Weaver revolt

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The term weaver uprising is often associated with the late medieval Cologne weaving uprising 1369–1371 or the Silesian weaving uprising of 1844. However, there were weaver revolts in many places in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were directed against the most diverse grievances. It was about early industrial unrest, which was "instigated" by both rural house traders and urban guild craftsmen and which were directed against publishers and early manufacturers. According to historians, there was generally no political background; this only emerged with the German Revolution of 1848/49 . In some cases the rebels were so impoverished that it was a question of hunger riots .

Background of the weavers' uprisings

As early as the end of the Middle Ages, the publishing system was widespread as a trade organization, a term that is now only used in books and magazines. Thanks to his financial strength, market overview and organizational ability, the publisher took on the procurement of raw materials, storage and sale of the end products. The craftsman thus became a pure producer, and the boundaries to pure wage labor became fluid.

With the population increase in the 16th and 18th centuries, the stratum of landless or land-poor rural population also grew, who had to supplement their meager income through non-agricultural activity. This also included the weaving activities as commissioned products for the publishers. In contrast to the guild handicrafts, the investor had to deal with a relatively vulnerable rural population.

The loss of foreign sales markets in connection with the continental blockade and the English sea ​​blockade , the collapse of English factory goods after the end of the continental blockade , the loss of domestic demand in the wake of agricultural crises, and the advancing industrialization with its cheap products aggravated the situation. The wages paid to the weavers fell continuously. There was a conflict of interest between the production factors labor and capital. The publishers sought to maximize or maintain profit, which should ultimately be achieved through low production costs.

The economic situation of the relocated weavers was very bad at the end of the 18th century, mainly because they were only partially paid in cash. At least half of the value of the goods was offset against the delivery of raw materials. Mass impoverishment ( pauperism ) led in many places to unrest, revolts and machine storms .

Augsburg weavers' uprising 1784/85 and 1794/95

Inscription on the weaver's house in Augsburg
Suppression of the Augsburg weaver revolt by soldiers from Württemberg, contemporary depiction by Franz Thomas Weber

From the middle of the 18th century, the Augsburg weaving trade was increasingly threatened by competition from cheap domestic and foreign suppliers. The local merchants and calico manufacturers (including Schüle , Gignoux, Schöppler) bought especially East Indian goods. The local goods were increasingly being displaced and mostly only bought in value for expensive wool.

This situation led to a considerable loss of income, which led to the first unrest in 1784/85. The journeymen , who were particularly affected because of their largely insecure existence, refused to pay contributions to the journeymen's drawer and caused a commotion. The journeyman's strike was peacefully settled on August 21, 1784, but it flared up again with two deaths. There was a march of 300 journeymen who were put down by the police. The ringleaders were arrested. Many journeymen left the city.

While the master craftsmen did not take part in these unrest, this changed with the increasingly rapid deterioration in livelihoods and the housing situation. The city council remained largely inactive; So the weavers resorted to self-help measures and confiscated consignments of goods from the merchants.

In October 1785 there was a compromise between the contracting parties, but this only ensured a temporary calm, as the manufacturers disregarded the agreements. The urban authorities, which had previously endeavored to maintain a neutral stance, increasingly sided with capital. On January 29, 1794, three hundred master weavers stormed the town hall and enforced a ban on imports of foreign goods. The situation was repeated on February 25, 1794, as the import ban had already been relaxed again. This time the mayor of the city was taken hostage. To calm the masses, the council issued a decree which, among other things, reaffirmed the import ban. It soon turned out, however, that the authorities did not feel bound by the agreements that had been made under duress. On August 26, 1794, a new agreement was reached between the merchants, manufacturers and weavers, based on the compromise of 1785 and made law. On November 18, 1794, this was lifted and the council sought a military solution to the conflict.

On December 24, 1794, the uprising was finally put down by the deployment of troops from the Swabian Empire . The soldiers stayed in town for a year and a half, and the cost of deployment was borne by the weavers.

Silesian weaver revolt in 1844

The Silesian weavers 'uprising of 1844 was neither the first weavers' uprising in the Owl Mountains region, nor the most violent. As early as 1785/1786, 1793 and 1798 there had been some major uprisings. The peculiarity of the uprising of 1844 was the public attention it gained. Contemporary publications and literature processed and discussed the topic at length. In this sense, the Silesian Weberaufstand can of 4 to 6 June 1844 in a context of the 1848 incipient revolution be brought, as it contributed significantly to the development of political opinion leaders.

