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a sandbox at the beach, oil painting style

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Perfect Beach Scene: 7 Hours of White Sand, Blue Water & Ocean Waves in 4K

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In my life I have been fortunate to have explored fascinating places around the world.  There is one particular city though, that keeps giving me new emotions every day. It is Roma (or Rome).
Its variety of architectures that stands clearly apart from other "megacities", Its unparalleled history legacy and Its intimate and quieter sides make Rome a city that does get into your bloodstream. 

Watch my other works:
Cuba: https://vimeo.com/224883799
Venezia: https://vimeo.com/181612110
Lanzarote: https://vimeo.com/192406523
Reverie of Vietnam: https://vimeo.com/126747807
Moments of Puglia: https://vimeo.com/165102515
Malta: https://vimeo.com/202709486

Rome has been documented in different ways and for different purposes but few videos make you appreciate this city through local's eyes. 

I have dedicated months filming everyday's moment to describe a day in Rome through a roman's eyes. This short film is the result. Let me indulge you for a few minutes.  

Awards:
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2016 ICFF – Italian Contemporary Film Festival

Locations:
Many filmed locations are unknown to many. Click on the link to see film locations on map: https://goo.gl/AWgM6g

Based on an original idea and directed by Oliver Astrologo - FB: http://fb.com/oliver.astrologo
Additional footage: Nils Astrologo

Original Score: 
Max LL - http://maxll.ca

The original soundtrack of ROMA has been produced by talented composer Max LL. All music and sounds effects rights are reserved. 

SteadyCam (Gimbal) support
Aerea Visus - Uniclamp : http://goo.gl/KMDqbs

Thanks:
Marco Baroni di Fonderia, Simone Sampò, Alice Celia, Federico Chericoni and everyone who helped me create this video.

Appearances:
Maurizio & Satia Martinoli, Alessia Scognamiglio, Andrea di Curcio, Stefano Silvani, Valeria D’Ovidio, Tommaso Cassinis. The mask: Jacopo Sabar Giacchino.

Flickr album: https://flic.kr/s/aHskitMuGV

Geek Stuff
I have received so many messages asking for details on how I produce my videos. 
I put down this short piece: http://oliverastrologo.com/videotips this explains few techniques I have been using and includes a list of equipment. Don't hesitate to write to me if you need further details or have any recommendation.

Gear (Find a comprensive list of my equipment here: http://oliverastrologo.com/gear)
Sony A7ii @ 1080 50p PP7 (Exposed in S-Log2)
Sony A7s @ 1080 50p PP7 (Exposed in S-Log2)

Video Stabilization: Area Visus AV-ST-01

Lens used:
Zeiss 35mm 2.8
Zeiss 55mm 1.8
Canon 24-15mm 4.0 IS

Color Correction
ImpulZ LUTs with some tweaks. 

Riprese aeree (in italiano):
La questione delle riprese aeree effettuate con Droni è spesso soggetta a controversie, è importante ricordare che possono essere (e spesso sono) utilizzati in modo responsabile. Le riprese aeree di questo video sono state realizzate prima del 30 Aprile 2014 data antecedente alle nuove restrizioni sui voli, tutte le immagini sono state acquisite rispettando le seguenti modalità:

- Evitare le zone sensibili o qualsiasi cosa che può essere frainteso senza previa autorizzazione.
- Evitare i periodi più affollati, le ore di punta, eventi speciali, ecc.
- Evitare le folle. In caso di zone ove erano presenti delle persone con osservatori di terra e ricetrasmittenti.
- Rispettare le aree residenziali di tranquillità e diritto alla privacy.
- Eliminare qualsiasi materiale che rivela inavvertitamente persone o che possa compromettere la privacy.

Per domande riguardanti le riprese aeree, vi prego di contattarmi via e-mail.

** Important **
All video, music and sounds effects are rights reserved.
Please only use and share this embed code of the original video.
Third party downloads and distribution is not permitted.

If you are interested in buying footage or any inquiry please contact: info@oliverastrologo.com
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„Deutschlands Wiedergeburt": Das Hambacher Fest

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Procession to Hambach Castle, lithograph about 1832. The flag used by the procession would later become the German flag but with the colours in a different order.

The Hambacher Festival was a German national democratic festival celebrated from 27 May to 30 May 1832 at Hambach Castle, near Neustadt an der Weinstraße, in present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The event was disguised as a nonpolitical county fair.[clarification needed ] It was one of the main public demonstrations in support of German unity, freedom and democracy during the era.

At the time of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, Hambach Castle with the historic Palatinate region on the west bank of the Rhine was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. It had however been occupied by French Revolutionary troops during the War of the First Coalition in 1794 and incorporated into the French First Republic in 1801. After Napoleon's defeat, the new Bavarian authorities maintained some constitutional rights, but the local population nevertheless suffered from high taxes and increasing censorship.

National and liberal ideas were strongly advocated by student fraternities (Burschenschaften), the first of which, the Urburschenschaft, was founded in Jena, Thuringia in 1815 and had adopted the Black-Red-Gold colours of the Lützow Free Corps forces, who had fought against the Napoleonic troops. A corresponding flag was already carried along the procession to the Wartburg Festival in 1817. Suppressed by the 1819 Carlsbad Decrees, the German democratic movement gained new momentum by the French July Revolution of 1830 as well as by the November Uprising in Russian Congress Poland, sparking unrests in Saxony, Hanover, Hesse, Brunswick and even in the Prussian capital Berlin. The insurgents witnessed the implementation of the French constitutional July Monarchy and the Belgian Revolution, but also the suppression of the Polish National Government of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski by Russian troops. About 10,000 emigrants fled Poland in the so-called Great Emigration to France via the German states; they were well received especially in Saxony, Baden and Bavaria, where several pro-Polish patronage associations ( Polenvereine) arose.

The formerly French Palatinate had been a last resort for liberal authors and intellectuals, who now had to face the reactionary Bavarian policies. In January 1832 a number of journalists established a democratic association for freedom of the press and speech, which was almost immediately banned by the state government. In turn, the initiators called for a "fair" at Hambach Castle, as any demonstrations were prohibited.

About 20-30,000 people came, from all ranks of society-workmen, women, students and members of parliament, as well as from France and Poland. A delegation of 17 to 20 Polish emigrants took part in the procession from the Neustadt market place uphill to the castle ruin. This pro-Polish support expressed in Hambach was the climax of German liberals' enthusiasm for Poland. Gustave Koerner, who was present, described in his memoirs one highlight of the festival in this manner:

From various platforms eloquent speeches were made by Doctor Siebenpfeiffer, Wirth, Scharpff, Henry Brueggemann, and others, representing the sad condition of Germany, its insignificance in the council of European nations, its depression in trade and commerce, all owing to the want of national union, the division into thirty-eight States, large and small, with their different laws, different weights and measures, different currencies, and most of all to the custom-house lines surrounding every State. The orators complained of the pressure which Austria and Prussia exercised over the German Diet at Frankfort, compelling even liberal-minded princes to the adoption of unconstitutional and illegal measures. Brueggemann, whose speech was one of the most eloquent, addressed the meeting as the representative of the German youth, which, in spite of criminal persecutions, he asserted had kept the idea of the liberty and unity of the Vaterland alive. Persecuted by the government, ridiculed by the indifferent and by the organs of the government, the Burschenschaft had ever represented the union of all the German races, had obliterated State lines, and had persistently propagated the necessity of a national union throughout the land by its members. It was an exciting moment, when, at the close of his speech, he called upon the assembly to hold their hands up and to swear the oath which the delegates of the three Swiss cantons, on the height of the Ruetli, swore, as given in the glorious language of Schiller in his " Tell".

"We swear to be a nation of true brothers,
Never to part in danger and in death."

"Wir wollen sein ein einzig Volk von Bruedern,
In keiner Noth uns trennen und Gefahr."

"We swear we will be free as were our sires
And sooner die than live in slavery."

"Wir wollen frei sein wie die Vaeter waren,
Eher den Tod, als in der Knechtechaft leben."

Thousands held up their hands, and in the most solemn manner repeated the sentences as given by Brueggemann. After a deep silence tremendous cheers arose, and Brueggemann was taken down in triumph by an electrified multitude.

The main demands of the meeting were liberty, civil and political rights as well as national unity and popular sovereignty against the European system of the Holy Alliance. No consensus was reached in regard to actions, and a few uncoordinated violent acts were carried out by students later. The poet Ludwig Börne, who followed his invitation by the representatives of the banned press association, described his mixed emotions, when Heidelberg students gathered in a clamorous torchlight procession in his honour, declaring him a national hero. Burschenschaft members demanded an open revolt and the implementation of a provisional government, which was strongly rejected by the journalists. Nevertheless, of the four main organizers of the meeting, three (Philipp Jakob Siebenpfeiffer and the attorneys Schüler and Geib) fled the country, a fourth (Johann G. A. Wirth) chose to stay and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Rebuilt Hambach Castle today

The gathering had no immediate results, but is considered a milestone in German history because it was the first time that a republican movement had made its mark in the country. It was criticized as a missed opportunity, including by Heinrich Heine. The next year, about 50 insurgents tried to start a democratic revolution by charging the Frankfurt guard house ( Frankfurter Wachensturm), which ultimately failed. Instead the Hambach events prompted the legalist German Federal Convention to issue its order of 28 June 1832 which again tightened the Carlsbad Decrees and completely suppressed freedom of speech. On the anniversary date in 1833, Bavarian military controlled the area and dispersed all attempts to hold another gathering. Many intellectuals retired to a non-political Biedermeier life in the following years.

The Festival also confirmed the establishment of the combination of black, red and gold as a symbol of a democratic movement for a united Germany. The colours were later used by democratic revolutionaries in the Revolutions of 1848 as a symbol of German unity, but it was not achieved until 1871 and, even then, to Otto von Bismarck's specifications. After World War I, Black-Red-Gold were adopted by the Weimar Republic as the national colours of Germany and are used on the modern German flag.

Hambach Castle became an icon of the German democratic movement. A possession of Prince Maximilian II of Bavaria from 1842, it was rebuilt in a Gothic Revival style from 1844 and is today the site of a historical exhibition.

1. ^ Reichel, Peter (2007). Robert Blum - ein deutscher Revolutionär (in German). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 120. ISBN 9783525361368.

2. ^ Stosunki polsko-niemieckie 1831-1848:Wiosna Ludów i okres ja̜ poprzedzajcy : XI Konferencja Wspólnej Komisji Podrecznikowej PRL-RFN Historyków 16-21 V 1978 r., Deidesheim, Volume 1978 page 63

3. ^ Mösslang, Markus (2000). British Envoys to Germany 1816-1866; Volume II, 1830-47. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. ISBN 9780521818681.

4. ^ British Envoys to Germany 1816-1866:, Volume 2 2;Volumes 1830-1847 Markus Mösslang,Sabine Freitag,Peter Wende page 27 Cambridge University Press 2006

5. ^ Historical dictionary of Poland, 966-1945 Jerzy Jan Lerski Greenwood Publishing 1996, page 176

6. ^ Stosunki polsko-niemieckie, 1831-1848: Wiosna Ludów i okres ją poprzedzający : materiały Konferencji Komisji Mieszanej UNESCO PRL-RFN do Spraw Ulepszania Podręczników Szkolnych w PRL i w RFN w zakresie historii i geografii Deidesheim 1978 page 63

7. ^ Koerner, Gustave (1909). "Chapter VIII. The Hambach Festival.". In McCormack, Thomas J. (ed.). Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, 1809-1896, Life-Sketches Written at the Suggestion of His Children (book). Digitization Projects Philologic Results. Vol. 1 (Illinois State Library ed.). Cedar Rapids, IA: The Torch Press. pp. 191, 192. Archived from the original on 25 August 2013. (Text light adjusted)

8. See Heine, ^ Ludwig Börne: A Memorial, trans. J.L. Sammons (Camden House, 2006), pp. 69-72.

Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon. 14th ed., Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna 1894; Vol. 8, p. 698

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The Hambacher Festival was a German national democratic festival celebrated from 27 May to 30 May 1832 at Hambach Castle, near Neustadt an der Weinstraße, in present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The event was disguised as a nonpolitical county fair.[clarification needed ] It was one of the main public demonstrations in support of German unity, freedom and democracy during the era.

