Offenburg Assembly 1847

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Jonathan Borofsky's Freedom - male / female in the Kulturforum

The public assembly of 800 to 900 people in and in front of the “Salmen” inn on September 12, 1847 in Offenburg , Baden , is known as the Offenburg Assembly . It was part of the pre-March period before the German Revolution of 1848/1849 . The result of the event was the proclamation of 13 "Demands of the people in Baden", which essentially demanded basic rights that had been demanded for a long time . This Offenburg program was the programmatic basis of the democratic movement . In view of the misery rampant among the lower classes of the population in 1847, it also contained early socialist ideas. About a month later, the Liberals gathered in Heppenheim .

The Assembly

The event was organized by Mannheim radicals around Gustav Struve , Valentin Streuber and Friedrich Hecker as part of the election campaign for the by-elections for the Second Chamber in Baden. Paul Nolte emphasizes that the assembly did not demand a republic, "the participants in the Offenburg assembly were radicals, but - yet - no republicans (at least not in the modern sense) and no democrats."

The choice of the conference location was due to the good accessibility as the central railway center in Baden and the fact that an important constituency was to be allocated in Offenburg and the left wanted to support the candidate Christian Kapp , one of the main speakers at the event. The meeting was chaired by the mayor of Offenburg, Gustav Rée .

The demands of the people

Demands of the people in Baden, leaflet from 1847

The gathering called for "popular self-government" along the lines of the US Constitution and freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Further demands were the reduction of the high tax and duty burden and the containment of the power of "bureaucrats" and "Jesuits".

The rise of industrialization , in which “manufacturers would ruin the small business”, was criticized in the meeting, as was the power of capital, which “makes the worker sink into a slave”. These conditions were compared with the demand for a cooperative economy. The concentration of capital and assets should be limited by law.

The "People's Demands", dated September 12, 1847, which were distributed as leaflets after the meeting and printed in newspapers, also contained a comprehensive catalog of fundamental rights.

  • The first article demanded the withdrawal of the Karlsbad resolutions , the Frankfurt resolutions and the Vienna resolutions and thus the respect of the Baden constitution of 1818 drawn up by Karl Friedrich Nebenius and the federal act .
  • The following two articles called for freedom of the press , freedom of teaching, and freedom of belief and conscience . Article 5 addressed the freedom of association and assembly, the right to unhindered movement within the German Confederation, and the reduction of paternalism by the police. The 13th and final article declared the equality of all citizens.
  • Articles 4 and 7 called for the people to be armed and the military to be sworn in under the constitution .
  • Article 6 included the call for a representative body for Germany.
  • Articles 8 to 10 dealt with economic and social issues. A fair taxation in the form of a progressive income tax and free access to education were called for. Finally, the "equalization of the imbalance between labor and capital" and the obligation of the state to protect labor were proclaimed.
  • Articles 11 and 12 dealt with the organization of the executive and judiciary and advocated the introduction of jury courts and “self-government of the people” instead of “multiple government by officials”.

Thanks to the increasing use of high-speed presses, the leaflets could be printed and distributed by the thousands.

memory

To commemorate the historical event, the "Freedom Day" is celebrated in Offenburg every two years in September. In 2000, Aenne Burda donated the twenty-meter-high steel sculpture Freedom - Male / Female by Jonathan Borofski , which was installed in the Kulturforum.

literature

  • Hans-Peter Becht: Baden Parliamentarism 1819-1870. A German parliament between reform and revolution. Droste, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-7700-5297-4 , pp. 586-591.
  • Paul Nolte: Community citizenship and liberalism in Baden 1800-1850. Tradition - radicalism - republic. Göttingen 1994, pp. 297-301.
  • Rainer Schimpf: Offenburg 1802-1847. Between imperial city and revolution. Braun, Karlsruhe 1997, ISBN 3-7650-8191-4 , pp. 263-288.
  • Bernhard Vienna: Political festivals and celebrations in Baden 1814-1850. Tradition and transformation. On the interdependence of liberal and revolutionary festival culture. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-631-37158-6 (also: Konstanz, Univ., Diss., 1999).

Web links

Wikisource: The Demand of the People  - Sources and full texts

supporting documents

  1. ^ Paul Nolte: Community citizenship and liberalism in Baden 1800-1850. Tradition - radicalism - republic. Göttingen 1994, p. 299 f.
  2. ↑ see: Free City of Frankfurt and German Confederation
  3. ^ Frank Bösch: Media History. Frankfurt 2011, p. L04.
  4. ↑ Hannah Fedricks Zelaya: A Sculpture for Freedom. Badische Zeitung, August 5, 2019, accessed on August 6, 2019 .