Hallgarten circle

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Former Itzstein's winery in Hallgarten in the Rheingau

The Hallgarten Circle , named after the town of Hallgarten in the Rheingau , was an assembly of liberal politicians who, along with the Heppenheim conference and the Heidelberg and Offenburg assemblies, are considered to be one of the nucleus of the liberal- democratic Frankfurt National Assembly , even though it continued into the first half of the 20th century Century received less attention from historians.

Origin and Political Opinions

The Hallgarten Circle was created on the initiative of the liberal politician Johann Adam von Itzstein , at whose vineyard in Hallgarten the meetings took place. Itzstein, who was the opposition leader in the Second Chamber of the Baden Estates Assembly , invited like-minded people from all federal states to hold political discussions. The meetings presumably took place from 1832, then more regularly from 1839 in different compositions with up to 30 participants and often over several days. These meetings, to be seen as parliamentary conferences , had the aim of finding common strategies for state politics and creating a parliamentary alternative to the German Confederation . Debate was wonderful in a wine-blissful atmosphere and with a view of the beautiful landscape of the Rheingau. Right and left also mingled with the liberals. Often the individual opinions crystallized only in the course of the discussions. The prudent host Itzstein tried to mediate among everyone, but could not prevent the radicals from gaining the upper hand and the number of liberals decreasing in the 1840s.

Under the influence of Robert Blum , the circle increasingly radicalized in the direction of the left camp . The more moderate liberals like Heinrich von Gagern , Karl Mathy and Friedrich Daniel Bassermann were not particularly happy about this. On July 19, 1847, the Prussian Minister of the Interior described Hallgarten in a letter to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. As "the heads of radicals ". The Hallgartenkreis slowly dissolved until the Frankfurt Pre-Parliament was formed.

Bassermann described the Hallgarten circle in his memorabilia as follows:

"I remember (sic!) Count Reichenbach from Silesia, von Watzdorf , Dieskau and Blum from Saxony, Hergenhahn from Nassau, Peter , Rindenschwender, Welcker , Winter of the men I saw there for the first time or only got to know better and Hoffmann from Baden. [...] On the last day the meeting may have grown to thirty They admonished each other to renew the applications for free jury courts, etc. in all German chambers [...] If I had traveled to this meeting as if to prepare a sacred work, I was significantly downgraded by the low result evidently much more, and rather, the pleasure of social gathering than being zealous to further the solemn purpose. "

Known members of the Hallgarten circle

literature

  • Siegfried Schmidt : Hallgarten District (HK) 1839–1846. In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789–1945) . Volume 3: General Association of German Employees' Unions - Reich and Free Conservative Party . Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7609-0878-0 (= history of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations ), pp. 81–83.
  • Paul Wentzcke , Wolfgang Klötzer (ed.): Heinrich von Gagern: German Liberalism in the Vormärz. Letters and speeches 1815–1848. Musterschmidt, Göttingen, Berlin, Frankfurt 1959.

supporting documents

  1. ^ Friedrich Daniel Bassermann: Memories. Edited by Ernst von Bassermann-Jordan and Friedrich von Bassermann-Jordan. Frankfurter Verlags-Anstalt, Frankfurt 1926, p. 5 f.

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