Oskar Becker (assassin)
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Oskar Wilhelm Becker ( Russian Оскар Вильгельм Беккер ) (born June 18, 1839 in Odessa , † July 16, 1868 in Alexandria ) became famous for his assassination attempt on King Wilhelm of Prussia .
Life
Becker was born in Odessa , where his father Paul Adam von Becker was the director of the Lyceum . His first wife and Oskar Becker's mother was Elise Wilhelmine Becker, née Dörstling (born February 10, 1818 Chemnitz , † January 16, 1844 Odessa). Paul Adam von Becker was honored with the title " Real Imperial Russian Council of State " ( Russian действительный статский советник ) and raised to the nobility.
At the age of fourteen he was sent to a grammar school in Kiev , later he attended the Evangelical Kreuzgymnasium in Dresden from 1856 to 1859 . Since 1859 Oskar Becker studied political science , mathematics and oriental languages in Leipzig, among other things . Oskar Becker was the brother of Carl Woldemar Becker and thus the uncle of the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker .
In the summer of 1861 he decided to murder Wilhelm, who had become King of Prussia in January 1861. Becker considered it an obstacle to the unification of Germany . On July 12, he traveled to Baden-Baden , where the king was staying for a cure. On the morning of July 14th, Becker fired both runs of his Terzerols on the Lichtenthaler Allee at the king, who was walking along there with the Prussian ambassador in Karlsruhe, Count Flemming . Becker's shot grazed the king on the neck, but caused only an insignificant bruise there, which was initially not noticed by the king himself. Becker let himself be arrested by Flemming without resistance.
Becker carried a letter of confession with him; it said about the political motives for his act:
Baden, July 13, 1861.
The motive why I Se. Maj. Will shoot the King of Prussia is that he cannot bring about the unity of Germany and the circumstances overwhelm that the unity takes place; this is why he must die for someone else to accomplish it. For the sake of the deed I will be made ridiculous or held as exaggerated; but I have to do the deed to make the German fatherland happy.
Oskar Becker, stud. jur. from Leipzig.
Had the assassination been successful, Becker would have killed the man who became the first emperor of the German Empire nine and a half years later .
Becker was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the jury court in Bruchsal , but was pardoned in October 1866 at King Wilhelm's intercession. Becker first went to Belgium , where he became politically active again, which the Prussian legation did not like to see there. He moved to Chicago ( USA ) but returned to Europe in 1868. He died in Alexandria in July 1868 at the age of 29 .
plant
- The Prince's Book (1859)
See also
Web links
- Working group for historical regional studies on the Upper Rhine eV, (504th) Minutes of the working session on November 19, 2010.
- DC Gilman, HT Thurston, FM Colby (Eds.): Becker, Oskar . New International Encyclopedia. (1st ed.), Dodd, Mead, New York 1905
Individual evidence
- ↑ His grandfather Friedrich Wilhelm Becker (born January 4, 1773 in Oberlichtenau ; † October 21, 1847 in Kiev ) originally came from Saxony ; he became a teacher, collegiate councilor, senior teacher of the German language at the Lithuanian government high school and later professor of Roman literature and court councilor . He first moved to the Baltic States and later to the Ukraine . His wife was Anna Margarethe Friederike Becker, born von Hueck (born July 4, 1788 in Tallinn , † October 30, 1847 in Kiev).
- ^ Erik Amburger database. Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies . [1]
- ↑ Archival material in the inventory 10736 Ministry of the Interior archival number 00465 Date 1861 Assassination attempt by Leipzig student Oskar Becker from Odessa on King Wilhelm of Prussia in Karlsruhe [2]
- ^ Dresden - Bremen - Worpswede - Biography Paula Modersohn-Becker ( Memento from December 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ cf. Supplement to the Illustrirten Zeitung , No. 942 (vol. 37), Leipzig, July 20, 1861.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Becker, Oskar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Becker, Oskar Wilhelm (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Assassin on King Wilhelm of Prussia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 18, 1839 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Odessa |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 16, 1868 |
| Place of death | Alexandria , Egypt |