Georg Herwegh
Georg Friedrich Rudolf Theodor Andreas Herwegh (born May 31, 1817 in Stuttgart ; † April 7, 1875 in Lichtental ) was a revolutionary native German poet of the Vormärz and translator , who had also had Swiss citizenship at his own request since 1843 . In the 19th century he was next to Heinrich Heine and Ferdinand Freiligrath one of the most popular German-speaking political poets and next to Georg Weerth one of the most important poets associated with the German labor movement.
Life
1817 to 1848: Vormärz
Origin, education
Georg Herwegh was born in 1817 as the son of the innkeeper Ludwig Ernst Herwegh and Rosine Catharina Herwegh. He was baptized on June 15, 1817 in the Stuttgart Hospital Church. From 1828 he lived with relatives and attended the Latin school in Balingen as a classmate of Gottlieb Rau . From 1831 to 1835, after passing the state examination, he attended the Evangelical Seminary (grammar school) in Maulbronn monastery and from 1835 studied theology and law in Tübingen as a scholarship holder of the Tübingen monastery , from which he was expelled in 1836. During his studies in 1835 he became a member of the Fraternity of Patriots Tübingen .
From 1836 he worked as a freelance writer in Stuttgart. From 1837 he worked both August Lewald Journal Europe , as well as to Karl Gutzkow sheet Telegraph for Germany with.
Escape to Switzerland and marriage
In 1839 he felt compelled, in the Switzerland to escape because he had insulted a fancy dress a royal-Württemberg officer and threatened military conscription.
His escape led him first to Emmishofen and then to Zurich , where he edited the critical section for the Volkshalle magazine published by Johann Georg August Wirth . He made friends with the fraternity and poet August Follen . In the summer of 1841 the first part of his poems of a living man appeared , which represented a polemical counterpart to the letters of a deceased from Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and made him famous in one fell swoop. The poems written in 1841 include Lullaby , Die bange Nacht and O Freiheit, Freiheit! .
O freedom, freedom! Not where hymns resound,
In richly decorated princely arcades -
freedom! You live on lonely shores
and love the silence like the nightingales.
You flee the noise of the marble halls,
Where drunken gourmets bathe in wine,
You let yourself be invited to guests in huts,
Where tears fall into empty cups.
You approach an angel at closed doors,
stand smiling at your faithful bed
and listen to the heavenly music of the chain.
Proud temples do not deserve you, in which
we offer our pride to you as sacrifices - would
you be freedom if we kneeled before you?
From autumn 1841 to February 1842, Herwegh traveled to Paris and met Heinrich Heine there , who later ironically immortalized him as the “iron lark” in his poem To Georg Herwegh . After his return to Zurich, he engaged in a journalistic battle with the Zurich conservatives. Because of his caustic comments in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung and the newspaper Schweizerischer Republikaner published by Julius Froebel , he was fined by the Zurich district court .
He worked for the Rheinische Zeitung, edited by Karl Marx , and planned to restructure the German Messenger from Switzerland into a fighting organ against political and social oppression in Germany. During this time he made friends with Ludwig Feuerbach .
In 1842 he traveled to Germany to recruit staff for his magazine project and wrote to Karl Marx about the conflict among the Free in Berlin, for whose newspaper he had already written. He also got an audience with the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV , who immediately after meeting Herwegh had the magazine banned before it was published. In December, Friedrich Wilhelm IV had Herwegh deported from Prussia after he had complained in an open letter about the political situation in Germany. On the return trip to Switzerland he met the anarchist Michail Bakunin in Leipzig , who influenced him again and again with his later writings.
In 1843 Herwegh lived again in the canton of Zurich, where he established connections with the communist craft movement. On March 8, 1843, he married Emma Siegmund , the daughter of a Berlin banker , in Baden AG . He also maintained good contacts with Ludwig Büchner , August Becker and Wilhelm Weitling , the formative theoreticians of the “ League of the Just ”. From 1842 to 1843 he worked as an editor for the magazine Die Junge Generation and in 1843 published Twenty-One Sheets from Switzerland , a collection of unpublished articles for the magazine that was supposed to circumvent the twenty-sheet clause of German censorship.
Do not mock the people! A
smaller number of such apostles overthrew the Roman eagle .
