Max Cohnheim

Max Cohnheim , actually Marcus Cohnheim (born November 8, 1826 in Fraustadt , Posen Province , † September 25, 1896 in Newark , New Jersey ), was a German revolutionary , a German-American writer and publicist and an activist of the democratic movement , republicanism and of the labor movement . During the German Revolution of 1848/1849 he was an author of pamphlets , a participant in the Struve Putsch and the Reich constitution campaign , civil commissioner and commander of a people's armed forces brigade in Wiesloch . Because of state persecution in the German Confederation , he emigrated to Switzerland , then via London to the United States of America . In the American Civil War he served - like many other Forty-Eighters  - as an officer on the side of the northern states , then for a few years as an employee of the US Treasury . As an editor and publisher of German-language newspapers and satiricals in Berlin , Geneva , New York City , Washington, DC and San Francisco , he stood out as well as an actor and author of popular plays for German-language theaters in New York's immigrant milieu, small Germany .

Life

Until 1848

Cohnheim came from a Jewish family in Fraustadt, then a district town in the province of Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia , today Wschowa in Poland . Up to grade Tertia , which he left in the school year 1841/1842, he attended the Royal Catholic High School in Glogau . As a clerk , he is then in Berlin tangible. There he was one of those who went in and out of Jacob Hippel's wine tavern, a meeting place for young intellectuals. On October 1, 1847, he signed up as a one-year volunteer ( gunner ) in the Prussian Guards Artillery Brigade .

Berlin March Revolution 1848

A few weeks after the barricade uprising of March 18, 1848, the climax of the March Revolution in Berlin, Cohnheim and Adolph Reich, a friend of Cohnheim's, became members of the Volksverein . The people's association was a political association that stood up for primary elections , pursued the representation of the interests of workers and the dispossessed, and was also called the people's association under the tents after its meeting place in the tents . In April 1848, Reich took over the role of secretary in this association. In April 1848, four issues of the Constitutional Catechism , a pamphlet against the rule of princes and kings, written by Cohnheim und Reich , appeared as a separate sheet for the newspaper of the Volksverein, the Volks-Voice . Encouraged by the response, Cohnheim and Reich then attempted to found a satirical magazine. The Satyr appeared on May 1, 1848 . Sheet for open opinion and free speech . However, this attempt failed with the first edition. In the following years, Cohnheim worked as an editor on the Kladderadatsch magazine published by David Kalisch . In June 1848, Cohnheim made another attempt to fuel the revolution with the pamphlet Republican Catechism for the German People . The subtitle of the superfluous princes was the prelude to a sharp criticism of the monarchical form of government . With the exclamation Long live the German democratic republic! he let the pamphlet, which was printed in large numbers and quickly spread as far as the Rhine province , end in a fanal.

In June 1848 a member of the Patriotic Association, which was competing with the People's Association, denounced Cohnheim as the author of the Republican Catechism to the authorities. They then began to persecute Cohnheim on suspicion of high treason . He escaped his pursuers by going into hiding. On July 7, 1848, a profile dated June 30, 1848 appeared in the official gazette, which announced that the then 21-year-old was to be arrested.

Baden Revolution 1848/1849

Cohnheim fled to southwest Germany, where he took part in the Struve Putsch in September 1848 . The proceedings for high treason, which had been opened against him in Berlin, initially ended with an acquittal on September 28, 1848, against which the public prosecutor appealed for appeal. In his absence, the trial in the second instance on June 9, 1849 led to a conviction of long imprisonment. In November 1848, Cohnheim was imprisoned in Bruchsal in connection with his participation in the Baden Revolution . In December 1848 he was in correspondence with his fellow prisoner in Bruchsal prison , Adelbert von Bornstedt . While in custody, Cohnheim was one of the signatories of the Bruchsal Prisoners' appeal of February 26, 1849 and of the protest of March 2, 1849.

