Potato revolution

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The lithograph Storming the Potato Stalls shows an angry crowd attacking the potato trader. Vinzenz Katzler (1823–1882), in Vienna around 1847

As "potato revolution" one is hungry restlessness referred that between 21 April and 22/23. April 1847 in the Prussian capital Berlin . Together with the First United State Parliament , the "Potato Revolution " is part of the prehistory of the Berlin March Revolution of 1848 . It was also part of the Europe-wide hunger crisis of 1846/1847.

The causes of the revolt lay in the social misery of large parts of the urban population. One reason for this was the sharp rise in food prices that followed poor harvests. At the same time it was a punitive action against the widespread fraud methods used by Berlin bakeries and butchers. The unrest could only be ended by deploying the military.

Concept and classification

The term "potato revolution" was coined by contemporaries. In his work Berlin March 1848 , the writer Adolf Streckfuß (1823–1895) also used this term to describe the revolt. It goes back to the fact that the hunger and social revolt began with the looting of potato stands, but it hardly does justice to the events, since the insurgents did not only attack potato stands. The protest also covered bakeries and butchers as well as “localities and status symbols of the wealthy Berlin citizens” ( Rüdiger Hachtmann ).

The "Potato Revolution" was one of 193 known hunger riots that shook the German Confederation in 1847. 65 percent of these uprisings took place on Prussian soil, only its western provinces were largely spared. Manfred Gailus estimates that tens of thousands of people actively participated in the hunger riots in the German states in 1847. In the Berlin "Potato Revolution" different forms of protest were mixed: The initial "market riot" developed into a more extensive attack on grocery stores. While the protests, according to political scientist Wilhelm Bleek , took on the form of a “violent trial of strength with the authorities and the wealthy” in populous cities like Berlin and Stuttgart , the events in small towns were often limited to a “redistribution” of food. In the German states, food riots formed the "main form" of social protests between 1840 and 1850. Comparable food crises can be only in the 1790s and 1816 / notice 1817th

causes

Three factors were decisive for the Berlin “potato revolution” to take place: First, the potato and grain harvest in Prussia in 1846 was on average 30 to 50 percent lower than in previous years. The potato pest found in North America, Phytophthora infestans, was introduced to Europe as early as 1845 . In the same year this fungus caused great damage to the fields in the western provinces of Prussia. The eastern provinces were only occasionally affected due to the weather conditions. In Ireland , which was particularly vulnerable due to its rainy summer months and moderate winters, the fungus caused the so-called Great Famine . The potato tubers were often still rotting in the ground. In 1846, in addition to the loss of potato harvests in Prussia, there was also poor yield on the rye and wheat fields. The exceptionally poor weather conditions were responsible for this: heavy rain in April and subsequent drought. In the Rhineland, the rye yield fell by around 50 percent in 1846, and by as much as 60 percent in Silesia.

Second, the Prussian government and city administrations reacted inadequately to the crop failure. In order to prevent social unrest, grain stores were bought up early on in all German royal cities - apart from Stuttgart and Berlin. It was not until January 1847 that the Prussian government commissioned the secret secretary Liedke, who was inexperienced in the agricultural trade, with buying up Russian grain. He then bought goods that turned out to be of inferior quality. Upon arrival at the port of Szczecin , it became apparent that the grain was spoiled. The still edible part of the cargo, ground from Russian grain, was stretched by adding barley and corn flour. For its part, the Berlin City Council had already petitioned the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in October 1846 to ban the export of grain, potatoes and alcohol. However, the Prussian Interior Minister Ernst von Bodelschwingh replied that the petition had been submitted without the knowledge of the Berlin magistrate . Because of this formal error, it was not passed on to the king. The shortage of food in the city resulting from this situation caused the prices for rye to double and for potatoes by three to five times in April 1847. In 1846 five pounds of potatoes cost one silver groschen , at the end of January 1847 it was three, and in April five silver groschen. The sum corresponded to half the average daily earnings of most Berliners. As a result, economically weaker groups in the city were affected by hunger and malnutrition even more than before.

Thirdly, this development was countered by the state's limited control over the markets. A police decree of 1846 had prescribed that the Berlin bakers have their price lists checked by a district police lieutenant. Accordingly, de jure prices had to be observed for certain bread sizes. In fact, these regulations could not be enforced across the board by the market police. In many cases, the Berlin bakers circumvented the regulations, for example by using inferior material or by counterfeiting the weight. The dissatisfaction of the market buyers with this everyday grievance, accumulated over decades, finally discharged in the "potato revolution".