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Deutsche Revolution 1848 - Ursachen, Forderungen, Folgen - Märzrevolution 1848/49 einfach erklärt!

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Die Deutsche Revolution von 1848/49 - bezogen auf die erste Revolutionsphase des Jahres 1848 auch Märzrevolution - war das revolutionäre Geschehen, das sich zwischen März 1848 und Juli 1849 im Deutschen Bund ereignete. Von den Erhebungen betroffen waren auch Provinzen und Länder außerhalb des Bundesgebiets, die unter der Herrschaft der mächtigsten Bundesstaaten Österreich und Preußen standen, so etwa Ungarn, Oberitalien oder Posen.

Die damit verbundenen Ereignisse waren Teil der liberalen, bürgerlich- demokratischen und nationalen Einheits- und Unabhängigkeitserhebungen gegen die Restaurationsbestrebungen der in der Heiligen Allianz verbündeten Herrscherhäuser in weiten Teilen Mitteleuropas (vgl. Europäische Revolutionen 1848/1849). Bereits im Januar 1848 hatten sich italienische Revolutionäre gegen die Herrschaft der österreichischen Habsburger im Norden der Apenninen-Halbinsel und der spanischen Bourbonen im Süden erhoben. Nach Beginn der französischen Februarrevolution wurden auch die deutschen Länder Teil dieser Erhebungen gegen die ab 1815 nach dem Ende der Napoleonischen Kriege herrschenden Mächte der Restauration (siehe auch demokratische Bewegung in Deutschland).

In den deutschen Fürstentümern nahm die Revolution ihren Anfang im Großherzogtum Baden und griff innerhalb weniger Wochen auf die übrigen Staaten des Bundes über. Sie erzwang von Berlin bis Wien die Berufung liberaler Regierungen in den Einzelstaaten (die so genannten Märzkabinette) und die Durchführung von Wahlen zu einer verfassungsgebenden Nationalversammlung, die am 18. Mai 1848 in der Paulskirche in der damals freien Stadt Frankfurt am Main zusammentrat. Nach den mit den Märzerrungenschaften[1][2] relativ rasch erkämpften Erfolgen, wie zum Beispiel Aufhebung der Pressezensur oder Bauernbefreiung, geriet die revolutionäre Bewegung ab Mitte 1848 zunehmend in die Defensive. Auch die vor allem im Herbst 1848 und bei der Reichsverfassungskampagne im Mai 1849 neu aufflammenden Höhepunkte der Erhebungen, die regional (beispielsweise in Sachsen, der bayerischen Pfalz, der preußischen Rheinprovinz und vor allem in Großherzogtum Baden) bürgerkriegsähnliche Ausmaße annahmen, konnten das letztliche Scheitern der Revolution in Bezug auf ihre wesentliche Kernforderung nicht mehr aufhalten. Bis Juli 1849 wurde der erste Versuch, einen demokratisch verfassten, einheitlichen deutschen Nationalstaat zu schaffen, von überwiegend preußischen und österreichischen Truppen mit militärischer Gewalt niedergeschlagen.

Die mit der Niederschlagung der Revolution und der nachfolgenden Reaktionsära einhergehende Verfolgung von Anhängern einer liberalen, republikanisch-demokratischen oder sozialistischen Gesinnung veranlasste in den Jahren nach 1848/49 Zehntausende zur Flucht aus den deutschen Staaten. Sie fanden zunächst vor allem in Frankreich, England oder der Schweiz Asyl. Viele, die sich eine mehrere Wochen dauernde Schiffsreise leisten konnten, suchten für sich und ihre Familien die ihnen in der ursprünglichen Heimat verwehrten persönlichen und politischen Freiheiten auch in Übersee. In Australien und den USA gibt es mit dem Begriff Forty-Eighters eine Bezeichnung für die zwischen Ende der 1840er und Mitte der 1850er Jahre aus den deutschen Ländern geflüchteten Einwanderer.

Interessengruppen

Bedeutung für Mitteleuropa

Die Revolutionen von 1848/49 prägten die politische Kultur und das pluralistische Demokratieverständnis der meisten Staaten Mitteleuropas in der Moderne langfristig und nachhaltig: in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (deren Grundgesetz auf dem 1848/49 in der Frankfurter Paulskirche ausgearbeiteten Verfassungsentwurf basiert), in Österreich, Frankreich, Italien, Ungarn, Polen, Dänemark und der Tschechoslowakei (heute Tschechien und Slowakei). Mit den Ereignissen von 1848/49 wurde der Siegeszug der bürgerlichen Demokratie in die Wege geleitet, der auf lange Sicht die spätere historische, politische und soziale Entwicklung fast ganz Europas bestimmte.

Die Märzrevolution gab in zwischenstaatlichen Grundzügen zusätzlich zu vorherigen, in der Aufklärung begründeten Entwicklungen einige ideelle Impulse für die Entwicklung der Europäischen Union (EU) im späten 20. Jahrhundert. So vertrat der italienische Revolutionär Giuseppe Mazzini schon vor den revolutionären Wirren um 1848 ein Europa der Völker. Er stellte diese Utopie gegen das Europa der autoritären Fürstentümer und nahm damit eine politisch-soziale Grundidee der EU vorweg. Mazzinis entsprechende Ideen waren bereits 1834 von einigen idealistischen republikanisch eingestellten Deutschen, unter ihnen Carl Theodor Barth, im Geheimbund Junges Deutschland aufgegriffen worden. Zusammen mit Mazzinis Jungem Italien und dem von polnischen Emigranten gegründeten Jungen Polen bildeten sie im schweizerischen Bern ebenfalls 1834 den übernationalen Geheimbund Junges Europa. Von deren Idealen war oft auch die Aufbruchsstimmung zu Beginn der Märzrevolution geprägt, als vielerorts bei der revolutionären Basis von einem „Internationalen Völkerfrühling " die Rede war.

Wirtschaftliche und soziale Hintergründe

Politische Hintergründe

Einer der bedeutendsten Verfechter der politischen Restauration war der reaktionäre österreichische Diplomat und Staatskanzler Fürst Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. Die Politik der Restauration, die auf dem Wiener Kongress am 9. Juni 1815 - noch unmittelbar vor der endgültigen Niederlage Napoleon Bonapartes bei der Schlacht bei Waterloo (18. Juni 1815) - von den meisten europäischen Staaten beschlossen wurde, sollte innenpolitisch und zwischenstaatlich die politischen Machtverhältnisse des Ancien Régime in Europa wiederherstellen, wie sie vor der Französischen Revolution von 1789 geherrscht hatten. Dies bedeutete die Vorherrschaft des Adels und die Wiederherstellung seiner Privilegien. Weiterhin sollte die napoleonische Neuordnung Europas, die mit dem Code civil auch bürgerliche Rechte etabliert hatte, rückgängig gemacht werden.

Innenpolitisch wurden im Zuge der Restauration Forderungen nach liberalen Reformen oder nach nationaler Einigung unterdrückt, Zensurmaßnahmen verschärft und die Pressefreiheit stark eingeschränkt. Die Werke des literarischen Jungen Deutschland, einer Gruppe junger revolutionär eingestellter Schriftsteller, wurden zensiert oder verboten. Auch andere gesellschaftskritische oder nationalistische Dichter waren von der Zensur betroffen, so dass sie teilweise ins Exil - vor allem nach Frankreich oder die Schweiz - ausweichen mussten. Bekannte Beispiele sind Heinrich Heine, Georg Herwegh, Georg Büchner (der mit der Flugschrift Der Hessische Landbote die aus der Zeit der Französischen Revolution stammende Parole „Friede den Hütten, Krieg den Palästen!" verbreitete) oder Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (der Dichter des Deutschlandlieds).

Die Julirevolution von 1830 in Frankreich, in der das reaktionäre Königshaus der Bourbonen unter Karl X. gestürzt worden war und die bürgerlich-liberalen Kräfte den „Bürgerkönig" Louis Philippe von Orleans eingesetzt hatten, gab auch den liberalen Kräften in Deutschland und anderen Regionen Europas neuen Auftrieb. So war es in verschiedenen deutschen Fürstentümern schon 1830 zu regional begrenzten Aufständen gekommen, wie zum Beispiel in Braunschweig, Kurhessen, im Königreich Sachsen und in Hannover, die teilweise zu Verfassungen in den jeweiligen Staaten geführt hatten.

Einführung

Die wichtigsten Zentren der Revolution nach Frankreich waren Baden, Preußen, Österreich, Oberitalien, Ungarn, Bayern und Sachsen. Aber auch in anderen Staaten und Fürstentümern kam es zu Aufständen und Volksversammlungen, bei denen die revolutionären Forderungen artikuliert wurden. Ausgehend von der Mannheimer Volksversammlung am 27. Februar 1848, auf der die „ Märzforderungen" erstmals formuliert wurden, lauteten die Kernforderungen der Revolution in Deutschland: „1. Volksbewaffnung mit freien Wahlen der Offiziere, 2. unbedingte Preßfreiheit, 3. Schwurgerichte nach dem Vorbild Englands, 4. sofortige Herstellung eines deutschen Parlaments."[3]

Ein chronologischer Verlauf der Revolution in ihrer Gesamtheit ist schwer zu erfassen, da die Ereignisse sich nicht immer eindeutig aufeinander beziehen lassen, Entscheidungen auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen und an unterschiedlichen Orten mal nahezu zeitgleich, mal zu verschiedenen Zeitpunkten getroffen und wieder revidiert wurden.

Zeittafel

Vorrevolutionäre Entwicklung

18. Oktober 1817: Auf dem Wartburgfest wird die deutsche Einheit gefordert.

Spätsommer-Herbst 1819: In den meisten Staaten des Deutschen Bundes kommt es mit den Hep-Hep-Unruhen zu antijüdischen Krawallen, die sich gegen die Judenemanzipation richten und mancherorts pogromartig eskalieren.

20. September 1819: Als Folge der Ermordung des Dichters August von Kotzebue werden mit den Karlsbader Beschlüssen gesetzliche Grundlagen für Repressionen gegen demokratische und nationale Bestrebungen der Burschenschaften und anderer oppositioneller Kreise geschaffen, z. B. durch Verbote demokratischer Gruppen und Vereine, Pressezensur u. a.

Juli 1830: Die Julirevolution in Frankreich löst auch in den Staaten des Deutschen Bundes einige regional begrenzte Aufstände wie die Schneiderrevolution in Berlin aus.

27. Mai 1832: Auf dem Hambacher Fest werden erneut Forderungen nach einem geeinten Deutschland und nach demokratischen Rechten erhoben.

3. April 1833: Beim Frankfurter Wachensturm scheitert der Versuch einer gesamtdeutschen revolutionären Erhebung.

1834: In Bern vereinigen sich die von exilierten Demokraten gebildeten Geheimbünde Junges Italien, Junges Deutschland und Junges Polen auf Initiative des italienischen Revolutionärs Giuseppe Mazzini zum übernationalen Geheimbund Junges Europa.

