Josef Deifl

Josef Deifl (born November 14, 1790 in Essing , † April 29, 1864 in Landshut ) was a soldier in the Bavarian Army at the time of the Napoleonic Wars . He described his experiences in the war in a diary, which enables an unusually detailed insight into the world of the Bavarian soldiers of the time.

Family and origin

Deifl was born as the son of an "Eisenzrinner", that is, an iron smelter. He had five siblings, of whom only two survived childhood and adolescence, and lived with his family in poor conditions. Due to his living conditions, he was only rarely able to go to school - mostly in winter. In the busy summer months, he had to support the family in the parental household.

Life as a soldier

The infantryman fought for the Bavarian Army in the 5th Infantry Regiment from 1809 to 1815 . In his diary you can first read about his experiences during the suppression of the Tyrolean popular uprising led by Andreas Hofer . With horror he reported an observation he had made in the course of this. He had to watch as nine Tyroleans were hanged, probably on French orders, because they refused to cooperate: “Then they are hung up in the alder trees there. A KB gunner carries out the execution on command. ”The Catholic Deifl remembered the fact that there was also a sacristan among those hanged.

In 1812 Deifl marched as part of a replacement contingent for Napoleon's Grande Armée , which crossed the Russian border at the end of June , from Nuremberg via Saxony and Silesia to Poland. He reached Vilna . While retreating, Deifl fell into Russian captivity in Silesia in 1813 and was taken to Minsk , guarded by Cossacks . He refused to change sides and came back to Essing in 1814. Deifl was sent to war against France for the last time in 1815. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo , however, his unit was ordered back home without having been involved in combat operations.

Deifl describes in his diary the conditions to which the soldiers were exposed. He reports numerous dead horses lining the way home. Hunger, hardship and cold are said to have brought those returning home to such an extent that, in their desperation, they did not shrink from eating these dead animals. "... dead horse sluts were so many that everyone believed they had been brought here for ten years [...] but meat is still taken from them due to a lack of provisions and often eaten raw." Deifl's records provide an unusually deep insight into the world of experience of the common soldiers of the time. He depicts “the events unsentimentally, spicing up his descriptions with a slight irony. He wrote how he talked thinking his style is lively and astute. The hardships, the misery and the horrors of the war grasp the reader immediately. ”This is the specialty of his diary, which was first edited and published in excerpts by Eugen von Frauenholz in 1939 .

Life after the war

Little is known today about Josef Deifl's life after the end of Napoleon. He first returned to Essing and went back to his learned trade as an iron smelter. He married in 1825. He moved twice more, most recently to Landshut (1838), where he also died.

A year before his death he was invited to the opening ceremony of the Liberation Hall in Kelheim . At the inauguration on October 13, 1863, the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , Deifl is said to have met Ludwig I , who had a long chat with the Russian veteran. In the following year, 1864, Josef Deifl died of a stroke.

Afterlife

Monument to Josef Deifl on the Essingen wooden bridge

The events, which in 2009 recalled the Napoleon battles in Bavaria and the Tyrolean popular uprising against the French occupation 200 years ago, drew attention to the infantryman Deifl in newspaper articles, staged readings and lectures. A Tyrolean appreciation of his autobiographical memories and reflections counts it among the "most original sources" about the events in Tyrol in 1809. His descriptions are not only remarkable because, from the Tyrolean point of view, a representative of the "opposite side" has a say, but also because in this source "an absolutely unpathetic and unsentimental representation from the point of view and in the spirit of the 'little man'" is given, and that "with ironic, sometimes subversive features".

The commemorative publication on the bicentenary of the CH Beck publishing house evaluates the publication of the diary by Eugen von Frauenholz in 1939 as “an unheard warning” and calls the plain Bavarian soldier a “new Simplizius Simplizissimus ”. The comparison with the figure of the simple is taken up repeatedly.

On the old wooden bridge in Essing, a bronze memorial commemorates the infantryman. The sculptor Joseph Michael Neustifter created a sculpture that is based on the formal language of Carl Spitzweg's soldiers . The stock of his rifle, the barrel of which is buried in the ground, serves as a makeshift writing desk. With this support, Deifl writes the impressions in his notebook with a large pen. Neustifter deliberately created a “restrained anti-war symbol” with the figure. This "instrumentalization typical of the time" is conveyed to the viewer by the inscription on the monument: "JOSEF DEIFEL / 1790–1864 / EISEN-ZRINNER / Soldier in Napoleon's campaigns / He wrote a famous diary / against the war in Essinger German". Another memorial plaque is attached to Deifl's birthplace, Essing, Unterer Markt 3.

literature

Text output

• Jörg Nowy (Ed.): Infantryman Deifl. A diary from the Napoleonic era. Abensberg 2000.
• With Napoleon to Russia. Diary of the infantryman Joseph Deifel . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7917-2409-6 .