The formation of a revolutionary government in Baden led to his liberation in the spring of 1849. A Freiburg jury met on May 12, which quickly found the accused revolutionaries - in addition to Wilhelm Liebknecht , Sigismund Ludwig Borkheim , Adolf Korn and Edmund Rosenblum and Cohnheim - to be innocent. The new government under Lorenz Brentano then appointed Cohnheim as civil commissioner of Wiesloch during the phase of the imperial constitution campaign . When Prussian and Hessian intervention troops under the command of the Prussian Prince Wilhelm and the Hessian General Friedrich von Schäffer-Bernstein invaded Baden to overthrow the revolution, a Baden revolutionary army was formed from line and national defense units under General Ludwik Mierosławski . Cohnheim formed a Volkswehr battalion in Wiesloch that belonged to the 1st Division of Baden and was involved in operations in the following disputes, including the battle at Waghäusel . A little later, in the summer of 1849, the Baden revolutionary troops were finally defeated. This led to the re-arrest of Cohnheim, who was then incarcerated in the Freiburg official prison. On November 21, 1849, he managed to escape to Switzerland from there . A court of the Prussian Army Corps in Baden had Cohnheim prosecuted on December 7, 1849 for "treason and escape". The trial that was brought to him in his absence in Wiesloch earned him an eight-year prison sentence in 1851 and a subsequent eight years of police supervision.

Exile in Switzerland and London

In Switzerland, Cohnheim found himself in Geneva . Together with Eduard Rosenblum, Sigismund Ludwig Borkheim, Adolf Korn and Max Joseph Becker, all participants in the revolution, he formed a group of like-minded people there, which Karl Marx later described as a "sulfur gang" in his book Herr Vogt . A satirical magazine called Rummeltipuff. Organ of the rascally bubocracy , which published this group, managed at most two editions. In mid-1850 the group was expelled. Rosenblum and Cohnheim went to London , where Marx located them in the vicinity of the exiles around Gustav Struve .

Career in the United States

In 1851 Cohnheim left Europe and emigrated to the United States. According to Marx, Cohnheim published two issues of a New York Kladderadatsch by 1852 as a continuation of the Berlin model of the same name. After the project failed, he then published the paper Bumsvallera , also with little success .

From 1853 onwards, Cohnheim appeared as an actor in plays at the St. Charles Theater in New York City , such as in Schiller's The Robbers and in The Secrets of New York by the playwright Eduard Hamann. In the same year he began to write plays himself, such as the work Fürsten zum Land, or: The school is over . More soon followed. Around 1857 he wrote the play Herz und Dollar , an "original folk piece with singing" in four acts for the New York City Theater , where he also worked as a stage manager , which was his greatest success on the German-speaking stages in the United States. It was performed in several major cities and on both coasts. In its day it was probably the most performed play of its kind there. It made him the most successful writer on the New York theater scene. In addition to the theater, Cohnheim wrote for a masked ball and for other appearances for the New York Choral Society Arion .

Together with Otto Brethauer (also Bretthauer ), Cohnheim published the newspaper New Yorker Humorist from 1858 , the “Illustrierte Wochenschrift für Humor, Satyr, Kunst und Fiction”. It appeared until 1861 and, in addition to reports and reviews on theater and music, contained satirical poems, short stories, series novels, political news and caricatures. In 1859 they supplemented the weekly with a yearbook called the Funny Illustrated Almanac of the New York Humorist . The newspaper's publishing and editorial offices were on North William Street, near Wall Street .

Parallel to his work as a publicist and theater maker, Cohnheim became involved in the Communist Club (also known as the Communist Club or Communist Club ), a communist association that took on a leading role in New York in organizing and for the unemployed agitate radical social changes. With this aim in mind, the Communist Club also tried to influence other organizations of the labor movement. One of its leading members was the music teacher Friedrich Adolf Sorge , who, like club member Cohnheim, had been a fighter for the Baden revolution.

With the beginning of the American Civil War , Cohnheim was deployed for the DeKalb Regiment (41st Infantry Regiment) of the Northern States , which numbered over a thousand , where he served as First Lieutenant of Company F from June 6, 1861 to February 13, 1862 . It consisted exclusively of people of German origin (all-German regiment) . This activity did not prevent him from writing new pieces for the city theater at the same time, such as the farce Der Sohn des Jugleurs , which had its world premiere on November 22, 1861. In the regiment, Cohnheim rose to the rank of captain on February 13, 1862. He later served on the staff of General Franz Sigel , who, like him, had fought on the side of the revolution in Baden. The DeKalb Regiment was deployed at various war locations, such as the First and Second Shafts at Bull Run and the Battle of Chancellorsville .