Since Herwegh's sympathetic friends had drawn the unwillingness of the conservative Zurich government and the canton of Zurich was preparing their expulsion, Herwegh acquired the citizenship of Augst in the canton of Basel-Landschaft for a high fee . This canton was created only 10 years earlier through violent secession from the city of Basel and was therefore revolutionary according to Herwegh's understanding. Conversely, the still young and clammy canton benefited financially. However, Herwegh never took up residence in the Basel area. Rather, he moved to Paris in 1843, pardoned by the King of Württemberg on condition that he would emigrate . There he met Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin again. He also got to know Jenny Marx , Moses Hess , George Sand , Victor Hugo , Lamartine , Béranger , Carl Vogt and other prominent intellectuals of the time. In 1843 the second part of his poems of a living man appeared here, who lacked the dynamism of the first volume, but which showed his republican tendencies even more clearly.
1848 to 1875: March Revolution, commitment to socialism
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After the February Revolution in Paris in 1848 , Herwegh became President of the Republican Committee and Chairman of the German Democratic Legion .
Against all objections and advice from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, he hurried with a small armed force to help the radical democratic rebels around Friedrich Hecker in Baden during the March Revolution (see also Baden Revolution ). On April 27, 1848, the German Democratic Legion was defeated by Württemberg troops in a battle near Dossenbach (near Schopfheim ). The volunteer corps of Friedrich Hecker, called Heckerzug was already a week earlier in the Battle on the Scheideck in Kandern in Black Forest defeated and been consumed without it had come to union with Herwegh Freischar.
After this defeat, Herwegh had to flee again. An innkeeper from Karsau sent Georg Herwegh and Emma Herwegh to the field in work clothes to camouflage themselves and in the evening helped them to escape to Rheinfelden in Switzerland on a dung wagon - and his escape ended again in Switzerland. His small uprising in support of the radical democratic movement in the Grand Duchy of Baden ultimately led to a break with the founders of scientific socialism .
On his subsequent trip to France he met Alexander Herzen and Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev . In the early 1850s, Herwegh's house in Zurich was a meeting place for people like Richard Wagner , Gottfried Semper , Wilhelm Rustow and Franz Liszt . It was here that he broke with Alexander Herzen, whose wife Natalja Herwegh loved passionately. During this time he worked for the Swiss liberal press and anonymously for the satirical magazine Kladderadatsch .
In 1863, Herwegh became an authorized representative of the newly founded General German Workers' Association (ADAV) in Switzerland. The ADAV was the first forerunner organization of the later Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
To found the ADAV, Herwegh wrote Das Bundeslied in 1863 as a hymn to the revolutionary proletariat . The following are the last three of a total of twelve stanzas of the federal song :
Man of work, woke up!
And know your power!
All wheels stand still.
When your strong arm wants it.
Your crowd of urges pale,
When you, tired of your burden,
put the plow in the corner.
When you call: it is enough!
Break the double yoke in two!
Break the misery of slavery!
Break the slavery of need!
Bread is freedom, freedom is bread!
The federal song was banned very quickly and could only be distributed illegally for years. Nevertheless, it is still considered to be one of the most famous German workers' battle songs.
Herwegh made friends with the founder of the ADAV, Ferdinand Lassalle , who urged him to write the federal song and Hans von Bülow to set it to music, and from whom he later distanced himself because of his moderate, more reform-oriented and state-compliant attitude. He also alienated himself from the ADAV again.
Return to Germany
In 1866 he returned to Germany as a member of the working class and in the same year was appointed honorary correspondent of the first Internationale ( International Workers' Association ).
In 1869 he joined the Marxist-revolutionary Social Democratic Labor Party (SDAP) founded by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht , with which the ADAV merged in 1875.
Herwegh became a permanent contributor to the social democratic newspaper Der Volksstaat and published his hottest political poems in this position. In it he condemned Prussian militarism , the Franco-German War of 1870/71 and the German Empire .
Death and obituaries
On April 7, 1875 Herwegh died today at Baden-Baden belonging Lichtental . He is buried in the capital of the canton of Basel-Landschaft , in Liestal , although he never lived or was a citizen in Liestal (but probably a citizen of Augst in the same canton). His widow was responsible for the transfer of the body. In doing so, she fulfilled the deceased's wish to be buried in "his home canton, in free republican soil".
The grave - in which his wife was also buried in 1904 - still exists in the Liestal cemetery. His grave inscription reads:
Georg Herwegh, May 31st, 1817 - April 7th, 1875 rests here, as he wanted, in his homeland, free earthPersecuted by the mighty,
hated by the servants,
misunderstood by most,
loved by his own. "
Also in Liestal, in a central location not far from the train station and the old town, a memorial was erected in 1904 by German and Swiss workers' associations "dedicated to freedom singers and fighters in gratitude by men of work, friends of freedom". It is provided with the third stanza of the poem An Herwegh's grave by the Frankfurt poet and Herwegh's comrade in arms, Friedrich Stoltze . In an obituary for Herwegh, he also wrote:
Never sang, proclaiming salvation to freedom,
A poet's heart with such glow,
It sparkled in all souls,
The people grew proud courage,
You will float to the stars,
Your singer's name does not extinguish.