Comments and representations

• Stefan Dietrich: The memories of the Bavarian infantryman Josef Deifl in 1809. In: Tiroler Chronicler 2008/4, pp. 38–41.
• Eberhard Dünninger and Verena Verheyden: War and Peace in the Life of Josef Deifl: A Bavarian Soldier's Fate in the Age of Napoleon . Bavarian Radio, 1983.
• Heinrich Egner: Infantryman Deifl's old age in Hagrain. Bernlochner's semi-detached house for Joseph Deifl from 1854 has remained almost unchanged to this day . In: Landshuter Zeitung of November 17, 2012, p. 44. (Results of studies in the Landshut city archive)
• Konrad Maria Färber: How Joseph Deifel survived the war in Russia . In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung of April 24, 2012, p. 46.
• Egon Johannes Greipl : Deroy and Deifl. Two Bavarians in Russia . In: aviso. Journal for science and art in Bavaria. Bavarian State Ministry for Science, Research and Art, Munich 2012, Issue 4, ISSN  1432-6299 , pp. 10-17. [1] (PDF; 12.2 MB)
• Hanns Haller: The Deifel infantryman from Essing. About a war diary from Napoleonic times . In: Contributions to the local history of Lower Bavaria, Volume III. Edited by Hans Bleibrunner. Landshut 1976, pp. 381-396.
• Ders .: Josef Deifel, the infantryman . In: Hanns Haller: Between rock and river. Essing in the Altmühltal. Essing 1976, pp. 138-145.
• Hans Holzhaider : In the clutches of Bonaparte . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of November 15, 2016, p. 50 (Bayernteil).
• Rudolf Koller: Infantryman Deifel. War memories of a citizen of Neuessingen from the Napoleonic period . In: Der Sonntag, weekend supplement of the Donaukurier from August 12th and 13th, 2000.
• Hans Kramer: The memories of a Bavarian infantryman about the 1809 campaign . In: Tiroler Heimatblätter, 34th year, issue 4/6, 1959, pp. 65–70.
• Hans Kratzer: Shot in the father's field. Up-to-date again: the diary of Napoleon soldier Deifl. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of July 1, 2009, p. 36.
• Paul Ernst Rattelmüller : The experiences of the wife of Paur and the infantryman Deifl. In: Klio, Society of Friends and Collectors of Cultural and Historical Tin Figures, Landesgruppe Südbayern (Ed.): Annual Report 2004, pp. 26–43.
• Evelyn Scherfenberg: In the pool of death. How the infantryman Joseph Deifel survived Napoleon's Russian campaign . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten of June 11, 2012.

Web links

• 200 years ago Napoleon moved against Moscow - a Lower Bavarian moved with him
• Josef Deifl, the infantryman from Essing in the Altmühltal Nature Park
• Deifl's memories of the Tyrolean campaign in 1809 and the Bergisel Battle
• Exhibition in the Essingen town hall
• Napoleon in Bavaria: Images on Deifl

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kratzer, Hans: Shot in the father's field. Up-to-date again: the diary of Napoleon soldier Deifl. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of July 1, 2009, p. 36.
2. ^ Infantryman Deifl: A diary from Napoleonic times . Published by Eugen von Frauenholz, CH Beck´sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1939. It is an extract from the manuscript in the Munich Army Archives with the number HS 649.
3. ↑ Napoleon in Bavaria ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
4. ↑ Dietrich, Stefan: The memories of the Bavarian infantryman Josef Deifl of 1809.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Tiroler Chronicler 2008/4, pp. 38–41, there p. 38.  
5. ↑ Festschrift for the bicentenary of the CH Beck publishing house 1763–1963, CH Beck publishing house, Munich 1963, p. 159.
6. ↑ For example: Rupert Fischer: Infanterist Deifel von Neuessing: the Simplizissimus of the Napoleon War: from a diary from the Russian campaign in 1813/14 , Kelheim School Office 1959.
7. ↑ Schmidt, Wolfgang: "The misery in which our good army finds itself cannot be described as a matter of fact". Suffering and instrumentalization of the Bavarians who perished in the Russian campaign of 1812 . In: Bavaria and Eastern Europe. From the history of the relations between Bavaria, Franconia and Swabia with Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus . Published by Hermann Beyer-Thoma. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2000. ISBN 3-447-04254-0 , pp. 221-264, there p. 253.