Reason for the uprising

The Silesian Weavers (painting by Carl Wilhelm Huebner , 1846)

The province of Silesia was annexed by Prussia in 1742 . As a result, the new subjects remained longer than anywhere else on the landed nobility bound Häusler . The peasant liberation was only partially implemented in 1807. Two thirds of the Silesian population were still subject to a landlord and had to pay feudal taxes such as land rent, web interest, school fees, etc. The Silesian weavers tried to compensate for the drop in the price of their goods through quantity, but even child labor and the extension of daily working hours did not compensate, especially as the quality of the products continued to decline. Technical innovations and more modern looms, some of which already existed abroad, could not provide a remedy because the home weavers could not finance them. In addition, the Owl Mountains were one of the most densely populated districts in Silesia, Peterswaldau had almost 6,000 inhabitants , Langenbielau around 12,000. As a result, there was a surplus of labor. Nevertheless, the cotton weavers settled in Peterswaldau and Langenbielau were doing comparatively better than the Silesian linen weavers, who were already completely impoverished and starving.

The riot

Caricature on the weavers' revolt (1848)

root cause

In Peterswaldau and Langenbielau mainly pre-industrial homeworkers lived, who mainly produced cotton goods. Economically, however, their existence was dependent on so-called publishers . While the publishers, usually wealthy merchants, bought yarn on the market, the cotton weavers were supposed to produce the desired fabrics from it at an agreed price. The homeworkers were paid for their goods and the publisher resold the cotton products. Although the Silesian cotton weavers were among the better-off workers than the linen weavers and spinners, they feared for their wages and their professional independence. Because of the overproduction in the textile industry, there were repeated cuts in wages by publishers in the 1840s, especially by the largest entrepreneur in Peterswaldau, Ernst Friedrich Zwanziger . The demands of the weavers were aimed at fair wages and appropriate, dignified treatment by the "manufacturers".

course

On June 3, 1844, about 20 weavers from Peterswaldau and the surrounding villages met on the Kapellenberg and discussed how to defend against the manufacturers. They then moved to the factory of the Zwanziger brothers , singing the “ Blood Court song ” , who worked as publishers and had cut wages. The factory owners Ernst Friedrich and August Zwanziger had their servants, armed with stones and clubs, drive the little train away and also had the weaver Wilhelm Mädler arrested by the local police.

A protest march was formed on June 4, 1844, with the aim of achieving the release of Wilhelm Mädler and a wage increase, which almost all home weavers in the area joined. The weavers elected a delegation to negotiate; the conversation with the district administrator of the Reichenbach district remained inconclusive. When they got to the building of the twenties, they were absent. The crowd then furiously stormed the 20s house and destroyed the entire facility. The administration building, warehouse and factory were also ravaged. The Zwanziger family then fled to Breslau. The manufacturer Wagenknecht, however, remained unmolested and was even praised for the “fair” wages.

On June 5, 1844, the factory owners Fellmann and Hoferichter were able to “buy their way out” with cash payments, bread and bacon. The crowd moved on to Langenbielau to the manufacturers Andretzky and Hilbert. They were hated and their properties were devastated. Dierig, who was also targeted by the rebels because of the foreign workers who were exclusively employed there, paid his own workers to take action against the advancing weavers. In addition, the Dierig brothers tried to calm the crowd by handing out money.

A royal cabinet order instructed the Criminal Senate of the Higher Regional Court in Breslau "with all diligence ... to discover the agitators and bring them to punishment". In the meantime, the authorities had prompted the Prussian military to intervene and the situation got out of hand. The commanding officer fired into the crowd. Ten men and one woman were killed and another 24 seriously injured. This approach tended to fuel anger and lead to helpless looting. The unit initially gave way to the crowd, armed with clubs and stones, after the arrival of reinforcements, the uprising was suppressed on June 6, 1844.

At the time of the conviction, the judges' sympathy clearly did not belong to the entrepreneurs or the state, but the verdict emphasized the “pressing need” of the weavers as a reason for mitigation. Overall, the judges stayed below the maximum possible sentences and largely waived corporal punishment. The judges did not want to burden the poor weavers with the costs of the proceedings; Instead, they obliged the village courts and thus ultimately the landlords.

Reaction of Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

Outwardly, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV affably expressed his sympathy for the fate of homeworkers and praised civic aid organizations. At the end of July 1844, Friedrich Wilhelm traveled to his Silesian summer residence in Erdmannsdorf , announced that he would have the plight of the weavers examined and showed a remarkable interest in linen and cotton fabrics at the Berlin trade fair. Behind this facade, however, he increasingly feared a popular uprising planned by communist revolutionaries and the opposition press. The king also brought the first attempt on his person into direct connection with Silesian weavers.