The problems mentioned were mixed up with the generally precarious social situation of large parts of the population. Numerous families moved from the country to the big city. The resulting oversupply of workers depressed wages in Berlin. At the same time, working hours were often extended to 17 hours a day. Child labor was part of everyday life. Even minimal price fluctuations were enough to make city hunger a mass phenomenon. A financial and industrial crisis led to mass layoffs in Berlin's textile and mechanical engineering sector in 1847. The number of unemployed continued to rise.

The riots

Spread in the urban area

In research it is disputed where exactly the “potato revolution” started. The difficulties here are the large-scale distribution of the unrest in the urban area and the numerous actions of independent groups. On the morning of April 21, 1847, riots broke out in eight marketplaces around the same time. The centers of these first unrest were mostly the outer districts of Berlin, especially Friedrichstadt , the Rosenthaler Vorstadt and the area east of Alexanderplatz .

According to Rüdiger Hachtmann, the “potato revolution” began specifically at Belle-Alliance-Platz, today's Mehringplatz . At a potato stand, a farmer's wife irritated a crowd with “crude answers” ​​to such an extent that several women rushed violently on them and stole their potatoes.

Manfred Gailus , on the other hand, describes the Gendarmenmarkt as the starting point for the unrest. A crowd attacked a potato trader because of overpriced prices. They took refuge in a bakery on Charlottenstrasse , which was then besieged, stormed and looted by the crowd. While only the marketplaces were affected on the morning of April 21, the uprising spread to the streets and shops at noon. The area around the Berlin City Palace and the street Unter den Linden were also recorded. On the evening of April 21st, the insurgents focused on “symbols of state power”, the churches and civil wealth. For example, the windows of the Kronprinzenpalais , the Bethlehem Church and the Café Kranzler were thrown in. In the Wilhelm and Friedrichstrasse were gaslights destroyed, so that the passers-by - were able to move "only on broken glass" - as a contemporary wrote.

Storming stores

A total of 45 shops were stormed, including 30 bakeries and eleven slaughterhouses. An exemplary scene of the riots can be reconstructed from the report of a court hearing: around noon on April 22, 1847, a crowd gathered in Weberstrasse in front of a bakery. In this heated situation, a locksmith's wife is said to have drawn the crowd's attention. She not only claimed that the master baker baked "the smallest bread", but also accused him of not having distributed any bread yet. Thereupon the crowd entered the bakery and the harassed baker lost bread worth about 50 thalers. The shop sign was also stolen from him.

The theft of food, especially bread and sausage, could not be prevented throughout the city. The insurgents didn't just steal out of hunger. In some cases, they deliberately destroyed the food, for example "by stepping on it and throwing it away in the gutter". In this way, they publicly expressed their anger at the business owners' methods. When they stormed the shops, the insurgents also damaged or stole “furniture” and “equipment”. All doors and windows were smashed. Public life came to a standstill: markets remained deserted, the doors and windows of the shops were barricaded with heavy objects. Performances in the theaters were canceled on April 22nd and 23rd. Schools stayed closed.

Role of the police and the military

It was difficult for the police to intervene quickly for many reasons: The market police and gendarmerie , who were formally responsible on site , initially underestimated the extent of the unrest, as the individual scenes were spread across the city. The soldiers stationed in Berlin were therefore initially not deployed. Although there were a few soldiers on duty on the afternoon of April 21, they were overwhelmed by the extent of the uprising. The commander in chief of the garrison in Berlin, Prince Wilhelm , stayed in the theater for a while in the evening. It was not until the morning of April 22nd that Wilhelm had a meeting with his officers in which Berlin was divided into three “districts”. A cavalry and an infantry regiment were responsible for each district. Nevertheless, it was only around midnight that the military succeeded in completely dissolving the uprising. Until April 25, 1847, the military was present in public places. It pushed through lower prices for food in the marketplaces and looked for participants in the uprising.

