Uwe Jens Lornsen

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Uwe Jens Lornsen, drawing by Christian Peter Hansen (around 1830)

Uwe Jens Lornsen (born November 18, 1793 in Keitum on Sylt , † February 12, 1838 in Collonge-Bellerive on Lake Geneva ) was a German lawyer and civil servant in the Danish government. Through his writing Ueber das Verfassungswerk in Schleswigholstein he became the champion of a united and more independent Schleswig-Holstein .

Life

Youth and Studies

Contemporary bust of Lornsen, Keitum Local History Museum

Lornsen came from an important Sylt family of Frisian sailors; his father Jürgen Jens Lornsen (1756–1843) was a captain and Sylt councilor. Uwe Jens Lornsen, the third and only son who survived the infant stage, would have taken up this profession if the naval war between Denmark and the United Kingdom (see History of Denmark and the Naval Battle of Copenhagen ) had not prevented this. Instead he attended schools in Tondern and Schleswig from 1811 and studied law in Kiel from 1816 and in Jena from 1818/19 . During his studies in 1816 he became a member of the Old Kiel Burschenschaft and the Teutonia Burschenschaft zu Kiel . In Jena, after becoming a member in 1818, he was a member of the board of directors of the original fraternity , and after the murder of August von Kotzebue by the original fraternity member Karl Ludwig Sand in 1819 and the subsequent resolutions in Carlsbad, Metternich's secret police saw him . In Jena, Lornsen was influenced by the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte . He passed his state examination in Kiel in October 1820, worked briefly as a junior lawyer in Oldesloe and then for eight years in Copenhagen as a civil servant in the Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg offices .

Journalistic act and imprisonment

On 10 October 1830 he was at his own request bailiff on Sylt appointed. On his journey to take up the office, he landed in Kiel on October 17th, made himself acquainted with public figures and published there on November 1st the 14-page text Ueber das Verfassungswerk in Schleswigholstein , with which he made a comprehensive change wanted to achieve the political structure; he based his hopes on the July Revolution of 1830, which had a lasting effect throughout Europe . Leaving out the hyphen was already part of the program. It was immediately distributed in 9,000 copies; Since then, Lornsen has been seen as a freedom fighter for a united Schleswig-Holstein that is less dependent on Denmark , only "king and enemy" should remain together - Lornsen cannot be ascribed the idea of ​​connecting Schleswig-Holstein with Prussia , as happened in 1864. Lornsen ignored the fact that the north of Schleswig was predominantly Danish-speaking. Alexa Geisthövel described the font as a “caesura” in the Schleswig-Holstein question and as a “prelude to its public thematization”, which by 1852 was followed by almost 300 monographs. The "petition storm" hoped for by Lornsen with an actual political upheaval did not materialize, however. In 1832 the Kiel professor Christian Paulsen replied to Lornsen's writing through Ueber Volksthümlichkeit and constitutional law of the Duchy of Schleswig and looking at the entire Danish state , advocating respect for the Danish language in Schleswig; like Lornsen, however, he also called for a modernization of the absolutist state. This started the nationality struggle in Schleswig.

Lornsen took office on Sylt, but was already on November 24, 1830, after a few days, at the instigation of King Frederik VI. arrested for continuing to agitate. He passionately explained to the bailiff in Tondern that he would not rest, but rather see it as his "duty to enlighten his compatriots". He was removed from office on May 31, 1831 and sentenced to "the mildest imprisonment of one year". He sat this in 1831/32 in Friedrichsort , then in Rendsburg . Because of similar demands for a liberal constitution in Denmark, Jacob Jacobsen Dampe was sentenced to death as a traitor in 1820, but was then pardoned to 20 years in prison.

