Katharine Weissgerber
Katharine Weißgerber (born August 3, 1818 in Schwarzenholz ; † August 6, 1886 in Saarbrücken ), also known as Schultze Kathrin , received for her courage and her commitment during the Battle of Spichern on the Spicherer Heights (August 6, 1870) near Saarbrücken the Cross of Merit for women and virgins .
Life
The daughter of the linen weaver and miner Peter Weißgerber and Maria Katharina Lauer was born on August 3, 1818 as their fifth child in Schwarzenholz, Maienstraße (today Schulze-Kathrin-Straße).
She got the name Schultze Kathrin through her work as a domestic help and nanny for the Schultz family in Saarbrücken. Your employer, Carl Jacob Schultz, ran a manufactory shop in Saarbrücken in today's street "Am Schlossberg" opposite the long side of the Saarbrücken castle church . Schultz had been a hunter in the Lützow Freikorps during the Wars of Liberation , had then served as a non-commissioned officer in the 9th Hussar Regiment in Saarbrücken and established himself in Saarbrücken in 1825 by marrying the pewter's daughter Magdalena Catharina Korn. Today there is a parking lot on the grounds of the Schultz family's residential and commercial building.
As France 1870 on July 19 Prussia the war declared exceeded the same day French troops the border at Saarbrücken and took the city on 28 July under attack. On August 2nd, French troops entered the city. Katharine Weißgerber brought an injured Prussian soldier to safety and looked for a priest for the dying man.
Prussian troops arrived and began the counter-offensive on August 6th. In the midst of the fighting, Katharine Weissgerber took care of the wounded soldiers. Her commitment was reported to the Prussian King Wilhelm , who awarded her the Cross of Merit for Women and Virgins (i.e. unmarried women).
According to legend, she is said to have cared for both German and French wounded. According to historians, however, this is not possible: On the one hand, there is not a single evidence that Katharine Weißgerber actually took care of French soldiers, on the other hand, topographically, the area on Spicherer Berg does not make it possible that she helped soldiers from both nations. In addition, she would have had to step over hundreds of wounded Prussian soldiers to look after the French in need.
In a color sketch from 1877 for his painting “The Arrival of King Wilhelm I in Saarbrücken on August 9, 1870”, the painter Anton von Werner Katharine Weißgerber portrayed a basket in the crowd. In the final version of the painting for the man from Saarbrücken City hall cycle , however, the representation was deleted.
Despite the honorable recognition, Weisgerber died poor and sick and almost forgotten. A grave in the "Ehrental", now part of the German-French Garden in Saarbrücken, was financed through donations following a call in the Saarbrücker Zeitung . Her tombstone bears the inscription:
"Dedicated to the heroic girl for the honorable memory of her fellow citizens."
Honors
A school in Saarbrücken is named after her: the "Katharine-Weißgerber-School / Saarbrücken-Klarenthal Community School". Today's Gymnasium am Rotenbühl also bore her name from 1938 to 1945. In addition, a street in the state capital is named after her.
In the Saarwellingen district of Schwarzenholz , a street is also named after her. A memorial plaque on the house where she was born, which had to be demolished in the meantime because of dilapidation, also commemorated her. There is a small memorial with her portrait in front of the fire station on Bartholomäusstrasse. The pharmacy across the street from the monument and the multi-purpose hall in town bear her name. The senior citizens' foundation in the Saarwellingen district was given the name Schulze-Kathrin-Hof at the suggestion of the Saarwellingen mayor at the time, Werner Geibel . It is noteworthy that in the municipality of Saarwellingen the spelling is handled slightly differently, without the t in Schultze . The successor to Werner Geibel as Mayor of Saarwellingen, Michael Philippi, rejected initiatives to correct this, referring to the local spelling .
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl August Schleiden : Illustrated history of the city of Saarbrücken. Dillingen / Saar 2009, p. 193.
- ↑ Pierre Séguy : The Schulze Kathrin or the thanks of the fatherland. Saarheimat 14, 1970, pp. 137-142.
- ↑ http://www.deutsche-kriegsgeschichte.de/SchultzeKathrin.html , viewed on August 9, 2020.
- ↑ Cathrin Elss-Seringhaus: Spichern and the fall of a Saarbrücken heroine. The Saarland has to say goodbye to the myth of "Schutz Kathrin" as a Franco-German soldier-rescuer. In: Saarbrücker Zeitung. No. 181 of August 6, 2020. p. A3.
- ↑ About 4,000 German soldiers were wounded in the battle.
- ↑ Dominik Bartmann : The Saarbrücken town hall cycle. , in: Dominik Bartmann (Ed.): Anton von Werner. Story in pictures. Hirmer Verlag , Munich 1993, ISBN 3777461407 , pp. 252-265.
- ↑ Gerhild Krebs: German-French Garden. memotransfont, accessed September 6, 2013 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Weissgerber, Katharine |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schultze Kathrin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German medal bearer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 3, 1818 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Black wood |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 6, 1886 |
| Place of death | Saarbrücken |