Johannes Fitz

Johannes Fitz (born July 4, 1796 in Dürkheim , † May 16, 1868 in Pfeffingen ) was a German merchant , winery owner and Dürkheim city councilor. As a member of the German Press and Fatherland Association , he campaigned for the preservation of freedom of the press and freedom of expression in the Palatinate under Bavarian rule and was one of the co-organizers of the Hambach Festival of 1832 .

Live and act

Johannes Fitz was born the son of a businessman in Dürkheim. After his father's death in 1819, Johannes Fitz continued to run the business. In his candidacy for the city council in 1829 Fitz received the most votes and was appointed adjunct and police commissioner. Due to the social and economic conditions, the number of offenses and crimes had risen significantly at that time. Forest crime and begging were particularly widespread. Fitz committed himself in his office to social reforms in the poor. He wanted to make poor relief independent of donations. In future, a property tax-based levy should be levied for this. At the same time, a central poor relief institution should ensure more efficient and needs-based distribution of funds. However, Johannes Fitz was unable to prevail over the council with his proposals.

Johannes Fitz was one of the founding members of the German Press and Fatherland Association. Together with Friedrich Wilhelm Knoebel , he set up the Dürkheim branch committee. Shortly after the association was banned on March 1, 1832, Fitz publicly announced his resignation, but remained on the city council.

Under the direction of Johannes Fitz, the Dürkheimers took part in the Hambach Festival on the 27th – 28th. May 1832. About 500 citizens, including many winegrowers, took part in the pageant. One of the flags with the inscription “The wine growers must have grief” is now owned by the Bad Dürkheim Museum Society. On May 28th, Johannes Fitz gave a speech in Neustadt, which was printed in the description of the festival by Johann Georg August Wirth . In it, Fitz called for solidarity with the Polish people, who had risen in vain against the rule of the Russian tsar in the November uprising from 1830 to 1831. At the same time, his speech was also an appeal to strive for one's own national unity in freedom.

With the dismissal of Dürkheim's mayor Friedrich Jakob Koch early in June 1832, early elections to the city council became necessary. Once again, Johannes Fitz received the most votes. Due to his political convictions, the Bavarian authorities prevented his appointment as mayor.

The official bans issued after the Hambach Festival included a. the display of all liberal symbols. This also included the trees of freedom erected in many places across the Palatinate . In Dürkheim there was such a tree on the Obermarkt. To enforce the orders, Bavarian troops were moved into the city, which led to unrest among the population. A violent conflict could be avoided through the intervention of Johannes Fitz. In this context, there was an encounter with Field Marshal Carl Philipp von Wrede , the extraordinary commander of the Bavarian troops relocated to the Palatinate to restore public order after the Hambach Festival. Wrede then personally campaigned for Fitz to be charged with libel and incitement to riot.

After the arrest of the leaders of the German Press and Fatherland Association, Fitz belonged to the group of people who tried to reorganize the liberal protest movement across Germany. Fitz was a participant in conspiratorial meetings that u. a. had the aim of relocating the association's headquarters to Frankfurt.

In September 1832, Dürkheimer and Neustädter Liberals under the leadership of Johannes Fitz and Johann Philipp Abresch planned another rally in the style of the Hambach Festival on the occasion of the Dürkheimer Wurstmarkt , but at the last moment they shied away from carrying out the plan in view of the presence of the state power.

In the same month Johannes Fitz was involved in the spectacular liberation of Jacob Venedey from the Frankenthal prison and his escape to France.

Due to his significant contribution to the Hambach Festival as well as to the protest notes against the punitive measures imposed by the German Confederation and the Bavarian authorities, several trials were brought against Fitz from 1832 onwards. Several trips to France, especially to Strasbourg and Paris, served to evade the threat of arrest. In 1834 he was sentenced in Munich in the last instance to 9 months imprisonment, which he only had to serve in part due to a petition for clemency.

Fitz was still under official observation in the following years, but no longer appeared as the main actor. On the eve of the revolution of 1848/49 , he called on the population to be prudent and advocated the constitutional pursuit of the desired goals.

Emigration society

In 1832 Fitz founded the Rheinbaierischer Emigrants Society . Like the Giessen Emigration Society and others, it pursued the goal of bringing German settlers to the region around Missouri and Arkansas in order to found a nationally shaped state within the USA. Although the plan failed, many emigrants came to the USA in the course of this movement. In 1833 a group of members of the Society of Rhineland Emigrants left Germany for New Orleans.