Exile, return and death

Memorial sheet from 1838

In 1833 he traveled to Rio de Janeiro , heavily in debt , to be cured of a serious illness, of which he was convinced that it existed without being able to precisely determine it. At the same time he avoided the reactionary persecution of demagogues in Europe. In Rio de Janeiro, supported by his friend Franz Hermann Hegewisch from Kiel, he underwent severe cures and worked on The Union Constitution of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein , his legal and historical legacy, which Georg Beseler published posthumously in 1841. In 1837 he returned to Europe because his sister Erkel - the only one who had reached adulthood - was seriously ill. He thought himself contagious and felt guilty as vague as it was violent. When he found out about his sister's suicide in Geneva, he gave up the plan to return to Sylt. An attempt to find help and healing from the Geneva homeopath Charles Pêchier failed. He considered his disease incurable and contagious and therefore a ruinous man himself. Recent historians have suggested that Lornsen was manic-depressive ; Silke von Bremen suspects hypochondria . He finished his main work and shot himself on Lake Geneva at the foot of Mont Salève . He was buried in the cemetery of the parish of Vandœuvres near the village of Pressy, where he last lived. The grave site was not maintained, the cemetery was closed in the middle of the 19th century, so that nothing of the grave has survived.

Reception and honors

Inauguration of the Lornsen monument in Rendsburg, in: Die Gartenlaube (1879)
Commemorative plaque on the Old Frisian House in Keitum

Through his writings, exile and tragic death, Lornsen has become a symbol of the Schleswig-Holstein movement shrouded in mystery. He was one of the first to express the idea that the key to German unity lay in Schleswig-Holstein (see the German-Danish war before the founding of the empire ).

In 1878 a memorial was erected in honor of Lornsen in Rendsburg , where he had been detained for a fortress, and inaugurated in the presence of nine to ten thousand onlookers (Lage) . On this he is referred to as the "first martyr of the Schleswig-Holstein cause", even if his death is not based on political persecution. - In Keitum, Lornsen's birthplace, there is a monument, unveiled in 1895, with a portrait relief modeled by the sculptor Wilhelm Wandschneider .

There is a memorial plaque for Lornsen on the facade of the Keitum Old Frisian House . The Sylt Heimatmuseum, also located in Keitum, has its own section dedicated to the life and work of Lornsen. Westerland honors him with the “Lornsenweg”, and the highest point on the island - the Uwe dune in Kampen - is named after him. In Schleswig-Holstein, “Lornsenstraßen” are reminiscent of the pioneer of the unity of Schleswig-Holstein, including in Bad Segeberg , Bredstedt , Eckernförde , Elmshorn , Flensburg , Heide , Husum , Kellinghusen , Kiel , Neumünster , Niebüll , Quickborn , Rendsburg , Schenefeld and Süderbrarup . In Hamburg-Altona , which was Danish in Lornsen's time, a street and a square are also named after him. A total of 27 streets bear his name (as of January 2018). In Schleswig , the Lornsenschule is one of the high schools there. In Kiel, the city's smallest school is called Uwe-Jens-Lornsen-Schule. Since 1953 , the Schleswig-Holsteinische Heimatbund has awarded the Lornsen chain to people who have made a special contribution to promoting culture in Schleswig-Holstein.

The Tönning Waterways and Shipping Authority has named three ships Uwe Jens Lornsen since 1937 . The current Uwe Jens Lornsen is a survey ship that was put into service on March 30, 1999 and is home to Tönning .

Fonts

Title page The Union Constitution of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein , 1841
  • About the constitution in Schleswigholstein. Mohr, Kiel 1830 (digitized version) .
  • The Union Constitution of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. A historical constitutional and political discussion. Edited by Georg Beseler . Frommann, Jena 1841 (digitized) .

Letters

  • A letter from UJ Lornsen. Communicated by JH Eckart in Heidelberg. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History. Vol. 36, 1906, p. 297 f. (Digitized version) .
  • Volquart Pauls (Ed.): Letters to Franz Hermann Hegewisch . J. Bergas, Schleswig 1925.
  • GE Hoffmann, Wilhelm Jessen (ed.): Uwe Jens Lornsen's letters to his father (1811–1837) (= writings of the Baltic Commission in Kiel. Vol. 18, ZDB -ID 503392-5 = publications of the Schleswig-Holstein University Society . No. . 29). Shepherd, Breslau 1930.
  • Alexander Scharff : Uwe Jens Lornsen's letter to Heinrich von Gagern of September 16, 1837. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History. Vol. 79, 1955, pp. 288-301.

literature

A detailed list of secondary literature can be found on the Wikisource author page .