A contemporary archivist for the city of Berlin, Paul Clauswitz , assumes that at the time of the “potato revolution” only 30 police officers were supposed to maintain public order. This grievance called the bourgeois opposition on the scene. She called for the establishment of a larger police force or, alternatively, the establishment of a vigilante group that could react early to social unrest. On April 23, 1847, the magistrate of Berlin turned to the Prussian Ministry of the Interior to approve the formation of military “protection associations” in times of unrest. Interior Minister Bodelschwingh rejected the suggestion that vigilante groups would undermine the state monopoly on the use of force . Under no circumstances did the state want to allow law enforcement agencies to support the liberal opposition. The leadership should remain in the hands of the aristocracy close to the government. The potato revolution nevertheless resulted in personnel changes: The city governor Karl von Müffling had to vacate his post in October 1847. Friedrich von Wrangel took his place . Julius von Minutoli replaced Eugen von Puttkamer as police chief .

Arrests

Gailus assumes a total of five to ten thousand people who took part in the potato revolution. Given this size, the military could only hold a small part of it. Therefore, the prisoner’s protocol can provide little information about the actual social composition. However, artisans and unskilled workers seem to have provided the majority of the insurgents. Only about three hundred people were arrested. But even this number pushed the capacity of Berlin prisons to their limits. 120 prisoners had to be temporarily housed in the military detention center on Lindenstrasse . Of those arrested, 107 people stood before the Berlin Supreme Court , 87 of whom received sentences. However, some of the insurgents were sentenced by police judges without a lengthy process. How many people were affected by this is not included in the statistics. The trials lasted six weeks. The hardest judgment came from a 32-year-old worker, father of two; he was sentenced to ten years in prison and 30 lashes for beating an officer and snatching the saber from a soldier. Most of those convicted were released through an amnesty on the occasion of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV's birthday on October 15, 1847.

Political dimension

Reaction of the First United Diet

The “Potato Revolution” took place at a politically explosive point in time: since April 11, 1847, there had been a full assembly of representatives of all eight Prussian provinces in Berlin, the so-called First United State Parliament. The potato revolution was therefore visible to a large part of the country's social elite, which made the royal government appear in the worst possible light. However, the state parliament did not classify the riots on the streets and squares as political. Although there were occasional remarks about the “potato revolution” in the letters of the MPs, the assembly only reacted to the unrest days later. On April 27 and May 17, 1847, the members of parliament fought their way through to "emergency debates", with the Prussian bureaucracy being predominantly blamed for the riots. On April 27, 1847, the state parliament passed a six-month ban on the export of potatoes. These could no longer be traded in countries outside the German Customs Union . On the same day, the state parliament banned the processing of potatoes into schnapps. On May 17, 1847, the representatives agreed to create short-term job offers. However, long-term reform concepts to remedy the economic hardship of large sections of the population were not adopted.

Political significance for the revolution of 1848

An important research question is to what extent the “Potato Revolution” can be counted as part of the political prehistory of the Berlin March Revolution of 1848. Wilfried Löhken brings the willingness of Berliners to use violence against soldiers and police in the barricade fight in direct connection with previous events such as the tailoring revolution of 1830 and the potato revolution. The historian Armin Owzar also thinks that the potato revolution is "an indication of a fundamental politicization that has long since gripped women", who were primarily responsible for buying food. The historian Ilja Mieck also saw the food shortage of 1847 as a cause of the “increasing politicization of a broader public”. However, according to Mieck, the "potato revolution" was "primarily a hunger revolt that resulted from the unbearable misery and not a conscious, politically motivated uprising, even if political demands were combined with economic ones". The historian Rüdiger Hachtmann comes to a similar conclusion. According to Hachtmann, the rebels had demanded “first and foremost cheap bread, not a different political system”. In spite of the unrest, the Prussian king was able to take a ride on the boulevard Unter den Linden on April 23, 1847 . According to Günter Richter, the Prussian government's relatively quick suppression of the “potato revolution” was remembered. This experience initially led them to "misjudge" that they could break up the protests on March 18, 1848 with the help of soldiers.

