Georg Friedrich Rebmann

Georg Friedrich Rebmann, President of the Zweibrücken Court of Appeal

Johann Andreas Georg Friedrich Rebmann (born November 24, 1768 in Sugenheim / Franconia; † September 16, 1824 in Wiesbaden ) was a German lawyer and publicist at the time of the French Revolution . He published many of his texts anonymously, occasionally under a pseudonym , e.g. B. Anselmus Rabiosus the Younger .

Life

The father, an ambitious but also pedantic man, had worked his way up from a small background to become a secretary for the knights of the Steigerwald ; the sons were to continue the family's ascent through college. Georg Friedrich attended the University of Erlangen from 1785 , where the family now lived. He studied law. In the course of a duel affair, he evaded to Jena in 1787 , where he took his exams two years later. Returning to Erlangen, he immersed himself once more in student life, but after new conflicts left his Franconian homeland in 1791 and traveled to Dresden via Berlin.

Soon afterwards, Rebmann's letters about Erlangen appeared , in which the higher education institutions, the activities of the professors and student life are critically examined. The sales success, but also the outrage, especially in Erlangen, showed that the author had touched some sore spots. Soon afterwards Rebmann wrote a similar text about his second place of study, Jena.

During this time, the lawyer realized that he could also make ends meet as a writer and journalist. In the following years he wrote travel reports in the form of letters, in which he processed his observations in various German states and cities, as well as satirical texts. So he took up the well-known material of the bourgeois pranks, which he enriched with comments on the current situation. In Hans Kiekindiewelts Reisen (closely based on various literary models, for example by Voltaire ) the experiences of a young man are portrayed who travels with an enlightened companion through various European and Asian countries, is then enslaved and sold to Africa, but ultimately as free man pitching his tents in the United States, in whose democratic society he finds happiness in life. The unity of the narrative does not lie in the plot with its colorfully strung together experiences and experiences, but in the continuous opposition between enlightenment and backward living conditions. Despotism , class differences , religious belief in miracles and fanaticism are at the center of the satirical criticism. Rebmann thus stands in the broad stream of enlightenment thinking; He represents the ideas that stood at the beginning of the French Revolution , but seeks a compromise with the German princes and relies on rational politics and reforms from above.

After Rebmann translated and published a speech by Robespierre against the war, the agitation against the alleged Jacobin begins . He left Dresden soon afterwards, was expelled from Dessau and settled in Erfurt (1794), where he founded a publishing house together with a bookseller and published the new gray monster , a political magazine that made him known throughout Germany. Among other things, an article appears there which is sharply directed against the persecution and mistreatment of the Mainz Jacobins by Prussian troops and by the Mainz prince-bishop . The author Rebmann was quite reserved about the controlled, authoritarian “democracy” of the Mainz Republic , but his solidarity applies to the persecuted. This courageous advocacy of human rights earned him an arrest warrant (Erfurt belonged to the territory of the Mainz Electoral State ), which he could only escape by hastily fleeing at the end of 1795. For some time he is staying in Altona . His political positions are now gradually tightening. Unlike many Germans who enthusiastically celebrated the beginning of the revolution but then turned their backs on the republic, Rebmann is now openly committed to the republican form of government, but continues to reject the reign of terror of the French Jacobins, in fact he sees it in the service of counter-revolutionary efforts in and outside of France.

In 1796 Rebmann went to Paris, where he stayed for 15 months. The disillusionment is inevitable. He sees the ideals of the revolution forgotten and betrayed, instead striving for power and greed for wealth, nepotism and buying offices, plus the advance of forces that reinstate the monarchy and want to strengthen the spiritual power of the church again. "I thought I was stepping into the sanctuary of freedom and stepped - into their brothel."

In literary letters about his trip to France and Paris, Rebmann explains his views on the state of the revolution. He only recognizes convinced republicans in the lower urban classes, who profited least from the revolution. Now he begins to deal with the concepts and goals of the Jacobins in more detail, but regards the Jacobin movement more as a temporary ally in crisis situations in the republic; his real sympathy is still the (former) Gironde .

In the research literature, Rebmann is often referred to as a Jacobin. This can only apply to his short time in Paris, and even then only to a very limited extent, since his relationship to Jacobinism ultimately remains broken and he does not speak out in favor of universal suffrage (of men); Although he wants to raise the masses socially, he does not want to bring them to power politically, because he fears that their judgments and actions will be guided too uncontrollably by feeling.

