Johann Christoph Bleßmann

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Johann Christoph Bleßmann (* 1760 in Göttingen ; † April 18, 1836 in Zweibrücken ) was a German Jacobin and sympathizer of the French Revolution .

Live and act

Order of the revolutionaries Georg Forster and Johann Christoph Bleßmann (signed as Secretaire General ) to elect a mayor in Klein-Winternheim , 1793
Liberty Tree in Mainz, 1793

Before the French revolutionary troops marched into the German areas on the left bank of the Rhine, Johann Christoph Bleßmann worked as court master and language teacher for the Hanoverian ambassador in Mainz . He belonged to the Order of Illuminati and was friends with Georg von Wedekind , the elector's personal physician, who also came from Göttingen and in whose house he also lived temporarily; He also taught German to French emigrants.

The French revolutionary general Adam-Philippe de Custine conquered Mainz on October 21, 1792, as part of the 1st coalition war . Two days later the Mainz Jacobin Club was founded . Dr. Wedekind is one of the co-founders and also introduced Bleßmann there in November 1792. Custine founded a general administration for the entire occupation area, whose members he recruited from the Jacobin Club. Johann Christoph Bleßmann became general secretary of this administration, Anton Joseph Dorsch was president and Georg Forster was his deputy. On February 16, 1793, a proclamation was issued that all noblemen, clergymen, civil servants and other high-ranking residents had to take the oath on the revolutionary constitution of France or face severe penalties. Several members of the government, including Forster and Bleßmann, traveled around the country, had trees of freedom erected and forced the named persons to take the required oath.

On February 21st of that year, both came to Grünstadt with 60 soldiers , and later they brought in another 150 men. There they had the Counts of Leiningen residing here deported to Paris as hostages because they refused to take the oath they asked for and confiscated their Oberhof and Unterhof castles . Both castles and the local Capuchin monastery were looted and the inventory was squandered to interested parties between February 28 and March 30, which resulted in 25,000 guilders flowing into the Revolutionary Treasury. On March 10th, Bleßmann had a freedom tree erected in Grünstadt . On this occasion he gave a French speech himself and had also urged the young high school vice-principal Carl Christian Heubach to give a public speech in German, which discredited himself in front of the residents, lost his teaching post and finally had to leave his hometown. On March 12th, Johann Christoph Bleßmann appeared at the town hall in Eisenberg , accompanied by two riders carrying pistols, and demanded that Mayor Meurer take the oath, otherwise he would enforce it with the military. Forster and Bleßmann had less luck with their actions in Winnweiler . There they had been beaten with clubs by the angry peasants and held until they were liberated with military help by the revolutionary leader Merlin de Thionville , who was meanwhile in Grünstadt.

On March 17, 1793, the Rhenish-German National Convention of the newly founded Mainz Republic met in Mainz , to which Johann Christoph Bleßmann had been elected as a deputy for the Carlsberg district. This state ceased to exist as early as July 1793. From 1794 he then worked as an informant for the revolutionary regime in the Haut-Rhin department . The fortunes of war changed several times, the French ultimately remained victorious. As long as they held the previously German areas on the left bank of the Rhine, Bleßmann worked for them. Most recently he was a sworn interpreter at the Mainz District Court.

When the political situation changed, he immediately switched to the service of the provisional Austrian-Bavarian government. This employed him on August 1, 1815, as a clerk at the court of appeal in Kaiserslautern . He became a civil servant in the Kingdom of Bavaria and retired on February 13, 1832 as a senior clerk at the Zweibrücken Court of Appeal .

Johann Christoph Bleßmann died on April 18, 1836 in Zweibrücken.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mainzer Zeitschrift , Volume 98, Verlag des Mainzer Altertumsverein, 2003, p. 49; (Clipping scan 1) ; (Detail scan 2)
  2. ↑ Terry Melanson: Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati , Trine Day Verlag, USA, 2011, ISBN 1937584097 ; (Digital scan)
  3. ^ Johann Christian Dieterich : Revolutions-Almanach von 1794 , Göttingen, 1794, p. 140; (Digital scan)
  4. ^ Alzeyer Geschichtsblätter , Verlag der Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte, 1982, p. 120; (Detail scan)
  5. ↑ Christoph Girtanner : Historical news and political considerations on the French Revolution , Volume 12, Berlin, 1796, p. 305; (Digital scan)
  6. ↑ ibid, p. 317; (Digital scan)
  7. ^ Franz Xaver Remling : The Rhine Palatinate in the Revolutionary Period from 1792 to 1798 , Speyer, 1865, p. 269 u. 273
  8. ^ A. Hiersemann: Pariser historical studies , Volume 8, p. 56, Deutsches Historisches Institut, Paris, 1969; (Detail scan)
  9. ^ Johann K. Müller: The siege of the city of Mainz by the French in 1792, and their recapture by the German troops in 1793 , Mainz, 1793, p. 183; (Digital scan)
  10. ^ Obituary Carl Christian Heubach , in: National-Zeitung der Deutschen , 1797, column 375 u. 376 of the year; (Digital scan)
  11. ↑ Christoph Girtanner : Historical news and political considerations on the French Revolution , Volume 4, Berlin, 1793, p. 234 u. 235; (Digital scan)
  12. ^ Volker Rödel: The French Revolution and the Upper Rhine Lands , 1789–1798 , Jan Thorbecke publishing house, 1991, p. 209, ISBN 3799578099
  13. ↑ Mainzer Zeitschrift , Volume 98, Verlag des Mainzer Altertumsverein, 2003, p. 49; (Detail scan)
  14. ^ Official Journal of the KK-Österreichische and K.-Baierischen Community Landes-Administrations-Commission zu Kreuznach , year 1815, p. 236 u. 237; (Digital scan)
  15. ^ Government Gazette for the Kingdom of Bavaria , year 1832, column 192; (Digital scan)
  16. ↑ Zweibrücker Wochenblatt , year 1836, p. 156; (Digital scan)
personal data
SURNAME Bleßmann, Johann Christoph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blessmann, Johann Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German revolutionary, deputy in the Rhenish-German National Convention of the Mainz Republic
DATE OF BIRTH 1760
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1836
Place of death Zweibrücken