Neukirch court revolution
On September 12, 1830, the angry residents of Neukirch stormed the local courthouse, destroyed files, did serious damage in the manor house and freed the prisoners. The summoned military ensured that the village was quiet again after a few days. As a result of the uprising, there were numerous arrests and prison sentences in Neukirch. These were imposed by the responsible Leipzig court.
prehistory
At that time, the people of Neukirchen indulged in the Bohemian lottery game. However, this type of lottery game was banned throughout Saxony. Except in Schirgiswalde about ten km away , the reason that this was allowed in Schirgiswalde, was because the place was an independent republic until 1845. The reasons for this lie in the eventful history of Upper Lusatia .
With a few interruptions, Upper Lusatia belonged to the Bohemian crown from 1158 to 1635. In 1635, in the Peace of Prague , it fell to the then Electorate of Saxony . Schirgiswalde, however, remained a Bohemian exclave due to the exchange of territory of a landlord in 1451. This only changed with the Peace of Schönbrunn in 1809, when Austria had to cede the place to the Kingdom of Saxony . Due to the turmoil of the war at that time, this takeover by Saxony went under, so that from then on Schirgiswalde was neither part of Saxony nor Austria. Rather, the city formed its own republic with tax and military service freedoms, which quickly made itself popular with smugglers and deserters.
Only under such conditions was it possible for the lottery to flourish.
The bohemian lottery game
The bohemian lottery game offered the player different betting variants, in which one could bet between 1 and 5 numbers. The possible profit then increased with the number of numbers wagered and the stake played. The numbers were drawn alternately for Bohemia and Moravia every Wednesday in Prague and Brno . There was also an illegal variant of the Bohemian lottery, the so-called “Blue Lotteries”, which were also called Winkelbanken. In the state lottery, the stakes were kept by the state, in the blue lottery they were kept by corner bankers. These also determined the amount of stakes and winnings. Your work was of course completely secret. The Winkelbanken were particularly popular with the poorer population. The Winkelbankiers did not concern themselves with too much attention, so-called registrants. These went through the entire country and accepted the stakes. The registrants did not only visit the immediate vicinity of Schirgiswalde but also cities such as Leipzig, Berlin and Hamburg. For this work they were certain to receive a share of the income. Most of the money, however, earned the corner bankers, as they only paid out small winnings to the individual players, but cheated them out of larger amounts.
The court revolution
The police caught a lottery cashier in the act on August 17, 1830. A little later, further investigations were launched and about 40 citizens were arrested. Among those arrested were the weavers Carl Gottlob Benade and Johann Gotthelf Wobst. They stubbornly denied their involvement in the lottery game, which is why they continued to be detained.
On the afternoon of September 12, 1830, the father of the inmate Johan Gottheld Wobst appeared and demanded the release of his son. A short time later, the court director was informed by the local cleric Freiherr von der Trenck that the young people had decided to forcibly free the prisoners from the house.
At first, the court director Matthesius did not know whether to give in or to stand firm. He decided to give in and visited those arrested, interrogated them and released them with the request to report to the courtroom the next day. He then went to his official residence in the courthouse. On the way, Matthesius noticed a lot of young people who had come together and gave him words like “…. you bitch, get away ... "shouted. When he got home a babble of voices rang out in front of the house, followed shortly afterwards by a hail of stones and slats that had been torn from the wooden fence of the property in order to break the windows. The next target was the front door that they tried to break in. In the meantime, Matthesius tried to persuade the people, but the court revolution had already broken out without success. After a short time, a hail of stones and wood set in again, whereby not only the windows were the target, but also Matthesius himself.
The local chaplain Freiherr von der Trenck hoped to calm the people by ringing the church bells, but achieved the exact opposite. The ringing of the church bells caused further excitement among the people. With the shouts of: "Now we have to storm, now we have to fire, the files out, we have to burn them" and the lottery files should be handed over. Matthesius was more concerned about the fact that the court room also contained the entire Neukirch court archive. To save these files from destruction, his wife had already brought the lottery files and handed them over to the crowd.
Since he had already suffered some injuries from the stone throwing, Matthesius then withdrew into the house. The crowd inspected the files on the doorstep by torchlight, which meant that there was a little bit of calm. But this calm did not last long. After a short time they broke into the courthouse and asked to hand over the remaining files. Matthesius tried in vain to dissuade the crowd.
The files in the Neukirch court archives were carried behind the house and burned in a heap. The entire Neukirch court archive was thus completely destroyed. In addition, the entire interior of the courtroom was smashed and thrown onto burning piles of files. It was thanks to the pleading pleading of the court staff that the roof structure was not set on fire.
Matthesius was asked to step forward. The head of the court, together with his wife, stepped in front of the angry crowd and offered them to murder him. But nothing happened. After the crowd had seen him, he could go back inside. As a result, the events ended at around 2 a.m. for the time being. Only a few people stayed to watch the file fire. The others moved on to the neighboring farm, where the riots continued.
The furniture in the manor was smashed. The widowed Baroness von Oppen, born Huldenberg, who was present at the time, saved herself with her maids in the basement of the building.
The next destination was the so-called stock house and the apartment of the forest assistant Döring. While the forest assistant's apartment was only devastated, the roof of the multi-storey building was covered.
At around 5 a.m., the rest of the furniture in the courthouse was smashed. According to reports from the court director, Matthesius, school children were also present in the tumult.
The next morning the baroness asked Matthesius to leave the place immediately. This arose from the promise the baroness had made to the rebels last night. The court director, however, had to issue receipts for deposited funds to residents.
End of the court revolution
A few days later on September 15, a commission of inquiry with military reinforcements arrived in Neukirch. This began its work immediately under the chairmanship of Carl Friedrich Domsch. Over 40 people were affected in the course of the proceedings. The commission of inquiry carried out the work rigorously and relentlessly. In particular, attempts were made to identify the leading figures in the uprising, as a planned conspiracy was suspected behind the uprising. The judgments were made after the conclusion of the investigation by the law faculty in Leipzig. The sentences ranged from 6 months to 10 years in prison. These had to be served in the prisons of Zwickau and Waldheim as well as in Bautzen. Seven of the convicts received a 4-8 week prison term.
However, not all of the convicts experienced freedom. Some died in the prisons from poor detention conditions.
In December 1830, at the request of Carl Friedrich Domsch, the court director Matthesius was reinstated on the orders of the Saxon King Anton . The Neukirch court revolution had thus finally failed.