Rebmann's thought games with a German revolution are based on erroneous assumptions, and his position here remains very unsteady, since he himself does not really trust the willingness of his compatriots to rise up. His hope that a republic of Cisrhenania could emerge in the regions on the left bank of the Rhine under the protection of French revolutionary troops was not fulfilled, as France quickly annexed the areas .

At the end of 1797, in fact in 1798, Rebmann was appointed judge in Mainz, now France . In 1800 he obtained a post at the Court of Appeals in Trier, 1803, he is Chairman of the Trial Chamber in Mainz and in 1811 he returned to Trier as president of the Appeals Court. His work earned him a high reputation, not least because of his secure litigation against the so-called Schinderhannes gang (1803), which earned him the order of the Legion of Honor through Bonaparte. In the same year he married Katharina Runten, whom he met through her brother, a lawyer in Trier.

Rebmann only occasionally writes political articles. He is particularly committed to the authorities to allow German as the official language in the new French departments. If he had praised the general and later the 1st Consul Bonaparte as a "hero" with a strong and at the same time steady hand, he is opposed to the Napoleonic Empire. In this new dictatorship he sees the ideas of the revolution dishonored. However, he can practice his profession with conviction even under the Empire, as he regards the modern French judiciary with juries and public hearings as the fruit of the revolution and progress in the sense of the Enlightenment.

After the fall of Napoleon, the Rhine Palatinate is attached to Bavaria. Due to his excellent reputation as a lawyer, Rebmann succeeds in being accepted into the Bavarian civil service, despite the radical views he had previously expressed. His sympathy for the former Confederation of the Rhine , which had carried out far-reaching reforms in previous years, is also evident in the media; He expresses himself unequivocally against the beginning restorative course of Prussian politics and against backward-looking political enthusiasm for the Middle Ages. Instead, he relies on the continuation of political and social liberalization and on a constitution that grants the educational class rights to participate in the state.

The few surviving statements from the last years of his life show that Rebmann resolutely rejected the development in the German Confederation , which led in the opposite direction ( Karlsbad resolutions ), and responded with deep pessimism. In addition, his ailing condition from an early age deteriorated more and more; after all, he was threatened with increasing blindness and was only able to work to a limited extent. He died in September 1824 while taking a cure in Wiesbaden.

What is remarkable about Rebmann is his loyalty to the principles of the Enlightenment, which have given him lifelong guidance in spite of all his fluctuations in strategic questions. His conviction has always been that people must first develop spiritually - in the sense of increasing reason - before the conditions in society and the state can be permanently changed. He himself never slipped into political romanticism like the former Jacobin Joseph Görres or Ernst Moritz Arndt . Ludwig Börne , who began to write in the years when Rebmann laid down his pen, may be regarded as his legitimate successor in the field of political journalism .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Holland and France . In: Works and Letters , Vol. 2, p. 319.

Works

• Heinrich von Neideck. A romantic painting from the Middle Ages . New edition. Walchersche Buchhandlung, Erlangen 1793. ( MDZ Reader )
• Apology of a secret society of a noble kind against the attacks of an unnamed: along with some remarks about secret connections in general, and the so-called black brothers in particular / from IZSM [Andreas Georg Friedrich von Rebmann] Frankfurt and Leipzig 1792. ( digitized version )
• Sensitive journey to Schilda . Heinsius, Leipzig 1793. ( MDZ Reader )
• Hans Kiekindiewelt's travels in all four parts of the world and the moon . Hamburg 1795 ( SSB Digital Collections )
• Letters about Erlangen . Frankfurt and Leipzig 1792. ( Volume 1 Bavarica ); ( Volume 2 Bavarica )
• The latest manifesto of the Franconian Republic to all the peoples of the world 2 sheets, 44 pages cardboard. (Dessau 1793/94). Very rare first German edition of Robespierre's important speech on the foreign policy of the French Republic of November 18, 1793, congenially presented to the German audience by Rebmann in this eminently political translation.
• Letters about Jena . Frankfurt and Leipzig 1793. ( MDZ Reader )
• Ludwig [Waghals]: A painting of human morals, prejudices, follies, vices & c, & c, in every corner of the sky. Side piece to Hans Kiekindiewelt's travels . Leipzig and Gera 1795. ( Austrian National Library )
• Complete history of my persecutions and sufferings. A contribution to the history of German aristocratism. With facts about the government of the present Elector of Maynz, and political truths . [Villaume], Amsterdam [i. e. Hamburg] 1796 ( MDZ Reader )
• The Ministry of Hell . 2 booklets, Acherontia 1796. ( Booklet 1 MDZ Reader ), ( Booklet 2 MDZ Reader )
• France's newest relations with the rest of Europe. A writing that contains the most important information for the present time . 3. redesigned On. Paris 1897. ( MDZ Reader )
• View of the four new departments on the left bank of the Rhine . Koblenz and Trier 1802. ( MDT Reader )
• The revolutionary calendar , 1805
• Modest but frank hint about exaggerations and repercussions with a special regard to Germany . Germania [Mainz] 1815
• Suggestion of some demands on good criminal justice. With special regard to oral public hearings and juries from a judicial officer . Schellenberg, Wiesbaden 1819
• Georg Friedrich Rebmann. Works and letters . 3 volumes. Edited by Hedwig Voegt , Werner Greiling and Wolfgang Ritschel. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1990. ISBN 3-352-00310-6 ; ISBN 3-352-00311-4 ; ISBN 3-352-00312-2
• Jena is starting to please me. City and University in Writings and Letters . With an appendix. Edited and with an introduction by Werner Greiling. Jena; Leipzig 1994 (writings on the city, university and student history of Jena; 8).