  • Alexander Scharff : Uwe Jens Lornsen - the man and politician. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History. Vol. 107, 1982, pp. 113-138 (digitized version ) .
  • Alexander Scharff:  Lornsen, Uwe Jens. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , pp. 185-187 ( digitized version ).
  • Erich Voss: In search of portraits of Uwe Jens Lornsen. Attempt a documentation. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History. Vol. 122, 1997, pp. 390-409 (digitized version ) .
  • Johannes Jensen: Two "Sylt giants" in the 19th century. Uwe Jens Lornsen and Schwen Hans Jensen (= North Frisian CVs. Vol. 6). Nordfriisk Instituut, Bredstedt 1998, ISBN 978-3-88007-260-2 .
  • Manfred Jessen-Klingenberg : Uwe Jens Lornsen - a bourgeois-liberal reformer. In: Grenzfriedenshefte . Born in 1988, pp. 231-239, reprinted in: ders .: Viewpoints on the recent history of Schleswig-Holstein. Edited by Reimer Hansen and Jörn-Peter Leppien . Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, Malente 1998, ISBN 978-3-933862-25-9 , pp. 45–54.
  • Johannes Jensen: Uwe Jens Lornsen (1793–1838) this side of myth and transfiguration. Approaching people and politicians. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History. Vol. 132, 2007, pp. 107-132 (digitized version ) .

Web links

Commons : Uwe Jens Lornsen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Uwe Jens Lornsen  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Silke von Bremen : From the inner captivity of a freedom fighter. Uwe Jens Lornsen's emotional distress. In: North Friesland. No. 169, March 2010, pp. 22–27, here p. 23 (PDF) .
  2. ↑ a b c d Alexander Scharff :  Lornsen, Uwe Jens. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , pp. 185-187 ( digitized version ).
  3. ^ Karl Jansen:  Lornsen, Uwe . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 200-202.
  4. ^ Website of the association .
  5. ^ Peter Kaupp (edit.): Stamm-Buch of the Jenaische Burschenschaft. The members of the original fraternity 1815-1819 (= treatises on student and higher education. Vol. 14). SH-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-89498-156-3 , p. 123.
  6. ↑ Alexa Geisthövel: Peculiarity and Power. German nationalism 1830–1851. The Schleswig-Holstein case (= historical communications from the Ranke Society . Supplements. Vol. 50). Steiner, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-515-08090-2 , p. 27 . On Lornsen's work in detail, ibid., Pp. 28–42.
  7. ↑ See Silke von Bremen : From the inner captivity of a freedom fighter. Uwe Jens Lornsen's emotional distress. In: North Friesland. No. 169, March 2010, pp. 22–27, here p. 24 (PDF) .
  8. ^ Friedrich Priewe: Uwe Jens Lornsen's gift to Itzehoe. In: ders .: Lively Itzehoe. Contributions to 750 years of city law. Heinrich Möller Sons, Rendsburg 1988, p. 102 (excerpt) ; Schleswig-Holsteinischer Heimatbund (Ed.): Schleswig-Holstein . Born in 1968, p. 48 (excerpt) .
  9. ^ Karl Müller: The Uwe Jens Lornsen monument in Rendsburg. In: The home . Vol. 71, 1964, pp. 182-184 (digitized version ) ; Lornsen memorial. Paradeplatz in Rendsburg: a monument tells history. In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Landeszeitung , October 28, 2015.
  10. ^ Wiebke Stitz: 1000 sea urchins for Uwe Jens Lornsen. In: SHZ.de , April 19, 2018; Sylt local history museum. In: Museen-SH.de.
  11. ^ Search for Lornsen . In: Time Online , How Often Is Your Street There?
  12. ^ History of the Uwe Jens Lornsen ships at the Tönning Waterways and Shipping Office.
personal data
SURNAME Lornsen, Uwe Jens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lorensen, Uwe Jens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Schleswig-Holstein lawyer, civil servant and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH Keitum , Sylt
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1838
Place of death Collonge-Bellerive on Lake Geneva