After his discharge from the army, he received - possibly through relations with the Republican Party , for which he occasionally appeared as a propagandist or as a public speaker in German - a position as an employee ("2nd class clerk") in the fourth division of the US Ministry of Finance in Washington, DC In addition to this administrative activity and an involvement in the Socialen Turnverein Washington, which Adolf Cluss co-founded in 1852, he pursued his journalistic interests by publishing the German-language weekly magazine Columbia in Washington . The first edition appeared on October 17, 1863 after he had won Nicholas Weygand, a wine and spirits dealer, and Ferdinand Kasche, a wealthy hotel owner, and around 200 subscribers to finance the project. In four months the number rose to 800, by 1865 to 1,600. During the three and a half years in which Columbia appeared, Cohnheim was a passionate supporter of Abraham Lincoln's administration . The news was devoted to national and cultural topics. Reports on events of the German-speaking community in Washington as well as other local topics were not neglected either. Many of the articles contained humorous and sarcastic statements, allusions and fictions that the readership - mostly German-speaking immigrants - knew and valued from the papers in their country of origin. Not least because of Cohnheim's pointed columns, the weekly newspaper developed into the “most colorful German-language newspaper in Washington history”. When President Lincoln was assassinated, Cohnheim had his newspaper bordered with black mourning. On August 14, 1865, he called on his readers for donations for a Lincoln memorial that was finally erected in front of Washington City Hall in 1868. On April 1, 1866, Cohnheim resigned from the Treasury Department and opened an office on Pennsylvania Avenue . When many of its readers moved from Washington as a result of an economic crisis, Columbia’s revenues fell . On January 12, 1867, Cohnheim informed his readers of his resignation and handed the sheet over to Werner Koch, who had previously only printed it. Cohnheim left Washington forever deep in debt.

In 1867 Cohnheim first traveled back to New York City, where in February a benefit event with a performance of his play Herz und Dollar was organized in his honor at the city theater . Strengthened by this parting present, he then went to the west coast , to San Francisco . There he was soon able to take up a position in the customs administration (“custom house”). He was also able to return to work as a publisher there. The San Francisco Abend-Post , which was under his aegis from 1868 to 1870, was one of the two leading German-language newspapers in San Francisco. In the 1870s he was co-editor of the entertainment paper San Francisco humorist and journalist , as well as the Sonntagsblatt Sonntags-Gast . In 1868 Cohnheim was one of the founders of a local section of the International Workers' Association . In addition, Cohnheim continued to attract attention as a playwright, for example with the local farce Die Reise durch San Francisco in 80 Hours , premiered on November 17, 1878 , which was based on Jules Verne's novel Journey around the earth in 80 days .

How and where Cohnheim spent the end of his life is in the dark. However, a newspaper advertisement from 1894, which announced a charity event for the benefit of Cohnheim in the "Turn Hall" (gym of the San Francisco gymnastics club on Turk Street), indicates that he was in need of help during this time and still lived on the American west coast .

Writings and pieces (selection)

