sensation. In January 1843 Fein became president of the German Reading Society in London.

From December 1844 to March 1845 he took part in the two free marches of the Swiss Liberals against the clerical canton of Lucerne. He was taken prisoner in Lucerne. His friends like Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz and the Liestal lawyer Adolf Barth ensured that he became an honorary citizen of the canton of Basel-Landschaft. However, a violent attempt at liberation failed. His brother Eduard Fein also campaigned in vain for his release. Fein was brought to Austria. The Brunswick and Norwegian governments refused to deport him to their countries. On instructions from Metternich he was deported to the USA in 1846.

From January to April 1847 Fein gave twelve public lectures in Philadelphia on the progress of the strivings for freedom in Germany since 1830, which he repeated in Cincinnati from September to November 1847. In Baltimore, Fein founded the democratic association Concordia in 1847 .

In exile, Fein cultivated numerous friendships and acquaintances with other members of the opposition. His personal friends included Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz and Harro Harring z. B. also Jacob Venedey , Karl Schapper and Johann Ernst Arminius von Rauschenplatt . In Strasbourg, Fein communicated with Heinrich Heine and Georg Büchner .

Return to Germany and last years of life in Switzerland

In March 1848, Fein received news of the outbreak of the revolution in Germany. From the Austrian ambassador in Washington he learned in May 1848 that he was allowed to return to Germany as an amnesty. After his return trip in September 1848 he was made an honorary member of the democratic society in Bremen and took part as Bremen delegate at the second Democrats' Congress in Berlin at the end of October 1848. At the suggestion of Hermann Kriege , he only served as President of the Congress for a short time . Very soon he resigned at his own request and was only elected to one committee, the Committee on Organization. The reasons for his withdrawal are unclear. One of the possible reasons for this was his engagement to the Brunswick Ernestine Freifrau von König , widowed Lastrop, before the congress in October 1848 . She urged him not to get involved at the congress.

After his marriage in March 1849, Fein lived in Switzerland until the end of his life, first in Liestal and after the death of his wife from 1862 in Diessenhofen. During this time he mainly worked as an organizer of workers' education associations . As an honorary member, he played a key role in the association's educational work in the Eintracht workers 'education association in Zurich, the most important German workers' association in Switzerland. In 1859 he became a member of the German National Association , whose left, democratic wing he represented. From 1859 to May 1862 he was an agent of the National Association for Zurich and then until January 1863 for the rest of Switzerland. Under the influence of Fein, the workers' education association Eintracht joined the national association.

In the last years of his life, Fein suffered from a heart disease that eventually led to his death in January 1869. In addition to his journalistic work, e.g. B. pamphlets and newspaper articles, he also wrote (political) poems to the end. He was no longer able to realize a planned autobiography. His friend Hoffmann von Fallersleben dedicated a poem Obituary for Georg Fein to him in February 1869

meaning

Metternich called Fein "one of the most dangerous tools of the revolution". In the more recent research (after the discovery of the estate) Fein is characterized as "one of the best-known early German democrats of the Vormärz " and as a "moderate social reformer ", as a "radical democrat", "national democrat" and "great German republican".

Georg Fein's estate was discovered in the Wolfenbüttel State Archive at the end of the 1970s and archived in the 1980s . It comprises around 5000 sheets and contains, among other things, private and political correspondence, transcripts of files (especially from German political associations abroad), diaries and manuscripts.

Works (selection)

Fein published mainly pamphlets as well as articles and poems in several newspapers and magazines, e.g. B. Karl Spindler's Zeitspiegel (Munich), Deutsche Tribüne (Munich, Homburg), Midnight Newspaper for educated classes (Braunschweig, Wolfenbüttel), Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Der Geächtete (Paris), Deutsche Londoner Zeitung (sheets for politics, literature and art) as well Skin iron. Organ of the centralized German workers' associations in Switzerland (Zurich).

  • Progress of the reaction in Bavaria , in: Deutsche Tribüne No. 68 v. March 18, 1832
  • Political poems , GL Schuler, Strasbourg 1836 digitized
  • Hundred Craftsmen , 1836 poem, attributed to G. Fein
  • German people's voice. A collection of patriotic songs , 3rd edition Banga & Honegger, Liestal 1836 and 4th edition Banga & Honegger, Liestal 1840 digitized
  • Preface to Hoffmann von Fallersleben political poems from prehistoric German times. In addition to an afterwords by Georg Fein , GL Schuler, Strasbourg 1842, JC Schabelitz, Basel 1842 digitized
  • Theodor von Schön : Where from and where to? Along with an afterword by Geoerg Fein , GL Schuler, Strasbourg 1842 digitized
  • The German Rhine Festival , GL Schuler, Strasbourg 1848
  • A look at the German workers' education associations in Switzerland , in: Coburger Allgemeine Arbeiterzeitung No. 98, November 1864
  • The German Confederate . Edited with the participation of Karl Blind , Louis Büchner , Ludwig Feuerbach , Ferdinand Freiligrath a . a. for the association "German Freedom and Unity". Trübner & Co., London and Hamburg. March 1865 to May 1867. (Reprint Detlev Auvermann, Glashütten im Taunus 1973) also contains articles by Georg Fein March 15 - 1865 Digitized here p. 161 and 184 ff.

literature

General:

Representations of individual questions:

  • Ernst Fleischhack: Georg Fein at Grabbe in Dortmund. A still unknown encounter in the autumn of 1828 . In: Detlev Kopp (Ed.): Christian Dietrich Grabbe - A modern playwright . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1996, pp. 129-136. ISBN 3-89528-118-2
  • Martin Leuenberger: Free and equal ... and strange. Refugees in the Basel area between 1830 and 1880 . Verlag des Kantons Basel-Landschaft, Liestal 1996 (Chapter: Captured from the hinterland: Georg Fein , pp. 59–70). DNB
  • Martin Leuenberger: Georg Fein versus Georg Herwegh: A political or a literary dispute? In: Baselbieter Heimatblätter 4/1997, pp. 109–128. DNB
  • Thomas Michael Mayer: About everyday life and the parties in exile. On the occasion of Büchner's letters to Braubach and Geilfus . In: ders./Erika Gillmann / Reinhard Pabst / Dieter Wolf (eds.): Georg Büchner on "Dog" and "Kater". Unknown letters of exile . Jonas-Verlag, Marburg 1993, pp. 41-146.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 2: F-H. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0809-X , p. 16.
  2. ^ Kurt Selle : Opposition fraternities in the country of Braunschweig , Wolfenbüttel, 1999, p.21, online: PDF
  3. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Finding aid for the inventory of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803 - 1869) and the Fein family (1737 -) approx. 1772-1924 . Lower Saxony archive administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991. S.48f., 77f. mwNew.
  4. ↑ See Ernst Fleischhack: Georg Fein bei Grabbe in Dortmund. A still unknown encounter in the autumn of 1828 . In: Detlev Kopp (Ed.): Christian Dietrich Grabbe - A modern playwright . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1996. pp. 129-136 with additional references.
  5. ↑ On this Elisabeth Hüls: Johann Georg August Wirth (1798 - 1848) . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2004, especially pp.174ff., 215ff., 224ff., 230ff., 245ff. mwNew.
  6. ↑ See the illustration of the commemorative scarf for the Hambach Festival on the website of the Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz eV
  7. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Finding aid on the inventory of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803 - 1869) and the Fein family (1737-) approx. 1772-1924 . Lower Saxony archive administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991. S.49f., 79f. mwNew.
  8. ↑ On this Martin Leuenberger: Free and equal ... and foreign. Refugees in the Basel area between 1830 and 1880 . Verlag des Kantons Basel-Landschaft, Liestal 1996 (chapter "Captured from the hinterland: Georg Fein", p. 59–70 mwNachw.)
  9. ↑ Complete overview of Dieter Lent's exile: Finding aid for the holdings of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803 - 1869) and the Fein family (1737-) approx. 1772-1924 . Lower Saxony Archive Administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991. pp. 51–54, 81–91 mw.
  10. ↑ See Jan-Christoph Hauschild , Michael Werner : "The purpose of life is life itself". Heinrich Heine. A biography . Two thousand and one, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, p. 149 f .; Erika Gillmann, Thomas Michael Mayer u. a .: Georg Büchner on "Dog" and "Kater". Unknown letters of exile . Jonas, Marburg 1993, pp. 27 ff., 44 mw.
  11. ↑ So Dieter Lent: Finding aid on the inventory of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803 - 1869) and the Fein family (1737-) approx. 1772-1924 . Lower Saxony archive administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991. S.91f. mwNew.
  12. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Finding aid on the inventory of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803 - 1869) and the Fein family (1737-) approx. 1772-1924 . Lower Saxony Archive Administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991. pp. 54–56, 93–99 mw.
  13. ↑ Quoted from Karl Glossy : Literary Secret Reports from the Vormärz . Konegen, Vienna 1912, p. 9f.
  14. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Article "Fein, Georg". In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hanover 1996, p.175f .; Dieter Lent: Finding aid for the holdings of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803 - 1869) and the Fein family (1737-) approx. 1772-1924 . Lower Saxony Archive Administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991. pp. 72–74, 101f. mwNew.
  15. ↑ See Ernst Fleischhack: Georg Fein bei Grabbe in Dortmund. A still unknown encounter in the autumn of 1828 . In: Detlev Kopp (Ed.): Christian Dietrich Grabbe - A modern playwright . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1996. p. 129.
  16. ^ Cf. Markus Bürgi: Georg Fein. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . January 3, 2005 , accessed July 6, 2019 . See also Martin Leuenberger: Free and equal ... and strange. Refugees in the Basel area between 1830 and 1880 . Verlag des Kantons Basel-Landschaft, Liestal 1996, p. 61f.
  17. ↑ Cf. Christian Jansen (Ed.): After the Revolution: Persecution - Realpolitik - Nationbildung. Political Letters of German Liberals and Democrats 1849-1861 . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2004, pp. XXVII.
  18. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: A life in the underground. To the estate of the radical democrat Georg Fein (1803-1869) in Wolfenbüttel. In: Archives in Lower Saxony. 1979, H. 1, p. 6f.
  19. ↑ See Hans-Christian Winters: The discovery of an early democrat . In: Wolfenbütteler Zeitung of March 12, 1992, p.7; GF: From the beginnings of democracy . In: Braunschweiger Zeitung of March 12, 1992, p. 12.
  20. ↑ Overview of the publications Feins with Dieter Lent: Findbuch for the inventory of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803 - 1869) as well as the Fein family (1737-) approx. 1772-1924 . Lower Saxony Archive Administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991. pp. 41–46 with additional information.
personal data
SURNAME Fine, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hans Adamsen; Theodor Roscher; Arnold Schwendli; Bricklayer; Wagner; Charles Brown
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist and democratic politician of the Vormärz, founder and organizer of workers' education associations
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1803
PLACE OF BIRTH Helmstedt
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1869
Place of death Diessenhofen