literature

• Friedrich Laun [= Friedrich August Schulze ], memoirs . Bunzlau 1837 (chapter about Rebmann in part 1)
• Franz Brümmer :  Rebmann, Andreas Georg Friedrich von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 483-485.
• Georg Friedrich Rebmann: Hans Kiekindiewelts travels in all four parts of the world and other writings . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1958.
• Hedwig Voegt: Rebmann, Georg Friedrich . In: Biographical Lexicon on German History . Edited by Karl Obermann , Heinrich Scheel , Helmuth Stoecker a . a. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1967, pp. 387–388.
• Georg Friedrich Rebmann: Cosmopolitan walks through a part of Germany . Edited and introduced by Hedwig Voegt. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1968.
• Rebmann, Andreas Georg Friedrich . In: Biographical dictionary on German history . Founded by Hellmuth Rössler and Günther Franz. 2., completely reworked. Edition, Vol. 2:. I-R . Francke Verlag, Munich 1974, Sp. 2272.
• Inge Stephan: Literary Jacobinism in Germany (1789–1806) . Stuttgart 1976
• Rainer Kawa: Georg Friedrich Rebmann (1768-1824) . Studies on the life and work of a German Jacobin. Bonn 1980.
• Georg Friedrich Rebmann: Holland and France written in letters on a trip from the Lower Elbe to Paris in 1796 and the fifth of the French Republic . Edited by Hedwig Voegt. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1981.
• Maria Anna Sossenheimer: Georg Friedrich Rebmann and the problem of the revolution. Revolutionary experiences, revolutionary interpretations and revolutionary plans of a German republican . Frankfurt / Bonn / New York / Paris 1988.
• Hermann Uhrig:  Rebmann, Andreas Georg Friedrich. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 1436-1457.
• Franz-Ulrich Jestädt: Publishers directory Gottfried Vollmer 1790–1806. Erfurt 2011. ISBN 978-3-932655-44-9 .
• Hedwig Voegt: Introduction . In: Georg Friedrich Rebmann, Works and Letters (edited by Wolfgang Ritschel). Berlin 1990. Vol. 1, pp. 5-52
• Christian Wirth: The lawyer Johann Andreas Georg Friedrich Rebmann between revolution and restoration . Frankfurt am Main 1996. (Legal history series 144) ISBN 3-631-48870-X
• Elmar Walde and Gerhard Sauder (eds.): Georg Friedrich Rebmann (1768–1824), author, Jacobin, judge . Sigmaringen 1997. (Writings of the Siebenpfeiffer Foundation 4) ISBN 3-7995-4904-8
• Georg Seiderer:  Rebmann, Johann Andreas Georg Friedrich von (Bavarian staff nobility 1817, pseudonym Anselmus Rabiosus the Younger). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , pp. 226-228 ( digitized version ).
• Anne Cottebrune: Myth et réalité du "jacobinisme allemand" . Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses, Lille 2005, ISBN 2-284-04884-6 ( reviewed by Susanne Lachenicht [PDF; 64 kB ]).
• Ute Schneider: "whether and how the censorship should be improved" . The Rebmann, Vollmer and Cramer case in Erfurt 1795. In: Subversive literature. Erfurt authors and publishers in the age of the French Revolution (1780–1806). Göttingen 2014, pp. 151–166.

Web links

• Literature by and about Georg Friedrich Rebmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Georg Friedrich Rebmann  in the German Digital Library
• Works by Georg Friedrich Rebmann in the Gutenberg-DE project
• Georg Friedrich Rebmann in the Internet Archive