1834: Georg Büchner und Friedrich Ludwig Weidig verbreiten im Großherzogtum Hessen aus dem Untergrund die sozialrevolutionäre Flugschrift Der Hessische Landbote mit dem Motto „Friede den Hütten, Krieg den Palästen!".

1837: Die Protestproklamation der Göttinger Sieben (einer Gruppe von namhaften liberalen Universitätsprofessoren, darunter auch die Brüder Grimm) gegen die Aufhebung der Verfassung im Königreich Hannover, findet im ganzen Deutschen Bund Verbreitung. Die Gelehrten werden entlassen und einige von ihnen des Landes verwiesen.

Juni 1844: In einer Region Schlesiens erheben sich die Weber infolge zunehmender sozialer Not (Weberaufstand).

April 1847: Der sogenannte Berliner Kartoffelaufstand infolge gestiegener Lebensmittelpreise aufgrund von Missernten im Vorjahr wird nach wenigen Tagen von preußischem Militär niedergeschlagen.

12. September 1847: Bei der Offenburger Versammlung werden von radikal-demokratischen badischen Politikern mit den „Forderungen des Volkes" Grundrechte eingefordert und der als Bedrohung wahrgenommenen Industrialisierung frühsozialistische Ideen entgegengesetzt.

10. Oktober 1847: Bei der Heppenheimer Tagung wird das politische Programm der gemäßigten Liberalen formuliert.

Übergangsphase zur Märzrevolution ab Januar 1848

Januar 1848: Nationalrevolutionäre Aufstände gegen die Herrschaft der spanischen Bourbonen in Süditalien (Sizilien) und gegen die der Österreicher in Norditalien (Mailand, Padua und Brescia) leiten die gesamteuropäische Phase der Revolutionen von 1848/49 ein.

24. Februar 1848: Beginn der Februarrevolution 1848 in Frankreich. Ausrufung der Zweiten Republik. Ministerpräsident François Guizot tritt zurück. Bürgerkönig Louis Philippe dankt ab und geht ins Exil nach England.

Revolutionäre Entwicklung 1848

27. Februar 1848: Inspiriert von der Februarrevolution in Frankreich formuliert die Mannheimer Volksversammlung eine Petition an die Regierung in Karlsruhe mit sogenannten Märzforderungen und wird so zum Fanal der Märzrevolution in den Staaten des Deutschen Bundes.

29. Februar: Der Bundestag setzt einen politischen Ausschuss aus Bundestagsgesandten ein; in den kommenden Wochen erlässt der Bundestag mehrere Bundesbeschlüsse mit dem Ziel, die Unruhe im Volk zu besänftigen.

1. März: Beginn der Märzrevolution in Baden mit der Besetzung des Ständehauses des badischen Landtags in Karlsruhe.

4. März: Beginn der Märzrevolution in Bayern mit Aufständen in München

5. März: Die Heidelberger Versammlung lädt zum Vorparlament.

6. März: Beginn der Märzrevolution in Preußen mit ersten Unruhen in Berlin

9. März: König Wilhelm I. von Württemberg beruft auf Druck der Opposition statt des konservativen Joseph von Linden den Oppositionsführer Friedrich Römer zum Regierungschef und mehrere Liberale in die Regierung und setzte sie als Märzministerium ein.[4]

13. März: Beginn der Märzrevolution in Wien mit dem Sturm auf das Ständehaus; Rücktritt des Staatskanzlers Fürst Metternich, der nach England emigriert.

15. März: Unter dem Eindruck von 20.000 Demonstranten bewilligt der Statthalterbeirat in Pest (heute Budapest), das oberste Verwaltungsorgan des ungarischen Teils des Kaisertum Österreich, die in „Zwölf Punkten" formulierten Forderungen radikaler ungarischer Intellektueller um Sándor Petőfi (u. a. ein von Wien unabhängiges Ministerium und eigenständiges ungarisches Parlament, Abzug aller österreichischen Truppen aus Ungarn, den Aufbau einer ungarischen Nationalarmee und die Schaffung einer Nationalbank) und macht das Königreich Ungarn damit faktisch zu einem selbständigen Staat.

18. März: Bei der Verlesung eines Patents König Friedrich Wilhelms IV. zu Reformen in Preußen kommt es bei einer Versammlung vor dem Berliner Stadtschloss zum bewaffneten Kampf zwischen Bürgern und Militär. Während der Verlesung werden nach anfänglich friedlicher Stimmung revolutionäre Parolen laut. Zwei Schüsse lösen sich, ob beabsichtigt oder aus einem Missverständnis, wird nie geklärt. Es folgt ein Umschlagen der Stimmung der Demonstranten und der gezielte Einsatz des Militärs. Heftige Straßen- und Barrikadenkämpfe schließen sich an und fordern mehrere hundert Tote, nach Behördenangaben 303 Menschen, 288 Männer, 11 Frauen und 4 Kinder.[5]

19. März: König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. wird gezwungen, vor den auf dem Schlosshof aufgebahrten „Märzgefallenen" zu erscheinen und seine Mütze zu ziehen. Am 21. März reitet er mit Schwarz-Rot-Goldener Schärpe durch Berlin und erklärt, er wolle Deutschlands Freiheit, Deutschlands Einigkeit.

31. März bis 3. April: Das Vorparlament tagt in Frankfurt am Main.

12. April bis 20. April: Der republikanisch motivierte Heckerzug in Baden wird am 20. April im Gefecht auf der Scheideck bei Kandern im Schwarzwald niedergeschlagen, Generalleutnant Friedrich von Gagern fällt als Befehlshaber der Bundestruppen. Friedrich Hecker geht ins Exil.

April-Mai: Aufstand der Posener Polen gegen die preußische Vorherrschaft unter Führung von Ludwik Mieroslawski

15. Mai: Zweiter Wiener Aufstand

17. Mai: Kaiser Ferdinand I. flieht unter dem Druck der revolutionären Unruhen aus Wien nach Innsbruck.

2. Juni-12. Juni: Der Slawenkongress tagt in Prag und fordert die Umwandlung der Donaumonarchie Österreich „in einen Bund von gleichberechtigten Völkern".

16. Juni: Niederschlagung des Prager Pfingstaufstandes durch österreichische Truppen

24. Juni: Niederschlagung des französischen Juniaufstands in Paris. Danach erstarkt auch in den Staaten des Deutschen Bundes die Konterrevolution und zwingt die Revolutionäre zunehmend in die Defensive.

25. Juli: Die norditalienischen Aufständischen unter Führung von Sardinien-Piemont unterliegen den österreichischen Truppen in der Schlacht bei Custozza.

9. August: Waffenstillstand zwischen Österreich und Sardinien-Piemont

26. August: Waffenstillstand zwischen Preußen und Dänemark. Die Nationalversammlung muss dem Vertrag von Malmö letztlich am 16. September zustimmen und offenbart so ihre eigene Machtlosigkeit. Die Krise führt zu neuen Unruhen in Frankfurt am Main (Septemberrevolution) und weiteren deutschen Städten.

12. September: Der republikanische Nationalistenführer Lajos Kossuth wird Ministerpräsident in Ungarn. Dem österreichischen Kaiser wird der Titel „König von Ungarn" verwehrt. Es kommt zu nationalrevolutionären Unruhen gegen die Vorherrschaft Österreichs.

18. September: Barrikadenkämpfe gegen preußische und österreichische Truppen in Frankfurt: Septemberrevolution

21.-25. September: 2. badischer Aufstand in Lörrach; Gustav Struve, der am 21. September die deutsche Republik proklamiert, wird im Anschluss daran verhaftet.

6.-31. Oktober: Der Wiener Oktoberaufstand wird nach knapp vier Wochen von kaiserlichen Truppen unter Fürst Windischgrätz blutig niedergeschlagen.

9. November: Robert Blum, Abgeordneter der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung, wird im Zuge der Vergeltungsmaßnahmen gegen die österreichischen Revolutionäre in Wien unter demonstrativer Missachtung der parlamentarischen Immunität standrechtlich erschossen.

21. November: Konstituierung des Centralmärzvereins als deutschlandweite republikanische Organisation durch Abgeordnete verschiedener Fraktionen der demokratischen Linken in der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung

2. Dezember: Der österreichische Kaiser Ferdinand I. dankt ab und überlässt den Thron seinem Neffen Franz Joseph I.

27. Dezember: Die Nationalversammlung in Frankfurt verabschiedet die Grundrechte des deutschen Volkes.

Revolutionäre Entwicklung 1849

Februar-März: Neue Aufstände in einigen österreichischen Gebieten Oberitaliens, insbesondere der revolutionäre Putsch gegen Großherzog Leopold II. in der Toskana, führen zu einem weiteren Krieg zwischen Österreich und Sardinien-Piemont.

23. März: Erneute Niederlage der oberitalienischen Revolutionäre und Sardinien-Piemonts gegen die österreichische Armee in der Schlacht bei Novara

28. März: Die Nationalversammlung verabschiedet nach vielen kontroversen Debatten die Paulskirchenverfassung.

3. April: Der preußische König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. lehnt die ihm von der Nationalversammlung (Kaiserdeputation) angebotene Kaiserkrone ab. Damit sind deutsche Einheit und Reichsverfassung gescheitert.

14. April: Ungarn erklärt seine Unabhängigkeit von Österreich und ruft die Republik aus. Darauf kommt es zum Ungarischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg gegen Österreich.

Nachwirkungen bis Oktober 1849

6. August: Mailänder Friedensvertrag zwischen Österreich und Sardinien-Piemont

23. August: Österreichische Truppen schlagen die revolutionäre Republik Venedig nieder. Oberitalien ist wieder in österreichischer Hand.

3. Oktober: Die letzten ungarischen Revolutionäre kapitulieren gegenüber den Österreichern in der Festung Komorn.

Baden

Struve und Hecker hatten als Vertreter des linken Flügels im Frankfurter Vorparlament, das die Wahl zu einer verfassunggebenden Nationalversammlung vorbereiten sollte, eine föderative deutsche Republik mit nicht nur politischen, sondern auch sozialen Veränderungen gefordert. Ein entsprechendes von Struve veröffentlichtes Programm wurde aber von der Mehrheit des Vorparlaments abgelehnt.

Hecker konnte ins Exil entkommen, das ihn über die Schweiz letztlich in die USA führte. Seine Niederlage nahm der Heidelberger Dichter Karl Gottfried Nadler zum Anlass für seine Spottballade Guckkastenlied vom großen Hecker.

Im Mai 1849 kam es, nachdem die Nationalversammlung in Frankfurt gescheitert war, neben anderen deutschen Staaten auch in Baden zu weiteren Aufständen, den so genannten Maiaufständen im Rahmen der Reichsverfassungskampagne. Die Demokraten wollten dabei die Anerkennung ihrer jeweiligen Regierungen in einer Reichsverfassung erzwingen.

Die badischen Revolutionäre standen im Juni 1849 unter der Führung des polnischen Revolutions generals Ludwik Mieroslawski. Mieroslawski war ein taktisch geschickter und erfahrener Soldat der Revolution. Er hatte im Zuge der Märzrevolution auch schon den Aufstand der Posener Polen 1848 gegen die preußische Vorherrschaft und andere vorausgegangene polnische Aufstände angeführt (siehe Unterartikel Posen, Polen). Mieroslawski trat jedoch bereits am 1. Juli 1849 als Befehlshaber der badischen Revolutionstruppen zurück; er war resigniert von der zögerlichen Haltung der Regierung Brentanos, der auf Verhandlungen setzte und eine von den Radikalen geforderte allgemeine Volksbewaffnung hinauszögerte. Des Weiteren war die Moral der Truppe zurückgegangen, sodass Mieroslawski letztlich die militärische Lage für einen Erfolg der badischen Republik als aussichtslos betrachtete.

