Nikolaus Schmitt (lawyer)

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Nikolaus Schmitt 1806-1860

Nikolaus Eduard Heinrich Schmitt (born January 21, 1806 in Kaiserslautern , † February 13, 1860 in Philadelphia ) was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly and a member of the revolutionary government of the Palatinate .

Life

Schmitt was the son of a lawyer and himself studied law at the universities of Würzburg , Heidelberg , Munich and Jena . During his studies in 1829 he became a member of the Markomannia Munich fraternity . An investigation into his activities in the fraternity ended in 1836 with an acquittal, which was, however, connected with a ban on civil service. He therefore settled as legal counsel in Kaiserslautern, where he also acted as editor and editor of the "Bote für Stadt und Land" from 1837 to 1849. In 1848 he was elected to the city council of Kaiserslautern. This constituency also sent him to the Frankfurt National Assembly, to which he belonged from May 18, 1848 to May 30, 1849. There he belonged to the extreme left ( Donnersberg faction ). At the people's assembly on May 2, 1849 in Kaiserslautern, which marked the beginning of the Palatinate uprising , Schmitt was elected to the ten-member national defense committee. At the people's assembly on May 17, 1849 in Kaiserslautern, Schmitt was elected as one of the substitutes for the five-member provisional government. Since the members of the Frankfurt National Assembly elected to the government Friedrich Schüler , August Ferdinand Culmann and Georg Friedrich Kolb were not present and later rejected the election, Schmitt had belonged as Interior Minister to the provisional government under Joseph Martin Reichard since May 17 .

After the uprising was put down, Schmitt fled via Switzerland and France to the United States of America, where he settled as a lawyer in Philadelphia. In 1851 Schmitt was sentenced to death in absentia for his involvement in the uprising. In America he joined the Republican Party and was a co-founder of the local party organization in Philadelphia. Together with his former colleague Reichard, who had also emigrated, he published the daily Volksvertreter and was the founder of the Gradaus magazine .

Schmitt was President of the German Fremont Club . In 1858 he gave a lecture on the life and work of Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben , which was published in Philadelphia.

literature

  • German Biographical Encyclopedia (edited by Rudolf Vierhaus), Volume 9, p. 74
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 5: R – S. Winter, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-8253-1256-9 , pp. 284-285.
  • Jürgen Keddigkeit : Nikolaus Schmitt - The Interior Minister of the provisional government of the Palatinate . In: Roland Paul, Karl Scherer (Hrsg.): Palatinate in America / Palatines in America . Kaiserslautern 1995, p. 217f.

Web links

Commons : Nikolaus Schmitt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ s. Daniel Staroste: Diary about the events in the Palatinate and Baden in 1849 , 1853, Volume 1, p. 5
  2. ↑ s. Daniel Staroste: Diary about the events in the Palatinate and Baden in 1849 , 1853, Volume 1, p. 17
  3. ↑ s. Gustav Struve : History of the three popular uprisings in Baden . Publishing house by Jenni, Sohn, Bern 1849; changed reprint: Verlag Rombach, Freiburg i.Br. 1980, p. 246
  4. ↑ online in the google book search
personal data
SURNAME Schmitt, Nikolaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmitt, Nicolaus Eduard Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Member of the Frankfurt National Assembly and member of the revolutionary government of the Palatinate
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1806
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaiserslautern
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1860
Place of death Philadelphia