• The businessman. A humorous lecture .
• Constitutional Catechism , together with Adolph Reich, four pamphlets, Berlin, April 1848
• Republican Catechism for the German People , anonymous, two-page pamphlet, Berlin, June 1848
• Princes Out of the Country, or: School is Out , play, premiere at St. Charles Theater, New York: September 10, 1853
• In the promised land , play
• Advertisements and newspaper advertisements , articles about advertisements in Berlin, New York and Southern newspapers, 1854
• New York and Berlin, or where is the best place to look? , Play with music (Franz Herwig), New York, around 1857
• Herz und Dollar , Volksstück mit Musik (Franz Herwig), New York, around 1857
• The Murder on West Broadway , play with music (Franz Herwig), New York, 1860
• The Juggler’s Son , play (farce), premiered at New York City Theater: November 22, 1861
• The Usurer's Son , play, 1861
• The journey through San Francisco in 80 hours , local farce, premiere in San Francisco: November 17, 1878
• Little Germany , play, 1882
• The Pawnbroker of Harlem , Volksstück, together with Eugene Boremsky, premiere in the Neues Germania Theater: November 16, 1882
• Der Vereinsbold , Schwank mit Gesang in three acts and seven pictures, together with Eugene Boremsky, 1882
• The Adopted , local farce with singing in three acts and four pictures, together with Eugene Boremsky, music by Adolf Neuendorff , 1883
• The false field chaplain , story, 1886

Magazines and newspapers

• The satyr. Journal for open opinion and free speech , together with Adolph Reich, four-page sheet, printed and published by August Bartz, Berlin, May 1, 1848 (first and last edition)
• Rummeltipuff. Organ der Lausbubocracy , Geneva, 1850, together with Adolf Korn, Eduard Rosenblum, Max Joseph Becker and Sigismund Ludwig Borkheim, as well as Wilhelm Liebknecht (two editions at most)
• New York Kladderadatsch , New York, around 1852
• Bumsvallera , New York, 1854 at the latest
• The New York humorist. Illustrated weekly for humor, satyrs, art and fiction , edited together with Otto Brethauer, New York, 1858 to 1861
• Columbia. Entertainment newspaper for the city of Washington and the surrounding area , Washington DC weekly newspaper in German, 1863 to 1867, continued by Werner Koch until 1873, then merged with the newspaper Journal
• San Francisco Abend-Post , San Francisco, 1868–1870 edited by Cohnheim, then published until 1903
• Sunday Guest , San Francisco, 1870–1871
• San Francisco journalist and humorist , San Francisco