Contemporary reception

The political interpretation of the “potato revolution” was already an issue in contemporary historiographies. In his history of the first Prussian Reichstag , the philosopher and writer Karl Biedermann (1812–1901) accused the conservative forces of having misused the uprising to defame the First United State Parliament : the opponents of the State Parliament had spread the rumor that the government was with the elimination of the social emergency has been slowed down by the Estates Assembly, as it “does not hurry up” and is even “benefiting” from the plight of the people. The writer Adolf Streckfuß (1823–1895) made the inhabitants of the suburbs of Berlin responsible for the riots in the royal seat in his portrayal of 500 years of Berlin history, From fishing village to metropolis . He considered the uprising to be apolitical, but, according to the interpretation of the political scientist Claudia von Gélieu , valued it as a “dangerous vanguard of a time to come”. Despite his “masculine language”, Streckfuss does not hide the fact that the uprising was initiated and largely supported by women.

swell

  • Karl Biedermann: History of the first Prussian Reichstag. Biedermannsche Verlagbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1847.
  • Adolf Streckfuß: Berlin in the 19th century. In four volumes (1867–1869). Volume 3. Seidl, Berlin 1867, p. 325 ff. (Published as a facsimile on CD-ROM by: Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen 2006).
  • Adolf Streckfuss: Berlin March 1848. The New Berlin. Berlin 1948.