And the living will live
even beyond death and grave.
Two metal plates are attached to the monument. The following is written on the left side of the portrait. You stood by the people without wavering, you proudly walked past the Trone, let yourself be thanked in death, O free heart, now you are free. You will float to the stars, your singer's name does not disappear, and the living becomes life, far beyond death and grave! On the right side it says: The freedom singer and fighter. Dedicated in gratitude by men to work, friends to freedom.
reception
Marcel Herwegh bequeathed essential parts of the estate of Georg Herwegh and his wife Emma Herwegh to the city of Liestal with the condition to set up a museum. The estate today forms a significant part of the Liestal Poet and City Museum .
Although Herwegh unlike other intellectuals of his time, a staunch opponent of the French German-after the war emerging nationalism was the effect of his poems is also controversial. With the sometimes pathetic, combative and violent language, especially his early poems of a living person , he differed little from the language of his enemies and should therefore also be seen as a pioneer of aggressive nationalism, Wilhelminism , says Ulrich Enzensberger in his biography Herwegh. A hero life .
Works
- Light luggage. 1840.
- Poems from a living person. Volume 1, 1841. (see illustration on the right) ( digitized version and full text in the German text archive )
- Twenty-one sheets from Switzerland. Edited by Georg Herwegh. Verlag des Literarisches Comptoirs, Zürich / Winterthur 1843. (2nd edition Frid. Schmid'sche Buchhandlung und Buchdruckerei, Glarus 1844.)
- Poems from a living person. Volume 2, 1843 ( digitized version and full text in the German text archive )
- Two Prussian songs. 1848.
- The Schiller Celebration in Zurich , 1860.
- Das Bundeslied , 1863. Hymn of the ADAV, the SPD's predecessor party.
- New poems published after his death. Publishing magazine, Zurich 1877.
- The song of hatred. 1841.
Work editions
- Georg Herwegh: Works and Letters. Critical and annotated complete edition. 6 vols., Ed. v. Ingrid Pepperle in conjunction with Volker Giel, Heinz Pepperle, Norbert Rothe and Hendrik Stein. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2005–2019.
Translations
- A. von Lamartine's Complete Works. 6 volumes. Rieger, Stuttgart, 1839-1840.
- William Shakespeare's Dramatic Works. 7 volumes (20, 24, 27, 29, 34, 36, 37). Brockhaus, Leipzig 1869/1871.
literature
- Hausrath, Adolf: A prophet of the people's party . In: Prussian year books (1887), vol. 59, Georg Stilke publishing house, Berlin. Pp. 559–580 ( archive.org)
- Wolfgang Büttner: Herwegh, Georg Friedrich Rudolf Theodor Andreas. In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 202-203.
- Wolfgang Büttner: Georg Herwegh. A singer of the proletariat. The path from a bourgeois-democratic poet to an advocate for the labor movement. With an appendix of unprinted letters and documents about Herwegh's relationship to the labor movement. 2., revised. Edition Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1976.
- Ulrich Enzensberger: Herwegh. A hero life. The other library. Vol. 173. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-8218-4173-7 .
- Ingo Fellrath: Georg Herwegh - Emma Herwegh: Vive la République! In: Sabine Freitag (Ed.): The Forty-Eight. Life pictures from the German revolution 1848/49. Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-42770-7 .
- Alfred Georg Frei, Kurt Hochstuhl: Pioneers of Democracy. The Baden Revolution 1848/49. The dream of freedom. G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1997, ISBN 3-7650-8168-X .
- Peter Hasubek: From Biedermeier to Vormärz. Works on German literature between 1820 and 1850. (Büchner, Heine, Grabbe, Immermann, Gutzkow, Herwegh). P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1996, ISBN 3-631-30004-2 .
- Martin Glaubrecht: Herwegh, Georg Friedrich Rudolf Theodor Andreas. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , pp. 723-726 ( digitized version ).
- Bruno Kaiser (Ed.): “One Alley for Freedom.” From the life and work of Georg Herwegh. People and the world, Berlin 1948.
- Bruno Kaiser (Ed.): Georg Herwegh. Early journalism 1837–1841. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1971.