Die Unentschlossenheit Brentanos hatte noch Ende Juni 1849 zu dessen Sturz durch Gustav Struve und seine Anhänger geführt. Aber dieser Schritt konnte den Auflösungsprozess der Revolutionstruppen nicht aufhalten. Ohne einheitliche militärische Führung waren die noch übrigen überzeugten Freischärler nahezu chancenlos. Der Niedergang der badischen Revolution war im Grunde besiegelt.

Auf Seiten der badischen Revolutionäre war auch der Sozialist Friedrich Engels aktiv an den Kämpfen beteiligt. Engels war 1848/49 Redakteur der von Karl Marx herausgegebenen Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung und kritisch-sympathisierender Beobachter der Revolution. Ein Jahr zuvor, im Februar 1848, hatte Engels zusammen mit Karl Marx im Auftrag des Bundes der Kommunisten Das Kommunistische Manifest herausgegeben. Auch der zu der Zeit noch relativ unbekannte Wilhelm Liebknecht, der spätere Mitbegründer der Sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterpartei (SDAP), der Vorläuferpartei der SPD, war unter anderem als Adjutant Gustav Struves auf der Seite der Revolutionäre aktiv.

Preußen, Posen, Polen

Preußen

Der König sah sich gezwungen, den getöteten Revolutionären seine Achtung zu erweisen. Er verneigte sich am 19. März vor den aufgebahrten „ Märzgefallenen", bevor sie am 22. März auf dem bis heute so genannten „ Friedhof der Märzgefallenen" beerdigt wurden. Am 21. März ritt er mit einer Binde in den Farben der Revolution Schwarz-Rot-Gold durch Berlin und versprach in einem Aufruf „ An mein Volk und an die deutsche Nation" das Aufgehen Preußens in Deutschland. Am Abend wurde die schwarz-rot-goldene Fahne auf dem Gerüst der Schlosskuppel angebracht. In einer Proklamation verlautete der König:[7]

„Ich habe heute die alten deutschen Farben angenommen und Mich und Mein Volk unter das ehrwürdige Banner des deutschen Reiches gestellt. Preußen geht fortan in Deutschland auf."

- Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

Am Tag darauf schrieb Friedrich Wilhelm IV. insgeheim seinem Bruder, dem Prinzen Wilhelm:

„Die Reichsfarben musste ich gestern freiwillig aufstecken, um Alles zu retten. Ist der Wurf gelungen ..., so lege ich sie wieder ab!"

- Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

Am 29. März 1848 wurde ein liberales Märzministerium eingesetzt. Der neuen Regierung gehörten zwei ehemalige, bürgerliche Vertreter des Ersten Vereinigten Landtages von 1847 an: die rheinischen Bankiers Ludolf Camphausen und David Hansemann. Freilich waren auch konservative Aristokraten wie Karl von Reyher Teil des Kabinetts Camphausen-Hansemann. Sie blockierten Reformvorhaben. Bürokratie und Armee blieben personell und strukturell nahezu unverändert.[8] Bis Ende April 1848 genoss das preußische Märzministerium großes Vertrauen in der Bevölkerung. Eine revolutionäre Umgestaltung des Staates lag jedoch nie im Interesse von Camphausen und Hansemann. Sie beabsichtigten im Bündnis mit den konservativen Kräften und der Monarchie lediglich eine „begrenzte Reformierung" Preußens.[9] Am 20. Juni 1848 wurde das Märzministerium wieder abgeschafft.

Als Ende Mai 1848 die Ereignisse sich etwas beruhigt hatten, vollzog der König eine reaktionäre Kehrtwendung. Mit dem Berliner Zeughaussturm kam es am 14. Juni erneut zu einem revolutionären Aufwallen. Das Volk bewaffnete sich aus dem Waffenarsenal. Am 2. November 1848 wurde General Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg zum Ministerpräsidenten von Preußen ernannt. Eine Woche später kehrten die königlichen Truppen nach Berlin zurück. An der folgenden Konterrevolution in Preußen war auch der konservative Abgeordnete Otto von Bismarck beteiligt, der später preußischer Ministerpräsident und schließlich Reichskanzler des 1871 gegründeten Deutschen Reiches wurde. Die seit dem 22. Mai stattfindenden Verhandlungen der preußischen Nationalversammlung über eine Verfassung, die seit 1815 von Friedrich Wilhelm IV. und seinem Vorgänger immer wieder zugesagt, aber nie verwirklicht worden war, blieben letztlich erfolglos. Der im Juli 1848 vorgelegte Verfassungsentwurf, die „ Charte Waldeck", die einige liberaldemokratische Reformen vorsah, wurde sowohl von den konservativen Abgeordneten als auch vom König abgelehnt.

Posen, Polen

In der Folgezeit bildeten sich in den polnischen Gebieten Russlands, Preußens und Österreichs immer wieder Verschwörungen mit dem Ziel, ein eigenständiges Polen neu zu errichten. Im Gefolge der französischen Julirevolution 1830 kam es dadurch im russischen Teilgebiet zum Novemberaufstand, der jedoch erfolglos blieb.

Nach den Kämpfen am 18. und 19. März 1848 in Berlin wurden 90 polnische Revolutionäre, unter ihnen auch Mierosławski und Karol Libelt, aus dem Gefängnis in Moabit entlassen. Im Anfangsstadium der Märzrevolution, die in Europa als Völkerfrühling empfunden wurde, herrschte unter den Revolutionären noch eine polenfreundliche Haltung vor, die den folgenden Aufstand in Posen zunächst begrüßte und begünstigte. Mierosławski stellte sich kurz nach seiner Befreiung im April und Mai 1848 an die Spitze des Aufstands der Posener Polen gegen die preußische Herrschaft, die nun als deutsch empfunden wurde. Der Aufstand richtete sich gegen die Einbeziehung überwiegend polnischer Gebiete in die Wahlen zur Frankfurter Nationalversammlung und damit gegen die Inkorporation eines Teils von Polen in einen deutschen Nationalstaat. Ferneres Ziel war eine Vereinigung ganz Polens. Insofern zielte die Revolution in Posen auch auf die Befreiung des Königreichs Polen, des so genannten „ Kongresspolens ", das seit 1831 nach dem Verlust der Autonomie, als Provinz unter direkter russischer Herrschaft stand.

Im Zuge des Revolutionsverlaufs in Preußen, wo zunehmend wieder konservative Kräfte die Lage zu bestimmen begonnen hatten, war auch die anfängliche Polenbegeisterung einer nationalistischeren Haltung in Preußen gewichen. Außerdem wollte der preußische König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. wegen des Posener Aufstands keinen Krieg mit Russland riskieren. Am 9. Mai 1848 wurde der Aufstand der Posener Polen von einer Übermacht preußischer Truppen niedergeschlagen und Mierosławski erneut verhaftet. Auf Intervention des revolutionären Frankreichs wurde er nach kurzer Zeit begnadigt und nach Frankreich ausgewiesen; bis er im Juni 1849 von den badischen Revolutionären gerufen wurde, die ihn an die Spitze ihres Revolutionsheeres setzten (siehe Unterartikel Baden).

Nach der Revolution von 1848 hatten die Polen in Preußen erkannt, dass eine gewaltsame Erhebung zu keinem Erfolg führen konnte. Als Methode zur Erhaltung des nationalen Zusammenhalts und zur Abwehr der preußischen Germanisierungspolitik gewann die organische Arbeit in dem nunmehr konstitutionellen preußischen Staat immer größere Bedeutung.

Österreich, Böhmen, Ungarn, Italien und Erster Italienischer Unabhängigkeitskrieg

Österreich

Auch in Österreich war es 1847/1848 zu einem Hungerwinter gekommen. Die wirtschaftliche Not traf die benachteiligten Bevölkerungsgruppen am härtesten. Auch in der Arbeiterschaft war nun die Wut auf das überkommene politische System kurz vor dem Überkochen. Werke wie Alfred Meissners Neue Sklaven oder Karl Becks Gedicht Warum wir arm sind geben ein anschauliches Bild von der Wut und Verzweiflung, die unter der Bevölkerung herrschte.

Schließlich kam es am 13. März 1848 in Wien mit dem Sturm auf das Ständehaus und Anschlägen von Sozialrevolutionären gegen Läden und Fabriken in den Vorstädten zum Ausbruch der Revolution in Österreich. Das Lied Was kommt dort von der Höh, wobei sich die „Höh'" auf die Polizei und die Kasernen bezog, wurde zum Lied der Revolution. Es wird heute noch von diversen Studentenverbindungen gesungen, um der Beteiligung der Akademischen Legion zu gedenken. Vor dem Sturm auf das Ständehaus wurden in einer schon am 3. März 1848 vom ungarischen Nationalistenführer Lajos Kossuth verfassten Rede der Unmut gegen das politische System und die Forderungen der Revolutionäre nach einer konstitutionellen Umwandlung der Monarchie und nach Verfassungen für die österreichischen Länder ausgedrückt. Diese Rede wurde in der Ständeversammlung von Adolf Fischhof verlesen. Der Versuch, eine Petition an Kaiser Ferdinand zu überbringen, entwickelte sich zu einem regelrechten Demonstrationszug, sodass Erzherzog Albrecht den Befehl zum Feuern gab und es zu den ersten Todesopfern kam.

Am Abend des 13. März trat der Staatskanzler Fürst Metternich, die verhasste 74-jährige Symbolfigur der Restauration, zurück und floh nach England. Dieses Ereignis wurde zum Beispiel durch Hermann Rolletts Gedicht Metternichs Linde thematisiert.

Am 14. März machte Kaiser Ferdinand I. erste Zugeständnisse: Er billigte die Errichtung einer Nationalgarde und hob die Zensur auf. Am folgenden Tag präzisierte er dies dahingehend, dass er „vollkommene Preßfreiheit gewährt" habe und versprach zugleich den Erlass einer Verfassung (das so genannte Verfassungsversprechen vom 15. März 1848, siehe Bild nebenan).

Am 16. Juni schlugen österreichische Truppen unter Alfred Fürst zu Windischgrätz den Prager Pfingstaufstand nieder.

Unter den standrechtlich erschossenen Opfern war neben anderen auch der populäre linksliberal-republikanische Abgeordnete der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung Robert Blum, der am 9. November 1848 trotz seiner parlamentarischen Immunität hingerichtet wurde und damit zu einem Märtyrer der Revolution wurde. Literarisch wurde dieses Ereignis im (Volks-) „Lied von Robert Blum" verarbeitet, welches aber vorwiegend in den deutschen Staaten außerhalb Österreichs gesungen wurde.

Damit war die Revolution in Österreich niedergeschlagen. Die im März ausgearbeitete Verfassung trat nie in Kraft. Allerdings blieben die Ereignisse in Ungarn und Italien zunächst noch ein Hindernis für Franz Joseph I., seinen Machtanspruch im ganzen Habsburgerreich durchzusetzen.

