Johann Daniel Ahlemann
Johann Daniel Ahlemann (born October 7, 1765 in Genthin near Magdeburg , † July 29, 1832 in Leipzig ) was a gravedigger at the Johannisfriedhof in the city, but best known as a chronicler of the Leipzig Battle of the Nations .
Life
Johann Daniel Ahlemann was the son of the master mason Johann Daniel Ahlemann (1729–1780) and his wife Dorothea Sophia Anna geb. Wulff († 1776).
Ahlemann learned the trade of wig maker . On July 26, 1790, he acquired Leipzig citizenship and in the same year married Christiana Wilhelmine Becker (1768–1823), the daughter of a wig maker, in the Christ Church in Eutritzsch . The couple had five children between 1796 and 1805. When the wig business subsided, in 1810 he applied for the position of gravedigger at the Johannisfriedhof, which was also connected to the apartment in the gravedigger's house at the Äußere Grimmaischer Tor . Here he experienced the horrors of the Battle of Nations.
His wife died in 1823, and in 1825 he married Maria Dorothea Kneist from Frankenheim . From 1827 he worked as a poor carer .
In Leipzig , Ahlemann is remembered primarily as a chronicler of the events of the Leipzig Battle of the Nations. He not only described the misery of the soldiers and the population that resulted from the direct consequences of the struggle for the city, but also that of the cemetery system from his own experience. This not only meant the countless burials caused by fighting and epidemics, but also the fact that the grave chambers of the cemetery had to be opened to create temporary shelters because of the numerous soldiers, wounded and prisoners streaming into the city.
Ahlemann also had a poetic streak. He wrote poems for the 100th birthday of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert and on the occasion of the reconstruction of the tower of St. John's Church after a lightning strike.
font
- Johann Daniel Ahlemann: The Leipzig gravedigger in the Battle of Nations: His experiences with the storming of Leipzig on October 19, 1813 and the atrocities in the church in general. Reprint for the 100th anniversary in 1913 by Georg Petzoldt, Leipzig
literature
- Ursula Drechsel and Thomas Nabert (Red.): Witnesses of Terror: Reports from the Battle of Nations , Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2012. ISBN 978-3-9-36508642 (with Ahlemann's original report)
Web links
- Ursula Drechsel: Who was the gravedigger JD Ahlemann in 1813? In: Leipzig reading. Retrieved August 20, 2020 .
- Johann Daniel Ahlemann. In: Geneanet. Retrieved August 20, 2020 .
- Johann Daniel Ahlemann (1785–1832) - The gravedigger from the Johannisfriedhof. In: Johanniskirchturm-Rundblick 02/2008, p. 8/9. Retrieved August 20, 2020 .
- The records of the grave digger Ahlemann 1813. In: Leipzig reading. Retrieved on August 20, 2020 (Ahlemann original text).
- 1813 The Battle of the Nations near Leipzig. In: YouTube. Retrieved on August 22, 2020 (ARD documentation from 2013 on the Battle of the Nations with Ahlemann quotes).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ahlemann was not the only eyewitness to the Battle of the Nations who left his experiences behind for posterity. For example, the schoolmaster Johann Jakob Röhrig also described his experiences in the Napoleonic Wars and thus also those in Leipzig.
- ↑ Ursula Drechsel: Book of the Dead entry for Ch. F. Gellert. In: Leipzig reading. Retrieved August 20, 2020 .
- ↑ Johanniskirchturm-Rundblick 02/2008, p. 8/9. Retrieved August 20, 2020 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ahlemann, Johann Daniel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Gravedigger and chronicler |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 7, 1765 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Genthin |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 29, 1832 |
| Place of death | Leipzig |