Although the king's environment refrained from arresting and deporting critical writers in Silesia as a preventive measure, the government agreed to dictate to the Silesian censors exactly what could be reported about the weaver revolt. On June 13, 1844, the King himself, advised by the Minister of State von Thile, drafted the wording of the corresponding instructions and replaced the originally planned detailed instructions with the general prohibition "to stir up the lower against the higher classes, the poor against the wealthy" . The few reports that appeared in Silesia in the weeks after the survey actually completely dispensed with descriptions of the need. Instead of addressing structural grievances, the king's measures focused solely on finding the backers of the alleged conspiracy.

Interpretation of the weaver revolt

It was a typical early industrial unrest for which neither a classic hunger revolt nor a machine storm or class struggle seems appropriate. The weavers involved in the revolt were cotton weavers. While the Silesian linen weavers were already completely impoverished and starving at this time, the cotton weavers fared better than them. Christina von Hodenberg clarifies why two of the classic interpretations are not plausible. So it was not about a machine storm, because the anger of the weavers was not directed against the still sparse “machines”, but against the publishers who were perceived as unjust. Against the interpretation of the uprising as a class struggle speaks again that the destruction was directed against certain publishers, while others were completely spared or were able to “buy their way out”. The weavers met traditional authorities such as the landlord or the district administrator with reverence; her anger, however, aroused the nouveau riche, rising twenties, who, like her, had been a weaver and whose wealth she understood as an affront. In addition, the outrage of the weavers was directed against their own kind: against weavers who came from outside and made the situation even more difficult with their competition. Hodenberg sums up: “As a phenomenon of the transitional age, the weaver's revolt must therefore be perceived as both traditional and future-oriented. [...] Then the main driving force behind the uprising of 1844 was the mentality of independence. It is suitable for replacing the distorting interpretative motifs 'hunger', 'desperation', 'class struggle' and 'machine hatred' that are still dominant today. "

reception

Poster by Emil Orlik , 1897

Further weaver revolts

literature

  • Hans E. Bremes: 140 years of the weaver revolt in Silesia. Industrial work and technology - yesterday and today. A contribution to political cultural work. Westfälisches Dampfboot Verlag, Münster 1985, ISBN 3-924550-11-5 .
  • Gita Deneckere: Het katoenoproer van Gent in 1839. Collectieve actie en sociale geschiedenis. SUN et al., Nijmegen 1999, ISBN 90-6168-635-0 .
  • Henk Giebels: Het Gemertse Weversoproer van 1849. Gemert rond het midden van de 19e eeuw. Heemkundekring "De Kommanderij Gemert", Gemert 1999, ISBN 90-73621-16-X . ( Bijdragen tot de divorced van Gemert 25).
  • Christina von Hodenberg : revolt of the weavers. The 1844 revolt and its rise to myth. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 .
  • Käthe Kollwitz: A weaver revolt, peasants' war, war. Furche-Kunst-Verlag, Berlin 1930.
  • Lutz Kroneberg, Rolf Schloesser: Weber Revolte 1844. The Silesian weaver revolt in the mirror of contemporary journalism and literature. Information press CW Leske, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7632-2360-6 .

Sound source

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. The 1844 revolt and its rise to myth. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 , pp. 48 to 49.
  2. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. The 1844 revolt and its rise to myth. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 , p. 57.
  3. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. The 1844 revolt and its rise to myth. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 , p. 27.
  4. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. The 1844 revolt and its rise to myth. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 , p. 229.
  5. ↑ a b The weaver revolt. In: The time. June 3, 1994.
  6. ^ Karl Obermann : Germany from 1815 to 1849. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 3rd, revised. Edition 1967, p. 153.
  7. ^ Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. Pp. 105-107.
  8. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. The 1844 revolt and its rise to myth. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 , p. 91.
  9. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. The 1844 revolt and its rise to myth. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 , p. 91.
  10. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: With the red pencil against the social question. The Prussian press censorship and the Silesian weaver uprising in 1844. In: Research on Brandenburg and Prussian history. NF Vol. 9. (1999), pp. 91-122, here: p. 104.
  11. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3073-2 .
  12. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg : Revolt of the weavers. Dietz, Bonn 1997, pp. 39-50 and 229 f.
  13. ↑ Christina von Hodenberg: Revolt of the weavers. Dietz, Bonn 1997, p. 237.
  14. ^ Norbert Schulz: (Weber) strike by Käthe Kollwitz, detailed view . Dhm.de. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on January 8, 2006 .