Kulturell war das Jahr 1848 durch die kurzfristige Aufhebung der Zensur geprägt. Dies hatte zur Folge, dass eine Vielzahl von Werken veröffentlicht wurde, Zeitschriften aus dem Boden schossen und wieder verschwanden und sich die Schreibkultur grundlegend wandelte. Friedrich Gerhards „Die Presse frei!", M. G. Saphirs „Der tote Zensor", das Zensorlied oder Ferdinand Sauters „Geheime Polizei" geben ein Bild von der Aufbruchsstimmung. Es wurde auch scharfe Kritik am bestehenden System geübt. Beispiele dafür finden sich in Johann Nestroys Freiheit in Krähwinkel, Der alte Mann mit der jungen Frau, Skizzen zu Höllenangst, Lady und Schneider oder Die lieben Anverwandten (1848), in den politischen Gedichten von Anastasius Grün sowie in den Schriften von Franz Grillparzer: „Dem Vaterlande" und „Gedanken zur Politik".

Böhmen

Ungarn

Italienische Provinzen und Staaten

Italien bestand im 19. Jahrhundert, nach der militärischen Beendigung der napoleonischen Hegemonie in Europa und auch in den italienischen Fürstentümern, aus verschiedenen Einzelstaaten. Die oberitalienischen Gebiete ( Lombardei, Venetien, die Toskana und Modena) standen unter österreichischer Oberhoheit. Spätestens seit den 1820er Jahren war es zu den Aufständen des Risorgimento („Wiedererstehung") gekommen, die einen italienischen Einheitsstaat anstrebten und sich damit auch gegen die österreichische Herrschaft in Oberitalien richteten. Aus dem Untergrund besonders aktiv waren dabei die Gruppen um die radikaldemokratischen Nationalrevolutionäre Giuseppe Mazzini und Giuseppe Garibaldi in den 1830er Jahren, als sie in verschiedenen Regionen Italiens im Gefolge der französischen Julirevolution mehrere Aufstände initiierten, die jedoch alle scheiterten.

Auch in der Zeit der Märzrevolution spielten diese Revolutionäre in Italien eine wichtige Rolle. Mazzinis Thesen von einem geeinten freien Italien in einem von den monarchischen Dynastien befreiten Europa der Völker, die in der verbotenen Zeitung Giovine Italia („ Junges Italien ") verbreitet wurden, hatten nicht nur Einfluss auf die Revolutionen in den italienischen Staaten, sondern waren auch bedeutsam für die radikaldemokratischen Strömungen in vielen anderen Regionen Europas.

Papst Pius IX. floh vor den sich zuspitzenden Unruhen im November 1848 aus Rom und verließ den Kirchenstaat. Er setzte sich nach Gaeta an der Küste Neapel-Siziliens ab. Am 9. Februar 1849 riefen die römischen Revolutionäre unter Giuseppe Mazzini die Republik im Kirchenstaat aus. Am 3. Juli 1849 wurde die römische Revolution von französischen und spanischen Truppen niedergeschlagen, was teilweise in Frankreich selbst zu Protesten, etwa in Lyon, führte. Nach der Zerschlagung des Aufstands wurde die Macht von einem Exekutivkomitee aus Kardinälen übernommen. Erst 1850 kehrte der Papst zurück, machte einen Großteil seiner 1846 eingeführten Reformen rückgängig und etablierte polizeistaatliche Verhältnisse.

Bayern

Großherzogtum Hessen

Sachsen

Zentrale Figur dieser Erhebung von etwa 12.000 Aufständischen, unter denen sich auch der damalige Hofkapellmeister Richard Wagner befand, war der russische Anarchist Michail Bakunin. Das Ziel des Aufstands war die Durchsetzung der Reichsverfassung („Reichsverfassungskampagne") und die Erringung demokratischer Rechte. Der Kampf der Radikalen, organisiert in den Märzvereinen, bezweckte aber weniger die Anerkennung der Verfassung selbst, sondern die Durchsetzung und Anerkennung einer sächsischen Republik in der Reichsverfassung.

Die Revolutionäre bildeten eine provisorische Regierung, nachdem der König aus der Stadt in die Festung Königstein geflohen war, die Kammern aufgelöst und die Minister zurückgetreten waren. Die sächsischen Truppen standen größtenteils in Holstein. Die geflohene sächsische Regierung wandte sich an Preußen um Hilfe. Die preußischen Truppen schlugen zusammen mit den verbliebenen regulären Militäreinheiten Sachsens den Aufruhr am 9. Mai 1849 nach erbitterten Straßenkämpfen nieder.

Holstein, Schleswig; erster deutsch-dänischer Krieg

Dieses eigenmächtige Vorgehen Preußens führte in der inzwischen tagenden Nationalversammlung in Frankfurt zu einer Krise. Es wurde deutlich, wie geringfügig die Mittel und der Einfluss der Nationalversammlung waren. Sie war letztlich hilflos dem Gutdünken der mächtigen Einzelstaaten Preußen und Österreich ausgeliefert. Da die Nationalversammlung über keine eigenen Machtmittel verfügte, um den Krieg gegen Dänemark ohne Preußen weiter zu führen, sah sie sich am 16. September 1848 gezwungen, der Waffenstillstandsvereinbarung zuzustimmen. Die Folge dieser Zustimmung waren erneute Unruhen in ganz Deutschland und besonders in Frankfurt am Main (vgl. Septemberunruhen). Darauf wurden preußische und österreichische Truppen nach Frankfurt befohlen, gegen die es am 18. September zu Barrikadenkämpfen kam. Bei diesen Kämpfen ging es den Aufständischen nicht mehr so sehr um die Schleswig-Holstein-Frage, sondern zunehmend um die Verteidigung der Revolution selbst.

Die Frankfurter Nationalversammlung sollte eine nationalstaatlich organisierte deutsche Einheit vorbereiten und eine gesamtdeutsche Reichsverfassung ausarbeiten. In der Nationalversammlung waren vornehmlich die Schichten des Bürgertums vertreten, Männer von Besitz und Bildung, hohe Beamte, Professoren, Offiziere, Richter, Staatsanwälte, Advokaten usw. Aufgrund der Häufung des gehobenen Bürgertums wurde die Nationalversammlung vom Volk teilweise abschätzig spöttelnd als „ Honoratiorenparlament" oder „Professorenparlament" bezeichnet. Tatsächlich war das Parlament jedoch eher ein „Beamten"- und „Juristenparlament" mit einem Anteil von je knapp 50 %. Im Gegensatz dazu waren Großgrundbesitzer, Bauern sowie Unternehmer und Handwerker kaum repräsentiert. Arbeiter waren überhaupt nicht in der Nationalversammlung vertreten.[10] Im Rahmen der parlamentarischen Arbeit bildeten sich bald unterschiedliche Gruppierungen und Fraktionen heraus, die sich nach den Lokalen benannten, in denen sie sich nach oder zwischen den Sitzungen trafen, um ihre Anträge und Vorstellungen abzustimmen. Außer einer großen Gruppe nicht den - ohnehin Verschiebungen unterworfenen - Fraktionen angehörenden Abgeordneten entstanden im Wesentlichen zwei ideologische Flügel und zwei Mittelparteien:

1. Die demokratische Linke - im Sprachgebrauch der damaligen Zeit auch als die Ganzen bezeichnet, bestehend aus den Fraktionen Deutscher Hof, Donnersberg (linksaußen), ab November auch Nürnberger Hof - seit Anfang 1849 übergreifend unter dem Dach des Centralmärzvereins vereinigt, aus dem vor allem das „Rumpfparlament" erwuchs.

2. Das parlamentarisch-liberale linke Zentrum - bestehend aus Württemberger Hof und Westendhall, ab September auch Augsburger Hof, ab Februar 1849 mit dem rechten Zentrum zur „Weidenbusch"-Gruppe vereinigt.

3. Das konstitutionell-liberale rechte Zentrum - geprägt von der größten Fraktion Casino, ab August mit der Abspaltung Landsberg - zusammen mit dem linken Zentrum bildeten sie die liberale Mitte, die sogenannten Halben. Anfang 1849 schloss sich ein Teil des Casinos mit den Rechten zum Pariser Hof zusammen.

4. Die konservative Rechte - meist protestantische Konservative, tagten zuerst im Steinernen Haus, ab September bekannt als Café Milani.

Die Vorstellungen der Fraktionen reichten von der von den Ganzen vertretenen „ radikaldemokratischen" Minderheitsposition der Errichtung einer parlamentarischen gesamtdeutschen demokratischen Republik, über eine von den Halben vertretene konstitutionelle Monarchie mit Erbkaisertum als so genannte Kleindeutsche Lösung (ohne Österreich) oder als so genannte großdeutsche Lösung (mit Österreich), bis hin zum Erhalt des Status quo.

Zu der lähmenden Uneinigkeit der Abgeordneten kam das Fehlen einer handlungsfähigen Exekutive, um die Beschlüsse des Parlaments durchzusetzen, die u. a. oft an österreichischen oder preußischen Alleingängen scheiterten. Dies führte zu mehreren Krisen, so etwa in der schleswig-holsteinischen Frage bezüglich eines Krieges gegen Dänemark (→ oben: Holstein, Schleswig; erster preußisch-dänischer Krieg).

Trotz allem wurde am 28. März 1849 mit einer Mehrheit von 42 Stimmen die Paulskirchenverfassung verabschiedet, die eine kleindeutsche Lösung unter preußischer Führung vorsah. Der König von Preußen war als Kaiser vorgesehen. Als am 3. April König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. von Preußen die ihm durch die Kaiserdeputation angetragene Kaiserwürde ablehnte (Friedrich Wilhelm bezeichnete die ihm angetragene Kaiserkrone als „aus Dreck und Letten gebackener Reif"[11][12]), war die Frankfurter Nationalversammlung faktisch gescheitert. Von den deutschen Mittelstaaten stimmten 29 der Verfassung zu. Österreich, Bayern, Preußen, Sachsen und Hannover lehnten sie ab. Die preußischen und österreichischen Abgeordneten verließen die Nationalversammlung, als sie von ihren Regierungen illegal abberufen wurden.

Um trotz des Erstarkens der Gegenrevolution die Verfassung dennoch in den einzelnen Ländern durchzusetzen, kam es im Mai 1849 in einigen Revolutionszentren zu den so genannten Maiaufständen im Rahmen der Reichsverfassungskampagne. Diese Aufstände bildeten einen zweiten, radikalisierten Revolutionsschub, der in einigen Gebieten des Bundes wie etwa in Baden und Sachsen bürgerkriegsähnliche Ausmaße annahm. Die Frankfurter Nationalversammlung verlor durch die Abberufungen und weitere Austritte den Großteil ihrer Mitglieder und zog als „ Rumpfparlament" ohne die preußischen und österreichischen Abgeordneten am 30. Mai 1849 nach Stuttgart um. Am 18. Juni 1849 wurde dieses Rumpfparlament von württembergischen Truppen gewaltsam aufgelöst. Mit der Niederschlagung der letzten revolutionären Kämpfe am 23. Juli in Rastatt war die Deutsche Revolution 1848/49 endgültig gescheitert.

Die Niederschlagung der Revolution und der Sieg der Reaktion hatten einen spezifisch deutschen Dualismus zwischen den Ideen von Nation (→ Patriotismus, Nationalismus) und Demokratie geschaffen, der die Geschichte Deutschlands langfristig prägte und der bis in die Gegenwart spürbar ist. Anders als beispielsweise in Frankreich, den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen Ländern, in denen „Nation" und „Demokratie" nach erfolgreichen Revolutionen traditionell eher als Einheit gesehen werden und ein Bekenntnis zur Nation in der Regel auch ein Bekenntnis zur Demokratie mit einschließt, ist das Nation-Demokratie-Verhältnis in Deutschland bis heute Gegenstand polarisierend- kontroverser und oft sehr emotional geführter Debatten (→ Deutscher Sonderweg).