- Michail Krausnick : The iron lark. The life story of Georg Herwegh. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 1993, ISBN 3-407-80723-6 .
- Franz Muncker: Herwegh, Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, pp. 252-256.
- Karl Riha: criticism, satire, parody. Georg Herwegh - from the perspective of the history of reception. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1992, ISBN 3-531-12388-2 .
- Walter Schmitz: The lyrical work of Georg Herwegh. In: Walter Jens (Ed.): Kindlers New Literature Lexicon. The 23-volume work on CD-ROM. Kindler, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-463-43001-0 .
- Georg Herwegh . In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Kindlers Literatur Lexikon . 3rd, completely revised edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 , vol. 7, p. 428 f.
- Manfred Orlick: The "iron lark" and Germany's first political poet. For the 200th birthday of Georg Herwegh. literaturkritik.de, Institute for Modern German Literature, Philipps University Marburg, No. 5, May 2017
- Wolfgang Häusler: Herwegh, you iron lark ... In: Die Furche, May 24, 2017, p. 19.
- Dirk Kurbjuweit: “The democratic bailiff” . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 2017, p. 110–113 ( online - May 20, 2017 ).
- Stephan Reinhardt: Georg Herwegh: a biography: his time - our story , Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, [2020], ISBN 978-3-8353-3807-4
Literary processing
- Dirk Kurbjuweit : The freedom of Emma Herwegh. Novel. Hanser, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-446-25464-0 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Georg Herwegh in the catalog of the German National Library
- Hans Rudolf Schneider: Herwegh, Georg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Georg Friedrich Rudolf Theodor Herwegh in: Personal Lexicon of the Canton of Basel-Country
- Biography of Georg Herwegh ( memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), from the Georg-Herwegh-Gymnasium Berlin-Hermsdorf
- Works by Georg Herwegh at Zeno.org .
- Works by Georg Herwegh in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Website on Georg Herwegh and on the critical and commented complete edition of the works and letters
- Herwegh: To Ferdinand Freiligrath. 1842; in the project "Poetry Theory"
- Annotated link collection of the university library of the FU Berlin ( Memento from July 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) ( Ulrich Goerdten )
- Herwegh manuscripts in libraries and archives
Notes / individual evidence
- ↑ Michail Krausnick: Germania, I dread you. In: Die Zeit , No. 15/2014.
- ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 2: F-H. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0809-X , pp. 314-316.
- ↑ Karl Marx. Chronicle of his life in detail. Zurich 1934, p. 14.
- ↑ https://www.bzbasel.ch/basel/baselbiet/dieser-mann-begeisterte-rebellische-junge-maenner-mit-versen-auch-emma-sigmund-herwegh-konnte-ihm-nicht-widerstehen-136157095
- ↑ https://www.bzbasel.ch/basel/baselbiet/dieser-mann-begeisterte-rebellische-junge-maenner-mit-versen-auch-emma-sigmund-herwegh-konnte-ihm-nicht-widerstehen-136157095 and information board at the Liestal monument
- ↑ Information board at the Liestal memorial
- ↑ Roland Kroell and Markus Vonberg: Republic or Death! Life paths after the revolution. In: Südkurier , April 21, 2018, p. 24.
- ^ Hermann Oncken: Lassalle. Between Marx and Bismarck . Stuttgart u. a. 1966, p. 173.
- ^ Letter to Lassalle from October 25, 1863, in: Ferdinand Lassalle: Nachgelassenebriefe und Schriften . Edited by G. Mayer, Vol. 5, Stuttgart 1925, p. 242.
- ↑ Georg Herwegh's grave at knerger.de
- ↑ https://www.bzbasel.ch/basel/baselbiet/dieser-mann-begeisterte-rebellische-junge-maenner-mit-versen-auch-emma-sigmund-herwegh-konnte-ihm-nicht-widerstehen-136157095
- ↑ a b Georg Herwegh in Liestal. georgherwegh-edition.de
- ↑ Permanent exhibitions on the website of the Poet and City Museum Liestal, accessed on July 1, 2018.
- ↑ see Thomas Kastura: foam beater or revolutionary.
- ↑ Thomas Kastura: whiskers or revolutionary. Review at literaturkritik.de, No. 10, October 1999 (1st volume), accessed on July 1, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Herwegh, Georg |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Herwegh, Georg Friedrich Rudolf Theodor Andreas (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | revolutionary German poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 31, 1817 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 7, 1875 |
| Place of death | Lichtental (Baden-Baden) |