Sparkling wine production and export

From 1832, Fitz ran a winery in neighboring Pfeffingen . Together with his cousin Georg Peter Fitz, who ran a winery himself, he dealt with the production of sparkling wine, stimulated by his stays in France. In 1840 the first Haardt mountain wine Moussirende came onto the market. In 1842 Georg Peter Fitz and his partners received an Order of Merit from the Bavarian King for their production. Johannes Fitz was denied this due to his political convictions. Nevertheless, he was also economically successful. In the 1860s, the Fitz winery exported sparkling wine and wine to the USA, including Cleveland and New York. For representative purposes, Johannes Fitz had the Dürkheim Vigilient Tower built as a vineyard temple in 1842 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dürkheimer Wochenblatt of September 16, 1832 and September 23, 1832.
2. ^ German tribune of March 16, 1832.
3. ↑ Landesarchiv Speyer Inv.-No. H1 1526.
4. ↑ Observation reports in the "Wurstmarkt-Akt" , Landesarchiv Speyer, Inv.-Nr. H1 1085.
5. ↑ Jacob Venedey, Meine Flucht aus dem Gefänigte , in: Freya, Illustrirte Blätter for the educated world 6, 1866, 15ff.
6. ^ Dürkheimer Wochenblatt of March 12, 1848.

literature

• Wilhelm Dautermann, Georg Feldmann, Walther Klein, Ernst Zink: Bad Dürkheim. Chronicle of a Salier city . Bad Dürkheim 1978.
• Cornelia Foerster: The Press and Fatherland Association of 1832/33. Social structure and forms of organization of the bourgeois movement in the time of the Hambach Festival . Trier 1982, ISBN 3-923087-02-0 .
• Manfred Geis, Willy Rothley (Ed.): You are already cheekily planting the trees of freedom. 150 years of the Hambach Festival . Neustadt 1982, ISBN 3-923505-00-0 .
• Meinrad M. Grewenig (Ed.): The Hambach Castle. A festival for freedom . Speyer 1998, ISBN 3-7757-0757-3 .
• Hellmut G. Haasis: folk festival, social protest and conspiracy. 150 years of the Hambach Festival . Heidelberg 1981, ISBN 978-3-88423-015-2 .
• Britta Hallmann-Preuß, Georg Karl Rings, Fritz Schumann: Johannes Fitz called the Red. From the life of a freedom-loving Dürkheimer . Bad Dürkheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-028974-3 .
• Anton M. Keim, Helmut Mathy: Hambach 1832–1982. Event - Core Values ​​- Perspectives. A political reading and picture book on the history of freedom and democracy . Mainz 1982, ISBN 3-87439-084-5 .
• Joachim Kermann, Gerhard Nestler, Dieter Schiffmann (eds.): Freedom, Unity and Europe. The Hambach Festival of 1832. Causes, goals, effects . Ludwigshafen 2006, ISBN 978-3-934845-22-0 .
• Mathias Nathal: Bad Dürkheim city history (s). Pro Message, Ludwigshafen 2000, ISBN 3-934845-05-3 .
• Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Political associations, societies and parties in Central Europe 1815–1848 / 49 . Series of publications by the International Research Center “Democratic Movements in Central Europe 1770–1850” 38. Frankfurt / M. et al. 2005, ISBN 3-631-54138-4 .
• Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon on the History of Democratic and Liberal Movements in Central Europe, Vol. 2 / Part 1 . Series of publications by the International Research Center “Democratic Movements in Central Europe 1770–1850” 39. Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-631-44356-0 .
• Stefan von Senger and Etterlin: New Germany in North America: mass emigration, national group settlements and liberal colonial movement 1815–1860 . Baden-Baden 1991, ISBN 978-3-7890-2221-0 .
• Edgar Süß: The Palatinate in the "Black Book". A personal historical contribution to the history of the Hambach Festival, early Palatinate and German liberalism . Heidelberg publications on regional history and regional studies 3. Heidelberg 1956.

Web links

• Biographical website

swell

• JN Miller (pseudonym for Georg Friedrich Kolb ): History of the latest events in Rheinbaiern . Weissenburg 1833.
• Johann Georg August Wirth (ed.): The national festival of the Germans in Hambach . Neustadt 1832 (reprint Neustadt 1981).