Ein weiterer bleibender Erfolg der Revolutionsjahre war die Abschaffung der geheimen Inquisitionsjustiz der Restaurations- und Vormärzzeit. Die Forderung nach Öffentlichkeit der Strafgerichtsbarkeit, nach öffentlichen Geschworenengerichten, hatte zu den fundamentalen Märzforderungen gehört. Ihre Durchsetzung führte zu einer nachhaltigen Verbesserung der Rechtssicherheit.

Zudem entstand während der Revolution nach Auflockerung der Pressezensur eine mehr oder weniger pluralistische Presselandschaft. Neue Zeitungen nahmen von links bis rechts Einfluss auf das politische Zeitgeschehen. Auf der Linken war dies etwa die von Karl Marx herausgegebene Neue Rheinische Zeitung, die 1849 verboten wurde. Die gemäßigte Mitte wurde unter anderem von der Deutschen Zeitung vertreten, die Rechte wurde von der Neuen Preußischen Zeitung (Kreuzzeitung), an deren Gründung Otto von Bismarck beteiligt war, repräsentiert. Mit dem Kladderadatsch wurde am 7. Mai 1848 auch eine der ersten bedeutenden satirischen Zeitschriften Deutschlands ins Leben gerufen.

Die nationale Idee einer kleindeutschen Einigung (→ Unionspolitik) wurde - nach ihrem vorläufigen Scheitern in der Olmützer Punktation 1850 - schließlich von den herrschenden konservativen Kräften unter preußischer Führung, besonders unter Otto von Bismarck als preußischem Ministerpräsidenten seit 1862, nach den drei „ deutschen Einigungskriegen" Preußens gegen Dänemark, gegen Österreich und gegen Frankreich von oben durch- und umgesetzt. Im Jahr 1871 wurde nach dem Sieg über Frankreich ein Deutsches Reich mit König Wilhelm I. von Preußen als Deutschem Kaiser ausgerufen.

Die im Lauf der Jahrzehnte zunehmende ideologische Überhöhung und Verklärung des deutschen Nationalismus und Militarismus, die mit einer gleichzeitigen Diskreditierung demokratischer Ideale durch die politisch herrschenden Gesellschaftsschichten einherging, beförderte mittel- bis langfristig in immer stärkeren Maße auch antisemitische Ressentiments und das verstärkte Aufkommen rechtsextremer, im damaligen Sprachgebrauch „völkisch"-nationalistischer Gruppen und Parteien (→ Völkische Bewegung). Diese Entwicklungen trugen schließlich mit zu den Kriegen und politischen Katastrophen des 20. Jahrhunderts bei - Erster Weltkrieg, Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Zweiter Weltkrieg und Holocaust.

Entwicklung der revolutionären Interessengruppen

Zum Beispiel wurde am 3. September 1848 in Berlin die Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiterverbrüderung auf Initiative des Schriftsetzers Stephan Born gegründet. Sie gilt als erste überregionale Organisation der deutschen Arbeiterschaft und leitete die Entwicklung der Gewerkschaften ein. Am 12. Mai 1849 rief die Journalistin und frühe Frauenrechtlerin Louise Otto, nach ihrer späteren Heirat als Louise Otto-Peters bekannt, die neue politisch motivierte Frauen-Zeitung ins Leben, in der sie unter anderem den Zusammenschluss von Arbeiterinnen nach dem Vorbild der Assoziationen männlicher Gesellen forderte.

Nach 1849 blieben die Differenzen zwischen monarchistisch geprägten Corps und liberal eingestellten Burschenschaften unter den Studenten vorerst bestehen. Die Burschenschaften, ursprünglich mit wegbereitend für die Märzrevolution, verloren jedoch an politischem Einfluss. Nach der Reichseinigung 1870/1871 arrangierten sich die meisten Studentenverbindungen mit den politischen Verhältnissen.

Nahezu alle im 20. Jahrhundert relevanten gesellschaftspolitischen Strömungen Deutschlands und Europas - von der radikalen Linken über bürgerliche Demokraten bis zur nationalistischen Rechten - können sich auf politische Ideen, Persönlichkeiten und Entwicklungen berufen, die in den Revolutionsjahren 1848/49 ihre fundamentale Prägung erfahren hatten. Daher ist es folgerichtig, dass heute in zahlreichen Gedenkstätten und Straßennamen der Ereignisse der Märzrevolution gedacht wird.[13]

Literarisches Resümee Georg Herweghs 1873

Achtzehnhundert vierzig und acht,
Als im Lenze das Eis gekracht.
Tage des Februar, Tage des Märzen,
Waren es nicht Proletarierherzen.
Die voll Hoffnung zuerst erwacht,
Achtzehnhundert vierzig und acht?

Achtzehnhundert vierzig und acht,
Als du dich lange genug bedacht,
Mutter Germania, glücklich verpreußte,
Waren es nicht Proletarierfäuste,
Die sich ans Werk der Befreiung gemacht
Achtzehnhundert vierzig und acht?

Achtzehnhundert vierzig und acht,
Als du geruht von der nächtlichen Schlacht,
Waren es nicht Proletarierleichen,
Die du, Berlin, vor den zitternden, bleichen
Barhaupt grüßenden Cäsar gebracht
Achtzehnhundert vierzig und acht?

Achtzehnhundert siebzig und drei,
Reich der Reichen, da stehst du, juchhei!
Aber wir Armen, verkauft und verraten,
Denken der Proletariertaten -
Noch sind nicht alle Märze vorbei,
Achtzehnhundert siebzig und drei.

Probleme und Alternativen

Laut Hans-Ulrich Wehler schwächten sechs Faktoren die deutsche Revolution:

1. Die Anfangserfolge führten zu einer Selbstüberschätzung der Revolutionäre, die dann die konservativen Kräfte unterschätzten. Während die Liberalen mit den Märzerfolgen zufrieden waren, wollten die Demokraten die Revolution weiter vorantreiben und ihre Ziele sichern, das polarisierte die Bewegung. Frühe Agrarreformen befriedigten ländliche Besitzklassen, die folglich die Revolution nicht mehr unterstützten.

2. Die Liberalen waren Revolutionäre wider Willen, fürchteten die anarchischen Volksbewegungen und wollten legale Wege beschreiten, nicht radikal mit der Vergangenheit brechen.

3. Liberale und Demokraten brauchten zu lange, um parlamentarische Kompromisspolitik zu lernen. Allerdings hätte auch ein Bündnis von Liberalen und Demokraten nichts gegen die Stärke der Gegenrevolution ausmachen können.

4. Die Regionen Deutschlands waren sehr unterschiedlich entwickelt, und die Vielspalterei ließ die Spannung zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie sich „drei dutzendmal" wiederholen.

5. Es fehlte eine „große Allianz der verschiedenen revolutionären Kräfte", die gegen die Gegner hätte gewinnen können. „Handlungsfähige Klassen, die gegen die alte Ordnung koalieren konnten, gab es noch nicht."

6. Damals gab es zu viele „Modernisierungsaufgaben", die gleichzeitig gelöst werden mussten. Lösungsversuche riefen aber Widerstand hervor.[14]

Thomas Nipperdey richtet zunächst das Augenmerk auf die Liberalen, weil ihnen später die meisten Vorwürfe gemacht wurden. Die Liberalen hatten immerhin die Mehrheit hinter sich, entgegen den selbstgesetzten Ansprüchen einer radikalen Minderheit. Die Liberalen standen gegen die Linke ebenso wie gegen die Gegenrevolution und waren Revolutionäre wider Willen. Sie wollten das Bestehende revolutionieren, aber die Revolution in die Legalität überführen. Man könne von den Liberalen des 19. Jahrhunderts nicht erwarten, dass sie die auf Gleichheit bedachten Normen späterer Zeit teilten. Vielleicht war ihre Furcht vor einer sozialen Revolution und einer Terrorherrschaft wie in Frankreich 1792/1793 übertrieben, sie war aber nicht unberechtigt, denn der linke Radikalismus war eine reale Macht.[15]

Über die Zielsetzungen der verschiedenen Lager möge man je nach eigener politischer Richtung diskutieren, meint Nipperdey, „eine wissenschaftliche Entscheidung ist da nicht möglich". Frage man nach dem Realitätsgehalt und den Chancen der Konzepte, dann mag der allmähliche, aber entschiedene Gang der Liberalen eine sinnvolle Strategie gewesen sein, solange die alten Mächte schwach waren. Die Linke, gerade die republikanische, setzte mehr auf die Volksmassen. Die Liberalen aber waren berechtigterweise skeptisch bezüglich eines Volkes, in dem viele noch monarchisch und einzelstaatlich eingestellt waren. Die Gegenrevolution hätte Massen gegen eine republikanische Revolution mobilisieren können, mit einem Bürgerkrieg als Folge, vielleicht gar mit einem Eingreifen Russlands. Manche auf der Linken begrüßten eine solche Katastrophenpolitik des großen europäischen Krieges gegen das reaktionäre Russland sogar: „sie wollten die Sintflut riskieren, weil danach sie selbst kämen".[17]

Außerhalb eines solchen Radikalismus denkt Nipperdey noch an eine rechtsliberale Alternative, nach der der Deutsche Bund grundlegend reformiert worden wäre, das wäre aber selbst den meisten Rechtsliberalen nicht weit genug gegangen. Die Rechtsliberalen um Heinrich von Gagern hätten andererseits mehr mit der gemäßigten Linken um Robert Blum zusammenarbeiten können, für eine schärfere, nicht sanftere Gangart. Doch die gemäßigte Linke empfand starken Zusammenhalt mit der radikalen, und es gab große Gegensätze in konkreten Fragen. Und mit der schärferen Gangart wäre der Strudel, der zur Gegenrevolution führte, vielleicht noch früher eingetreten. Eine alternative Zeitfolge wäre möglicherweise ebenso wie die reale sowieso am Problem Großdeutsch/kleindeutsch aufgelaufen.[18]

Frage des Scheiterns

Mike Rapport sieht in der gescheiterten Revolution eine verpasste Chance und den Anfang eines deutschen Sonderwegs. Nicht von unten, sondern von oben, mit preußischer Militärmacht, sei dann später ein autoritäres Reich von Bismarck gegründet worden, das die Saat zum Dritten Reich gelegt habe. Die deutschen Liberalen hätten ebenso von Macht geträumt, von deutscher Macht, und hätten die nationale Einheit über die politische Freiheit gestellt. „Das war vielleicht die tiefere Tragödie von 1848: selbst die Liberalen waren zu bereit, die Freiheit der Macht zu opfern."[19] Helga Grebing untersucht die Sonderwegsthese sehr kritisch und übernimmt für die Revolution von 1848 die Formulierung von Michael Stürmer, dass sie statt als „gescheitert" treffender als „unvollendet" bezeichnet werden könne. Zudem müsse man fragen, ob Historiker die bürgerliche Revolution „zu sehr als einmaligen umwälzenden Akt" verstehen, von dem sie zu viel erwarten.[20]

Nipperdey verweist auf die zahlreichen Probleme, denen die Revolutionäre gegenüberstanden:[21]

„Das Scheitern eines politischen Handelns [...] muß nicht die Schuld der Scheiternden sein, nicht ihrer - vermeidbaren - Fehler, nicht ihrer unvermeidbaren Grundeinstellungen; die Besiegten sind nicht immer schuld an ihrer Niederlage. Die eigentliche Ursache des Scheiterns ist, daß die Widerstände zu vielfältig und zu groß waren, und so die Probleme, die zur Lösung anstanden [...] Die verfassungspolitische Gemeinsamkeit der Revolution wurde von den inneren Spannungen der deutschen Gesellschaft erschwert und geschwächt, [...] die liberale Staatsbürgergesellschaft, die doch erst im Werden war, war von dem Partikularismus der deutschen Gesellschaft, die in sich noch so heterogen war, bedroht."

