Penal Bavaria
Strafbayern was the term used by the population of Kurhessen for the Bavarian- Austrian occupation troops , which from November 1850 to summer 1851 forced the implementation of the conservative counter-revolution in Kurhessen as part of a federal intervention . The federal intervention was a measure envisaged in the German Confederation to secure the monarchical-legitimist order and public calm against anti-federal movements, also by military means. In contrast to federal execution , federal intervention was directed against popular movements and not against the government of a member state.
history
Federal intervention in the Electorate of Hesse came about when Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I and his ultra-conservative minister Ludwig Hassenpflug suspended the liberal Electoral Hesse constitution of 1831 and imposed martial law on the state on September 7, 1850 to enforce this measure . On September 12, the elector called the Federal Assembly of the German Confederation for help in enforcing his autocratic counterrevolution. Since 241 of the 277 officers from the Electorate of Hesse who had sworn an oath not only on the Elector but also on the constitution and who did not want to break the oath in this constitutional conflict then submitted their dismissal requests between October 9th and 12th, 1850, the Hessian one became Military incapacitated.
On September 21, the Federal Assembly approved the elector's motion, but without Prussia's consent . Now Prussia concentrated its own troops on the border with Kurhessen, as it saw its military roads to the Rhineland threatened. This led to the contradiction of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria . On October 12, 1850, at a personal meeting in Bregenz with Emperor Franz Joseph and King Wilhelm I of Württemberg , King Maximilian II of Bavaria undertook to oppose a possible Prussian intervention and to allow his troops to participate in a federal intervention in favor of the Hessian elector . The Federal Assembly then decided on October 16 to send occupation troops to Kurhessen in order to restore the "orderly state". On October 28, at a meeting with the Russian Tsar Nicholas I in Warsaw in the so-called "Warsaw Agreement" , Prussian government representatives declared themselves ready to withdraw the Prussian troops ; A federal commissioner should be installed in Kassel to restore order there.
Nevertheless, on November 1, 1850, Bavarian and Austrian troops with a total strength of 25,000 men first entered the Kurhessian province of Hanau in order to end the constitutional crisis in the interests of the government. They were referred to as "penal Bavaria" by the Hessian population. Prussia responded on November 2nd by marching two divisions into northern Hesse. Since this was a violation of the Warsaw Agreement, Austria demanded the immediate withdrawal of all Prussian troops from Kurhessen. The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV ordered mobilization on November 5th , and on November 8th there was a skirmish at Bronnzell near Fulda , in which four Austrian soldiers were wounded and the horse of a Prussian trumpeter was killed. Friedrich Wilhelm IV shied away from war, and the Prussian troops were ordered to retreat to the stage roads.
On November 29th the “ Olomouc puncture ” took place, with which the Electorate of Hesse was surrendered to the Federal Assembly. The Prussian troops evacuated the country, and the Bavarian and Austrian "penal Bavaria" occupied the most important cities and towns in Kurhessen in order to break any form of opposition. The capital Kassel was occupied on December 16, 1850. The Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal Count Christian Seraphin Vincenz von Leiningen-Westerburg-Neuleiningen was appointed Federal Commissioner to enforce the decisions of the Federal Assembly.
The "criminal Bayern" were not in barracks housed, but in private homes quartered , giving priority for known liberals and Democrats and politically progressive citizens. These lodging providers were also obliged to provide food for the occupiers. Even the Lord Mayor of Kassel , Heinrich Wilhelm Hartwig , as an exponent of a political direction that the Elector did not want, was given the billeting of 28 Bavarian soldiers in his official apartment in the town hall on Obere Karlsstrasse .
It was not until the summer of 1851 that the occupation troops were withdrawn from Kurhessen.
literature
- Heinrich Gräfe, The constitutional struggle in Kurhessen according to its origin, progress and end, historically described , Costenoble and Remmelmann, Leipzig, 1851.
- Rüdiger Ham: Federal intervention and constitutional revision. The German Confederation and the Hessian constitutional question 1850/52 . Self-published by the Hessian Historical Commission Darmstadt and the Historical Commission for Hesse, Darmstadt & Marburg, 2004 (= sources and research on Hessian history 138). ISBN 3-88443-092-0 .
- Georg-Wilhelm Hanna : Straf-Bayern move into: Mitteilungsblatt der Heimatstelle Main-Kinzig, year 1993 (issue 1) pp. 226–234
- Oskar Schenk: The "Strafbayern" in Hanau . In: Hanau city and country. A home book for school and home . Hanau 1954, p. 382 f.