literature

• Ursula E. Koch: Devil in Berlin. From the March Revolution to Bismarck's dismissal. Illustrated political joke sheets of a metropolis 1848–1890 . Information press Leske, Cologne 1991, ISBN 978-3-921490-38-9 , p. 78 f.
• John Koegel: Music in German Immigrant Theater. New York City 1840-1940 . University of Rochester Press, Rochester / NY 2007, ISBN 978-1-58046-215-0 , pp. 74 ff. ( Google Books )
• Robert Shosteck: The Jewish Community of Washington, DC, during the Civil War . In: American Jewish Historical Quarterly , 56 (March 1967), pp. 319–347, jhsgw.org (Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington)
• Vanessa Steinroetter: The Politics of Humor: Max Cohnheim's Columbia (1863–1873). A German Newspaper in the Nation's Capital . In: American Periodicals (Special Issue: Immigrant Periodicals ), 19, no. 1, 2009, pp. 21–48, herz-fischler.ca (PDF)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Date of death September 25, 1896 and place of death Newark in: Indiana Tribüne , December 26, 1896, Volume 20, No. 99, p. 2, newspapers.library.in.gov ; Date of birth November 8, 1826 in: Mulberry Street Burial Index Part 2 , newarkreligion.com
2. ^ Eduard Wentzel: Annual report of the Royal Catholic High School in Glogau for the school year 1841/42 . Carl Flemming, Glogau 1842, p. 23 ( Google Books )
3. ↑ Erhard Kiehnbaum: From Koblenz into the world. Max Joseph Becker (1827-1896) . (PDF) In: Walter Schmidt (Ed.): Actors of a Upheaval. Men and women of the revolution . Berlin 2010, Volume 3, p. 48, footnote 130.
4. ^ JH Mackay: Max Stirner. His life and his work . ISBN 978-5-87912-273-2 , p. 78 ( Google Books )
5. ^ The agitation of the Jews against the Prussian army in 1848 . In: Berliner Revue. A social-political weekly . Issue 12 (December 16, 1860), p. 468 ( Google Books )
6. ^ Fifth meeting of the People's Association on Wednesday April 12th (1848) . In: The People's Voice. Journal of the people's association for workers and employers . No. 11 of April 15, 1848, p. 23 ( Google Books )
7. ^ Adolf Wolff: Berlin Revolution Chronicle. Representation of the Berlin movements in 1848 according to political, social and literary relationships . Second volume, Verlag von Gustav Hempel, Berlin 1852, p. 392 ( Google Books )
8. ↑ The satyr. Open Opinion and Free Speech Journal , No. 1 from May 1, 1848, zlb.de.
9. ↑ Some copies found their way through the Cologne Workers' Association to Dusseldorf , where the Republican catechism of Julius Wulff at the local People's Club was read. The authorities had Wulff arrested a little later and charged with high treason.
10. ↑ See article Official Krakehl . In: Berliner Krakehler , No. 11 of July 4, 1848, p. 2
11. ↑ Cf. Oeffentlicher Anzeiger (No. 2) of the Royal Government of Potsdam and the City of Berlin of July 7, 1848 . In: Official Gazette of the Royal Government of Potsdam and the City of Berlin , born 1848, Potsdam, p. 299 ( Google Books )
12. ↑ Berliner Revue , p. 468
13. ^ Veit Valentin: History of the German Revolution of 1848/49 . Volume 2, Scientia Verlag, Berlin 1968, p. 54
14. ↑ Eckhart Pilick (Ed.): “My head is full of hatred and vengeance!” Unknown letters from 1848 from Adelbert von Bornstadt from Bruchsal prison . Verlag Peter Guhl, Rohrbach / Pfalz 2004, ISBN 978-3-930760-34-3
15. ↑ Andreas Lüneberg: Mannheim and the revolution in Baden from 1848 to 1849 . Published by Reinhard Welz, Reinhard Welz Vermittler Verlag, Mannheim 2004, ISBN 3-937636-82-X , p. 139
16. ↑ Bamberger Anzeiger , No. 329 of November 26, 1849
17. ↑ Extra supplement to the Allgemeine Polizei-Anzeiger , Volume XXXIV, Dresden, May 20, 1850, p. 5 (No. 37)
18. ^ Adolf Levin: History of the Baden Jews since the reign of Karl Friedrich . ISBN 978-5-87246-666-6 , p. 282 ( Google Books )
19. ↑ Rolf Dlubek : A find from the journalistic beginnings of Sigismund Ludwig Borkheim. The "Rummeltipuff" (Geneva 1849/1850). In: On the arduous search and the happy finding. Colloquium on the occasion of the 75th birthday of Prof. Dr. Heinrich Gemkow on June 28, 2003 in Berlin . Part 2: Helle Panke to promote politics, education and culture . Berlin 2003, pp. 35-44.
20. ^ Ulrich Weitz: Salon culture and proletariat. Eduard Fuchs - collector, moral historian, socialist . Cultural Studies Library, Volume 2, Verlag Stöffler & Schütz, Stuttgart 1991, p. 39
21. ^ Marx-Engels works . Dietz Verlag, Berlin, Volume 14, 4th edition (1972), unchanged reprint of the 1st edition, Berlin / GDR 1961, pp. 389-397, mlwerke.de
22. ↑ Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe : Correspondence January to August 1852 . Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 978-3-320-00100-1 , p. 506