literature

  • Hans-Heinrich Bass: Hunger crises in Prussia during the first half of the 19th century (= studies on economic and social history. Volume 8). Scripta Mercaturae, St. Katharinen 1991, ISBN 3-922661-90-4 (partly also dissertation at the WWU Münster, 1990).
  • Manfred Gailus: Street and Bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia, 1847–1849 (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for History Göttingen. Volume 96). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, ISBN 3-525-35632-3 (partly also dissertation at the TU Berlin, 1988).
  • Wilfried Löhken: The revolution of 1848. Berliners on the barricades. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-926175-80-X .
  • Inga Weise: The Berlin Potato Revolution. A case study on social protest in the pre-march. Free University, Berlin 1991 (Master's thesis at Free University Berlin 1991).
  • Kurt Wernicke: Pre-March - March - Post-March. Studies on Berlin's political and social history 1843–1853. Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89542-105-7 .
  • Kurt Wernicke: ... the well-trodden path of disorder. Potato Revolution in Berlin in 1847 . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 4, 1997, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 19-23 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The end of the potato revolution is dated either on April 22nd or 23rd, 1847. According to the account of the contemporary writer Adolf Streckfuß (1823–1895), rebellious “suburbanites” penetrated through the city gates on April 23, 1847, but found Berlin already occupied by the military, so that they would not have dared to plunder. See: Wilfried Löhken: The Revolution 1848, Berliners on the barricades . In: Berlin history (s). Volume 2. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1991, p. 17. According to the historian Ilja Mieck, the “incidents” of the previous days “repeated” on April 23. See: Ilja Mieck, Prussia from 1807 to 1850, Reforms, Restoration and Revolution . In: Handbuch der Prussischen Geschichte , ed. v. Otto Büsch. Vol. 2. Bern 1992, pp. 3–292, here p. 226. The historian Manfred Gailus, on the other hand, speaks of a “two-day Berlin potato revolution (April 21/22)”. Compare with this: Hunger riots in Prussia . In: Manfred Gailus and Heinrich Volkmann (eds.), The fight for daily bread. Food shortage, supply policy and protest 1770–1990 . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1994, pp. 176-199, here p. 181.
  2. ^ Adolf Streckfuß: Berlin March 1848 . The New Berlin, Berlin 1948, p. 22.
  3. ^ Rüdiger Hachtmann: Berlin 1848. A political and social history of the revolution. Dietz, Bonn 1997, p. 83.
  4. ^ Manfred Gailus: Hunger riots in Prussia. In: the same and Heinrich Volkmann (ed.), The struggle for daily bread. Food shortage, supply policy and protest 1770–1990 . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1994, pp. 176-199, here pp. 176-177.
  5. ^ Manfred Gailus: Hunger riots in Prussia. In: Manfred Gailus, Heinrich Volkmann (ed.), The struggle for daily bread. Food shortage, supply policy and protest 1770–1990. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1994, pp. 176–199, here p. 182.
  6. ^ Wilhelm Bleek: The pre-March. Germany's departure into the modern age . Beck, Munich 2019, p. 278.
  7. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 139.
  8. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 306.
  9. ^ Hans-Heinrich Bass: Natural and socio-economic causes of the subsistence crisis in the middle of the 19th century - a discussion using the example of Prussia. In: Bernd Herrmann (Ed.), Contributions to the Göttingen Environmental History Colloquium 2009–2010 , Universitätsverlag, Göttingen 2010, pp. 141–156, here p. 150.
  10. ^ Richard J. Evans: The European Century: A Continent in Transition - 1815-1914. DVA, Munich 2018, chapter The “hungry forties” and their consequences .
  11. ^ Hans-Heinrich Bass: Natural and socio-economic causes of the subsistence crisis in the middle of the 19th century - a discussion using the example of Prussia. In: Bernd Herrmann (Ed.), Contributions to the Göttingen Environmental History Colloquium 2009–2010 , Universitätsverlag, Göttingen 2010, pp. 141–156, here pp. 150–151.
  12. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 306.
  13. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, pp. 323-324.
  14. ↑ Oliver Ohmann: In 1847 a potato revolution raged in Berlin. In: BZ . 20th November 2018.
  15. ^ Rüdiger Hachtmann: Berlin 1848. A political and social history of the revolution. Dietz, Bonn 1997, p. 82.
  16. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, pp. 311-312.
  17. ^ Wilfried Löhken: The Revolution 1848. Berliners on the barricades. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1991, p. 13.
  18. ^ Wilfried Löhken: The Revolution 1848. Berliners on the barricades. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1991, p. 15.
  19. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Göttingen 1990, p. 307.
  20. ^ Rüdiger Hachtmann: Berlin 1848. A political and social history of the revolution. Dietz, Bonn 1997, pp. 82-83.
  21. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 309.
  22. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 307.
  23. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, pp. 306-307.
  24. ^ Rüdiger Hachtmann: Berlin 1848. A political and social history of the revolution. Dietz, Bonn 1997, p. 82.
  25. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 313.
  26. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 314.
  27. ^ Manfred Gailus: Hunger riots in Prussia. In: Manfred Gailus and Heinrich Volkmann (ed.): The struggle for daily bread. Food shortage, supply policy and protest 1770–1990. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1994, pp. 176–199, here p. 192.
  28. ↑ Ilja Mieck: From the reform period to the revolution (1806-1847). In: Wolfgang Ribbe (Ed.), History of Berlin. Vol. 1, From early history to industrialization, Beck, Munich 1987, pp. 407-602, here p. 600.
  29. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 309.
  30. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, p. 310.
  31. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, pp. 325–326.
  32. ^ Kurt Wernicke: Pre-March - March - Post-March. Studies on Berlin's political and social history 1843–1853 . Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 1999, p. 124.
  33. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, pp. 317-318; Kurt Wernicke: Pre-March - March - Post-March. Studies on Berlin's political and social history 1843–1853 . Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein, Berlin 1999, p. 124.
  34. ^ Manfred Gailus: Street and bread. Social protest in the German states with special consideration of Prussia 1847–1849 . Göttingen 1990, p. 306.
  35. ↑ Johannes Gerhardt: The First United State Parliament in Prussia from 1847, studies on a corporate body in the run-up to the revolution of 1848/49 (= sources and research on Brandenburg and Prussian history . 33), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, p. 253 .
  36. ^ Wilfried Löhken: The Revolution 1848. Berliners on the barricades. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1991, p. 14.
  37. ^ Armin Owzar: The Prussian Berlin. On the way to the metropolis 1701–1918 . Elsengold, Berlin 2019, p. 66.
  38. ↑ Ilja Mieck: Prussia from 1807 to 1850: Reforms, Restoration and Revolution . In: Otto Büsch (Ed.), Handbuch der Preußischen Geschichte , Vol. 2, Bern 1992, pp. 3–292, here p. 226.
  39. ^ Rüdiger Hachtmann: Berlin 1848: a political and social history of the revolution . Dietz, Bonn 1997, p. 86.
  40. ^ Günter Richter: Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And the revolution of 1848 . In: Otto Büsch (ed.), Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In his time, contributions to a colloquium, Berlin 1987, pp. 107-131, here p. 113.
  41. ^ Walter Bußmann: Between Prussia and Germany, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. A biography . Siedler, Munich 1996, pp. 235-236.
  42. ↑ Helmut König : Civilization and Passions. The mass in the bourgeois age . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1992, p. 101.
  43. ^ Claudia von Gélieu : From the political ban to the Chancellery. A difficult path for women. Lehmanns Media, Berlin 2008, pp. 34–35.
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