Johann Jakob Röhrig

Johann Jakob Röhrig (born April 13, 1787 in Neuerkirch ; † 1856 there ) was a village school teacher in the small community of Neuerkirch in the Hunsrück , who participated in the Napoleonic Wars on the French side in 1813 and 1814 . Due to their extremely realistic and unpretentious descriptions, his memoirs , in which he dealt with his military service in detail, are among the most interesting and important sources that simple soldiers have left behind about their experiences and their view of the global political upheavals they witnessed.

Life

Johann Jakob Röhrig was born as the son of the schoolmaster from Neuerkirch in the Hunsrück. He experienced the political upheavals accompanying the First Coalition War in the areas on the left bank of the Rhine and had been a French citizen since the Peace of Lunéville and the creation of the Département du Mont-Tonnerre (German: Donnersberg ). As such, he was placed under conscription in 1807 , but not drafted into the army due to the low need for soldiers. Therefore, he could continue to devote himself to his training as a village school teacher.

When the preparations for Napoléon I's Russian campaign increased enormously, Röhrig was also called up in March 1812. Although his records indicate that he would have been able to evade the draft, he made no attempt to do so. Rather, he happily fulfilled this duty for Napoleon I, whom he deeply adored. First he was assigned to the 80th cohort of the National Guard , which was eventually used to build the 150th Line Infantry Regiment ( 150e régiment d'infanterie de ligne ). As a voltigeur , as a light infantryman, he took part in some of the most murderous battles of the Wars of Liberation in the following years .

Röhrig experienced his baptism of fire in April 1813 during the battle near Möckern near Magdeburg . Subsequently, his regiment was involved in the campaign in Silesia , which ended in August 1813 with a heavy French defeat in the Battle of the Katzbach . In October 1813, Röhrig experienced the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig and then the withdrawal of his regiment towards Paris . During his military service, Röhrig advanced to sergent major and remained a soldier until Napoleon's first abdication in April 1814. He was proposed twice for promotion to officer and for admission to the Legion of Honor . In Valenciennes he was finally honored and returned home.

Since France had to cede the areas annexed in the previous twelve years , Röhrig was no longer a French citizen. After a short interlude in the Prussian army in 1815, he entered the school service and from then on remained a village school teacher. His memoirs show that he was not entirely satisfied with his new job and that he mourned his years as a soldier for a long time. In his later years, in addition to his school duties, he devoted himself to writing down his memoirs, which give eloquent testimony to everyday life, the experiences and feelings of a common soldier during the Napoleonic Wars. Röhrig died in 1856 as a respected member of his home community.

literature

• Karl Röhrig (ed.): Under the flag of the first Napoleon. The youth story of the Hunsrück village school teacher Johann Jakob Röhrig, told by himself. 2nd, increased and improved edition. Altenburg 1908.
• Gustav Schellack, Willi Wagner: Neuerkirch a village in the Hunsrück - past and present. Series of publications by the Hunsrück History Association, 17; Neuerkirch 1986, DNB 880650117 .

Web links

• 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 quotations from Johann Jakob Röhrig).