23. ^ John Koegel: The Development of the German American Music Stage in New York City, 1840-1890 . In: John Graziano (Ed.): European Music & Musicians in New York City, 1840–1900 . Eastman Studies in Music, University of Rochester Press, Rochester / NY 2006, ISBN 1-58046-203-0 , p. 160, librarun.org ( Memento from July 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
24. ^ Fritz AH Leuchs: The Early German Theater in New York, 1840–1872 . Columbia University Press, New York 1928, p. 96
25. ^ Stanley Nadel: Jewish Race and German Soul in the Nineteenth-Century America . In: Jeffrey S. Gurock: Central European Jews in America, 1840–1980 . American Jewish History, Volume 2, Routledge, New York / NY 1998, ISBN 0-415-91921-5 , p. 313
26. ^ Annie Polland, Daniel Soyer: Emerging Metropolis. New York Jews in the Age of Immigration, 1840-1920 . New York University Press, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-8147-7632-2 , p. 217
27. ^ William Street (Manhattan) in the English language Wikipedia
28. ↑ John Koegel, pp. 74-78
29. ^ Stanley Nadel: Cohnheim, Max . In: Kenneth T. Jackson, Lisa Keller, Nancy Flood (Eds.): The Encyclopedia of New York City . 2nd Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven CT 2010, ISBN 978-0-300-18257-6
30. ↑ Steffen Mensching: Jacobs leader . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 978-3-351-02972-2 , p. 127
31. ↑ The DeKalb Regiment . In: The New York Times , Aug. 9, 1861, p. 8
32. ↑ The name of this regiment goes back to Johann von Kalb (1721–1780), a German-American general during the American Revolution.
33. ^ Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York , Volume 32, p. 1582
34. ↑ See article German Republicans. Enthusiastic Ratification Mass Meeting. Senator Williams , of Oregon, Max Cohnheim and R. Marschowsky. Adoptions of Patriotic Resolutions. In: Daily Alta California, August 9, 1871, vol. 23, no.7809 , cdnc.ucr.edu, accessed on July 24, 2015
35. ↑ See also: Kathleen Neils Conzen: Reshaping the Nation: Federal Employment, Civil Service Reform and the Turners of Washington . In: Lothar Wieser, Peter Wanner: Adolf Cluss and the gymnastics movement. From Heilbronn gymnastics festival in 1846 to American exile. Lectures at the symposium of the same name on October 28 and 29, 2005 in Heilbronn . (PDF) Small series of publications by the Heilbronn City Archives, 54, Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 2007, ISBN 978-3-928990-97-4 , p. 82
36. ↑ Vanessa Steinroetter, p. 31
37. ^ Klaus G. Wust: German Immigrants and Their Newspapers in the District of Columbia . (PDF) In: Report (Society of the History of the Germans in Maryland), 30 (1959), p. 49 f.
38. ↑ See Table Clercs, etc., in the Treasury Department (Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, 1864) . In: Executive Documents Printed by Order of the House of Representatives During the Second Session of the Thirty-Eight Congress, 1864-65 , Washington 1865, vol. IV, p. 36 ( Google Books )
39. ↑ Kathleen Neils Conzen, p. 81 f.
40. ↑ Klaus G. Wust, p. 49
41. ↑ Vanessa Steinroetter, p. 22 f.
42. ↑ Robert Shosteck, pp 319-347
43. ↑ John Koegel, p. 79
44. ↑ Kathleen Neils Conzen, p. 82
45. ↑ Vanessa Steinroetter, p. 29
46. ^ William Frederic Kamman: Socialism in German American Literature . Americana Germanica Press, Philadelphia 1917, p. 26, archive.org ( DjVu )
47. ↑ John Koegel, p. 79
48. ↑ San Francisco Call, December 8, 1894, Vol. 77, No. 8, cdnc.ucr.edu
49. ↑ See Hans Ostwald: The laughing suitcase . Paul Franke Verlag, Berlin 1928, full text Gutenberg-DE
50. ↑ Max Cohnheim, Adolph Reich: Constitutional Catechism: Dedicated to men from the people . Fifth edition, printed and published by August Bartz, Berlin 1848, zlb.de
51. ^ Republican catechism for the German people . digital-sammlungen.de
52. ^ Max Cohnheim: Advertisements and newspaper advertisements . In: Max Wiegandt: America as it is. A book for customers of the new world . 1854, lexikus.de
53. ↑ See Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States, 1870-1916 . Vol. 2, archive.org ( DjVu )
54. ^ Max Cohnheim: The wrong field chaplain . In: German Pioneer Association to Cincinnati (Ed.): The German Pioneer. Memories from the pioneering life of Germans in America , Volume 18, 1886, p. 147, uni-oldenburg.de
55. ↑ See Max Cohnheim: Notification of delivery. Le Kladderadatsch est mort! Vive la Bumsvallera! In the section: Humbugs, Jokes and Eurosia . In: Max Wiegandt: America as it is. A book for customers of the new world . 1854, lexikus.de