Gemessen an ihren Zielen, so Hans-Ulrich Wehler, war die Revolution gescheitert. Die politische Teilhabe an der staatlichen Macht wurden von den siegreichen Konservativen wieder beseitigt, und die Gründung eines liberal-konstitutionellen Nationalstaats gelang auch nicht.[22] Es gab aber auch Fortschritte zu verzeichnen:

Die konservativen Regierungen wagten es nicht, die Agrarreformen rückgängig zu machen, die in der ländlichen Gesellschaft den Feudalismus beendeten. Einige Privilegien der Adligen wie die Patrimonialgerichtsbarkeit blieben abgeschafft.

Eine staatliche Sozialpolitik setzte ein, wenngleich die Repression andauerte. Das Koalitionsverbot für gewerbliche Arbeiter wurde sogar auf Landarbeiter und Bergarbeiter ausgedehnt.

Die privatkapitalistische Industrialisierung erhielt freie Bahn, was die Modernisierung der Wirtschaft förderte.

Mit Ausnahme Österreichs hatten nach der Revolution alle deutschen Staaten eine Verfassung.[23]

Wehler verwehrt sich gegen die seiner Meinung nach „krass" einseitige Formel vom Scheitern der Revolution, da es mittelbar imponierende Erfolge und eine Umgestaltung von Politik und Gesellschaft gegeben habe. Die von ihr gesetzten Maßstäbe blieben ein Ideal, „das trotz aller Rückschläge nach 1849 für viele Menschen verbindlich blieb - und deshalb als politische Grundtatsache auf längere Sicht nicht umgangen werden konnte".[24]

Hahn und Berding sehen die Revolution als End- und Höhepunkt eines Umbruchs, der schon am Beginn des Jahrhunderts stärker geworden war. Gesucht wurde eine Neuordnung der deutschen Staatenwelt, die mit dem europäischen Staatensystem vereinbar war ebenso wie eine neue Legitimation von Herrschaft und politische Teilhabe der Gesellschaft, jeweils vor dem Hintergrund einer neuen, liberalen Marktgesellschaft. Wie auch woanders in Europa gab es dabei Phasen der Beschleunigung, aber auch des Stillstands oder Rückschritts.[25]

Selbst durch ein entschlosseneres Handeln - gar einen europäischen Befreiungskrieg - hätten die Revolutionäre 1848/1849 viele der Hindernisse, den Reformstau, nicht beseitigen können. Die Interessen waren zu verschieden, die Handelnden unterlagen Fehleinschätzungen. Aber die Revolution hat wichtige Traditionen in der deutschen Parlaments- und Parteiengeschichte gegründet und eine bislang unbekannte nationale Öffentlichkeit geschaffen, die Gesellschaft wurde weiter politisiert, die Regierungen wurden zu neuen Initiativen in der Einheitsfrage gezwungen. Die neuere Forschung, so Hahn und Berding, hat denn auch die These des Sonderwegs vielfach relativiert und kritisiert, stattdessen entdeckte man die Gemeinsamkeiten der Modernisierungsprozesse Deutschlands und Europas.[26]

Karl Griewank griff die Frage auf, ob die Ereignisse von 1848/1849 überhaupt eine Revolution darstellten,[27]

„[...] um eine Umwälzung, die sich wirklich auf das staatliche, gesellschaftliche und geistige Leben unseres Volkes erstreckt habe; verbitterte Anhänger und höhnende Gegner waren sich darin einig, diese Frage zu verneinen. Verstehen wir aber unter Revolution mehr als einen bloßen Aufstand der Unzufriedenheit, dann war es eine Revolution: eine politische Bewegung, die das deutsche Volk doch in seinen Tiefen aufgerührt hat, die neuen und unterdrückten Kräften einen weithin sichtbaren Raum verschaffte, wenn dieser ihnen auch von den Gegnern wieder streitig gemacht werden konnte."

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Deutsche Revolution 1848/1849 - Wikipedia

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Die Deutsche Revolution von 1848/49 - bezogen auf die erste Revolutionsphase des Jahres 1848 auch Märzrevolution - war das revolutionäre Geschehen, das sich zwischen März 1848 und Juli 1849 im Deutschen Bund ereignete. Von den Erhebungen betroffen waren auch Provinzen und Länder außerhalb des Bundesgebiets, die unter der Herrschaft der mächtigsten Bundesstaaten Österreich und Preußen standen, so etwa Ungarn, Oberitalien oder Posen.

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Biedermeier - Literaturepoche einfach erklärt - Merkmale, Literatur, Geschichte, Vertreter

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Mapping Memories: Lesung aus Ludwig Börnes Briefen aus Paris

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The German revolutions of 1848-49 ( German: Deutsche Revolution 1848/1849), the opening phase of which was also called the March Revolution ( German: Märzrevolution), were initially part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. They were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire. The revolutions, which stressed pan-Germanism, demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional, largely autocratic political structure of the thirty-nine independent states of the Confederation that inherited the German territory of the former Holy Roman Empire after its dismantlement as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. This process began in the mid 1840s.

The middle-class elements were committed to liberal principles, while the working class sought radical improvements to their working and living conditions. As the middle class and working class components of the Revolution split, the conservative aristocracy defeated it. Liberals were forced into exile to escape political persecution, where they became known as Forty-Eighters. Many emigrated to the United States, settling from Wisconsin to Texas.

The groundwork of the 1848 uprising was laid as early as the Hambacher Fest of 1832, when public unrest began to grow in the face of heavy taxation and political censorship. The Hambacher Fest is also noteworthy for the Republicans adopting the black-red-gold colours used on today's national flag of Germany as a symbol of the Republican movement and of the unity among the German-speaking people.

Activism for liberal reforms spread through many of the German states, each of which had distinct revolutions. They were also inspired by the street demonstrations of workers and artisans led in Paris, France, from February 22 through 24, 1848, which resulted in the abdication by King Louis-Philippe of France and his exile in Britain. In France the revolution of 1848 became known as the February Revolution.

The revolutions spread from France across Europe; they erupted soon thereafter in Austria and Germany, beginning with the large demonstrations on March 13, 1848, in Vienna. This resulted in the resignation of Prince von Metternich as chief minister to Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, and his going into exile in Britain. Because of the date of the Vienna demonstrations, the revolutions in Germany are usually called the March Revolution (German: Märzrevolution).

Fearing the fate of Louis-Philippe, some monarchs in Germany accepted some of the demands of the revolutionaries, at least temporarily. In the south and west, large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations took place. They demanded freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, written constitutions, arming of the people, and a parliament.

In 1848, Austria was the predominant German state. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved by Napoleon in 1806, it was succeeded by a similarly loose coalition of states known as the German Confederation at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Austria served as President ex officio of this confederation. German Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich had dominated Austrian politics from 1815 until 1848.

On March 13, 1848 university students mounted a large street demonstration in Vienna, and it was covered by the press across the German-speaking states. Following the important, but relatively minor, demonstrations against royal mistress Lola Montez in Bavaria on February 9, 1848 (see below), the first major revolt of 1848 in German lands occurred in Vienna on March 13, 1848. The demonstrating students in Vienna had been restive and were encouraged by a sermon of Anton Füster, a liberal priest, on Sunday, March 12, 1848 in their university chapel. The student demonstrators demanded a constitution and a constituent assembly elected by universal male suffrage.

Emperor Ferdinand and his chief advisor Metternich directed troops to crush the demonstration. When demonstrators moved to the streets near the palace, the troops fired on the students, killing several. The new working class of Vienna joined the student demonstrations, developing an armed insurrection. The Diet of Lower Austria demanded Metternich's resignation. With no forces rallying to Metternich's defense, Ferdinand reluctantly complied and dismissed him. The former chancellor went into exile in London.

Ferdinand appointed new, nominally liberal, ministers. The Austrian government drafted a constitution in late April 1848. The people rejected this, as the majority was denied the right to vote. The citizens of Vienna returned to the streets from May 26 through 27, 1848, erecting barricades to prepare for an army attack. Ferdinand and his family fled to Innsbruck, where they spent the next few months surrounded by the loyal peasantry of the Tyrol. Ferdinand issued two manifestos on May 16, 1848 and June 3, 1848, which gave concessions to the people. He converted the Imperial Diet into a Constituent Assembly to be elected by the people. Other concessions were less substantial, and generally addressed the reorganizing and unification of Germany.

Ferdinand returned to Vienna from Innsbruck on August 12, 1848. Soon after his return, the working-class populace hit the streets again on August 21, 1848 to protest high unemployment and the government's decree to reduce wages. On August 23, 1848, Austrian troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators and shot several.

In late September 1848, Emperor Ferdinand, who was also King Ferdinand V of Hungary, decided to send Austrian and Croatian troops to Hungary to crush a democratic rebellion there. On September 29, 1848 the Austrian troops were defeated by the Hungarian revolutionary forces. On October 6 through 7, 1848, the citizens of Vienna had demonstrated against the emperor's actions against forces in Hungary. As a result, Emperor Ferdinand I fled Vienna on October 7, 1848, taking up residence in the fortress town of Olomouc in Moravia. On December 2, 1848, Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his nephew Franz Joseph.

Baden had a liberal constitution from 1811 until reaction resulted in aristocratic rulers revoking the constitution in 1825. In 1830, Leopold of Baden became Grand Duke. His reign brought liberal reforms in constitutional, civil and criminal law, and in education. In 1832 Baden joined the (Prussian) Customs Union. After news broke of revolutionary victories in February 1848 in Paris, uprisings occurred throughout Europe, including Austria and the German states.

Baden was the first state in Germany to have popular unrest, despite the liberal reforms. Baden happened to be one of the most liberal states in Germany. After the news of the February Days in Paris reached Baden, there were several unorganized instances of peasants burning the mansions of local aristocrats and threatening them.

On February 27, 1848, in Mannheim, an assembly of people from Baden adopted a resolution demanding a bill of rights. Similar resolutions were adopted in Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and other German states. The surprisingly strong popular support for these movements forced rulers to give in to many of the Märzforderungen (demands of March) almost without resistance.

The March Revolution in Vienna was a catalyst to revolution throughout the German states. Popular demands were made for an elected representative government and for the unification of Germany. Fear on the part of the princes and rulers of the various German states caused them to concede in the demand for reform. They approved a pre parliament, which was convened from March 31, 1848, until April 4, 1848, in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt am Main, charged with the task of drafting a new constitution, to be called the "Fundamental Rights and Demands of the German People." The majority of the delegates to the preparliament were constitutional monarchists.

Baden sent two democrats, Friedrich Karl Franz Hecker and Gustav von Struve, to the pre parliament. In the minority and frustrated with the lack of progress, Hecker and Struve walked out in protest on April 2, 1848. The walkout and the continuing revolutionary upsurge in Germany spurred the preparliament to action; they passed a resolution calling for an All-German National Assembly to be formed.

On April 8, 1848, a law allowing universal suffrage and an indirect (two-stage) voting system was agreed to by the assembly. A new National Assembly was selected, and on May 18, 1848, 809 delegates (585 of whom were elected) were seated at St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt to convene the Frankfurt National Assembly. Karl Mathy, a right-center journalist, was among those elected as deputy to the Frankfurt National Assembly.

Disorder fomented by republican agitators continued in Baden. Fearing greater riots, the Baden government began to increase the size of its army and to seek assistance from neighboring states. The Baden government sought to suppress the revolts by arresting Joseph Fickler, a journalist who was the leader of the Baden democrats. The arrests caused outrage and a rise in protests. A full-scale uprising broke out on April 12, 1848. The Bavarian government suppressed the revolutionary forces led by Friedrich Hecker with the aid of Prussian troops at Kandern on April 20, 1848, ending what became known as the Hecker Uprising.

