Second German Federal Shooting in Bremen
The Second German Federal Shooting took place from July 16 to 24, 1865 in Bremen. The national rifle festival is considered to be one of the most popular events that took place in Germany before the founding of the empire and was characterized by exuberant patriotism. The festival area was then used to create the public park .
details
At the First German Federal Shooting in Frankfurt am Main in 1862, Bremen, which had a remarkable tradition with the Bremen Rifle Company , the shooting festivals of the Bremen Rifle Club and its 600 members in the German Rifle Federation , which had been held since 1846, was chosen as the venue in 1864. Enthusiasm and skepticism accompanied the preparations. On the eve of the German-Danish War , the festival was postponed for twelve months. The project was organized by a fixed leadership of 311 citizens in a central and ten special committees. Many well-known Bremen personalities got involved here.
A joint stock association was founded to finance this. 50,000 special silver coins, each worth one gold thaler , were officially minted. Otherwise, the Bremen Senate kept its distance, but it, as well as the Bremen citizenship , consented to the use of the Bürgerweide as a festival area. Here Heinrich Müller planned the squares and the wooden fixed structures. A central hall held 4300 people. 6000 gas candelabra illuminated the fairground. 150 shooting ranges were set up. On the 40,000 m² Volksplatz , a fair-like hustle and bustle arose around a large exhibition building in which Bremen's trade presented its services in shipping, trade and production. One of the attractions, characteristic of the patriotic mood of the festival, were parts of the Hermannsdenkmal , which is in progress and which Ernst von Bandel exhibited against admission in order to finance the completion.
5,500 foreign shooters had to find accommodation in mass quarters and private houses. There were also numerous day visitors as spectators. On July 17th, the number of foreigners in Bremen was estimated at 14,000. 400 shooters came from Oldenburg, 200 from Hamburg, 70 from Berlin, 30 from Switzerland. 62 riflemen of German origin arriving from New York were greeted with a festive ceremony on July 14th on the steamer Bremen . 554 prizes and gifts of honor had arrived in Bremen from German communities and associations all over the world, but hardly any of them were from royal houses. The course of the event suffered from logistical inadequacies and a heat that had not been known since the beginning of regular measurements.
Financially, the company, the cost of which amounted to a quarter of a million thalers, ended with losses of 68,000 thalers.
Political character
If one disregards the strategies of the great powers and considers the consciousness of the bourgeoisie, the 1860s were marked by a growing desire for national unity. The German National Association was founded in 1859 , and the same need to propagate the unification movement and to reassure and reinforce each other in it gave rise to numerous patriotic mass events such as gymnastics and singing festivals. The celebration of Schiller's 100th birthday in 1859, which was also lavishly celebrated in Bremen, had precisely this background. Patriotic excitement was particularly high in the year after the German-Danish War and a year before the final decision in favor of a small German solution . But in the speeches and newspaper reports on the federal shooting there is little more than a dull enthusiasm for the fatherland, advertisement for military training and rhetoric of fraternization without concrete political, let alone democratic goals. Looking back after the festival, Bremen also saw its result disillusioned: “Even more, the political development made the festival, which the city had celebrated with such great enthusiasm, appear as a dubious and useless demonstration” (Lührs).
literature
- Wilhelm Lührs: The Second German Federal Shooting in Bremen (1865) . In: Yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen . Volume 16 (= Festschrift Karl H. Schwebel), 1972, pp. 125–166.