In May 1849, a resurgence of revolutionary activity occurred in Baden. As this was closely connected to the uprising in the German Palatinate, it is described below, in the section titled, "The Palatinate."

When the revolutionary upsurge revived in the spring of 1849, the uprisings started in Elberfeld in the Rhineland on May 6, 1849. However, the uprisings soon spread to the state of Baden, when a riot broke out in Karlsruhe. The state of Baden and the Palatinate (then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria) were separated only by the Rhine. The uprising in Baden and the Palatinate took place largely in the Rhine Valley along their mutual border, and are considered aspects of the same movement. In May 1849, the Grand Duke was forced to leave Karlsruhe, Baden and seek help from Prussia. Provisional governments were declared in both the Palatinate and Baden. In Baden conditions for the provisional government were ideal: the public and army were both strongly in support of constitutional change and democratic reform in the government. The army strongly supported the demands for a constitution; the state had amply supplied arsenals, and a full exchequer. The Palatinate did not have the same conditions.

The Palatinate traditionally contained more upper-class citizens than other areas of Germany, and they resisted the revolutionary changes. In the Palatinate, the army did not support the revolution, and it was not well supplied. When the insurrectionary government took over in the Palatinate, they did not find a fully organized state or a full exchequer. Arms in the Palatinate were limited to privately held muskets, rifles and sporting guns. The provisional government of the Palatinate sent agents to France and Belgium to purchase arms but they were unsuccessful. France banned sales and export of arms to either Baden or the Palatinate.

The provisional government first appointed Joseph Martin Reichard, a lawyer, democrat and deputy in the Frankfurt Assembly, as the head of the military department in the Palatinate. The first Commander in Chief of the military forces of the Palatinate was Daniel Fenner von Fenneberg, a former Austrian officer who commanded the national guard in Vienna during the 1848 uprising. He was soon replaced by Felix Raquilliet, a former Polish staff general in the Polish insurgent army of 1830-31. Finally Ludwik Mieroslawski was given supreme command of the armed forces in the Palatinate, and Franz Sznayde was given field command of the troops.

Other noteworthy military officers serving the provisional government in the city of Kaiserlautern, were Friedrich Strasser, Alexander Schimmelpfennig, Captain Rudolph von Manteuffel, Albert Clement, Herr Zychlinski, Friedrich von Beust, Eugen Oswald, Amand Goegg, Gustav von Struve, Otto Julius Bernhard von Corvin-Wiersbitzki, Joseph Moll, Johann Gottfried Kinkel, Herr Mersy, Karl Emmermann, Franz Sigel, Major Nerlinger, Colonel Kurz, Friedrich Karl Franz Hecker and Hermann von Natzmer. Hermann von Natzmer was the former Prussian officer who had been in charge of the arsenal of Berlin. Refusing to shoot insurgent forces who stormed the arsenal on June 14, 1848, Natzmer became a hero to insurgents across Germany. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for refusing orders to shoot, but in 1849, he escaped prison and fled to the Palatinate to join its insurgent forces. Gustav Adolph Techow, a former Prussian officer, also joined Palatinate forces. Organizing the artillery and providing services in the ordnance shops was Lieutenant Colonel Freidrich Anneke. He was a member of the Communist League and one of the founders of the Cologne Workers Association in 1848, editor of the Neue Kölnische Zeitung and a Rhenish District Committee of Democrats.

Democrats of the Palatinate and across Germany considered the Baden-Palatinate insurrection to be part of the wider all-German struggle for constitutional rights. Franz Sigel, a second lieutenant in the Baden army, a democrat and a supporter of the provisional government, developed a plan to protect the reform movement in Karlsruhe and the Palatinate. He recommended using a corps of the Baden army to advance on the town of Hohenzollern and declare the Hohenzollern Republic, then to march on Stuttgart. After inciting Stuttgart and the surrounding state of Württemberg, the military corp would march to Nuremberg and set up camp in the state of Franconia. Sigel failed to account for dealing with the separate Town of Frankfurt, the home of the Frankfurt Assembly, in order to establish an All-German character to the military campaign for the German constitution.

Despite Sigel's plan, the new insurgent government did not go on the offensive. The uprising in Karlsruhe and the state of Baden was eventually suppressed by the Bavarian Army. Lorenz Peter Brentano, a lawyer and democrat from Baden, headed its government, wielding absolute power. He appointed Karl Eichfeld as War Minister. Later, Eichfeld was replaced as War Minister by Rudolph Mayerhofer. Florian Mördes was appointed as Minister of the Interior. Other members of the provisional government included Joseph Fickler, a journalist and a democrat from Baden. Leaders of the constitutional forces in Baden included Karl Blind, a journalist and a democrat in Baden; and Gustav von Struve, another journalist and democrat from Baden. John Phillip Becker was placed in charge of the peoples' militia. Ludwik Mieroslawski, a Polish-born national who had taken part in the military operations during the Polish uprising of 1830-31, was placed in charge of the military operation on the Palatinate side of the Rhine River.

Brentano ordered the day-to-day affairs of the uprising in Baden, and Mieroslawski directed a military command on the Palatinate side. They did not coordinate well. For example, Mieroslawski decided to abolish the long-standing toll on the Mannheim-Ludwigshaven bridge over the Rhine River. It was not collected on the Palatinate side, but Brentano's government collected it on the Baden side. Due to the continued lack of coordination, Mieroslawski lost battles in Waghausle and Ubstadt in Baden. He and his troops were forced to retreat across the mountains of southern Baden, where they fought a last battle against the Prussians in the town of Murg, on the frontier between Baden and Switzerland. Mieroslawski and the other survivors of the battle escaped across the frontier to Switzerland, and the commander went into exile in Paris.

Frederick Engels took part in the uprising in Baden and the Palatinate. On May 10, 1848, he and Karl Marx traveled from Cologne, Germany, to observe the events of the region. From June 1, 1848, Engels and Marx became editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Less than a year later, on May 19, 1849, the Prussian authorities closed down the newspaper because of its support for constitutional reforms.

In late 1848, Marx and Engels intended to meet with Karl Ludwig Johann D'Ester, then serving as a member of the provisional government in Baden and the Palatinate. He was a physician, democrat and socialist who had been a member of the Cologne community chapter of the Communist League. D'Ester had been elected as a deputy to the Prussian National Assembly in 1848. D'Ester had been elected to the Central committee of the German Democrats, together with Reichenbach and Hexamer, at the Second Democratic Congress held in Berlin from October 26 through October 30, 1848. Because of his commitments to the provisional government, D'Ester was unable to attend an important meeting in Paris on behalf of the German Central Committee. He wanted to provide Marx with the mandate to attend the meeting in his place. Marx and Engels met with D'Ester in the town of Kaiserlautern. Marx obtained the mandate and headed off to Paris.

Engels remained in the Palatinate, where in 1849 he joined citizens at the barricades of Elberfeld in the Rhineland, preparing to fight the Prussian troops expected to arrive against the uprising. On his way to Elberfeld, Engels took two cases of rifle cartridges which had been gathered by the workers of Solingen, Germany, when those workers had stormed the arsenal at Gräfrath, Germany. The Prussian troops arrived and crushed the uprising in August 1849. Engels and some others escaped to Kaiserlautern. While in Kaiserlautern on June 13, 1849, Engels joined an 800-member group of workers being formed as a military corps by August Willich, a former Prussian military officer. He was also a member of the Communist League and supported revolutionary change in Germany. The newly formed Willich Corps combined with other revolutionary groups to form an army of about 30,000 strong; it fought to resist the highly trained Prussian troops. Engels fought with the Willich Corps for their entire campaign in the Palatinate.

The Prussians defeated this revolutionary army, and the survivors of Willichs Corps crossed over the frontier into the safety of Switzerland. Engels did not reach Switzerland until July 25, 1849. He sent word of his survival to Marx and friends and comrades in London, England. A refugee in Switzerland, Engels began to write about his experiences during the revolution. He published the article, "The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution." Due to the Prussian Army's ease in crushing the uprising, many South German states came to believe that Prussia, not Austria, was going to be the new power in the region. The suppression of the uprising in Baden and the Palatinate was the end of the German revolutionary uprisings that had begun in the spring of 1848.

In March 1848, crowds of people gathered in Berlin to present their demands in an "address to the king". King Frederick William IV, taken by surprise, verbally yielded to all the demonstrators' demands, including parliamentary elections, a constitution, and freedom of the press. He promised that "Prussia was to be merged forthwith into Germany."

On March 13, after warnings by the police against public demonstrations went unheeded, the army charged a group of people returning from a meeting in the Tiergarten, leaving one person dead and many injured. On March 18, a large demonstration occurred. After two shots were fired, fearing that some of the 20,000 soldiers would be used against them, demonstrators erected barricades, and a battle ensued until troops were ordered 13 hours later to retreat, leaving hundreds dead. Afterwards, Frederick William attempted to reassure the public that he would proceed with reorganizing his government. The King also approved arming the citizens.

In his memoirs, Field Marshal Alfred von Waldersee, who in March 1848 was a sixteen-year-old student at the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, gave a vivid description of the revolutionary events in Berlin:

Those March days of 1848 left the most lasting impression on us young soldiers. From the so-called Spielhof alongside the Spree we could see the erection of the barricades on the Marschallbrücke. The outbreak began at different parts of the city at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 18th, our attention being called to it by the circumstance that shots were fired at the sentinels in front of the Franz Regiment's barracks, which adjoined those of the Cadet Corps. The report went that the Cadet Corps, that breeding place of reaction, was to be up rooted [sic]! This put our superior officers in a very awkward predicament; all connection with the outer world was cut off, and the Franz Regiment, which had been quartered next door to us, had been moved away, so we had to decide for ourselves what to do. General von Below was a feeble old man, Lieut.-Colonel Richter and our company commanders were all elderly-most of them had taken part in the War of Liberation-and some of them were no good as officers, so it was small wonder if a lack of vigour or decision was displayed. It was under debate whether we should not abstain from any attempt at resistance, when the senior lieutenant, Besserer von Dahlfingen, of my company, an exceptionally small man, spoke out at the Council of War and declared that it would be a disgrace if we surrendered to the Revolutionaries without a blow. Thereupon it was resolved to put up a fight. Our main position was to be on the first floor, led, up to by four stone staircases, each of which was allotted to a company. Our firearms, which had been placed in hiding already, were taken out again, and we began to block up the entrances to the staircases. Unfortunately we had no ammunition! This lack was in some degree made good by such officers as were sportsmen and had some powder and shot to distribute, so that firing might have been done by each of the companies; percussion-caps we secured from the Franz Regiment's barracks. However, things were not to become serious, for a battalion of the 1st Regiment of Guards pushed forward to the Marschallbrücke and averted all possibility of danger for us. The noise of the fighting died down now a little, only to revive again in the evening. The Leibregiment advanced to the Alexanderplatz from the Frankfurter Gate, amidst the same kind of continuous but unsystematic fighting which the Guards also had encountered.

Early in the morning of the 19th-it may have been about 4 o'clock, the shooting had been followed by silence throughout the city-we were given the alarm and had to don our cloaks and fall in with our guns and march to the Schloss (the Royal Palace in Berlin), by order of General von Prittwitz. We set out just as day was breaking. In the Königstrasse we passed three or four deserted barricades; we could see that most of the windows in the street were broken and that all the houses showed marks of bullets.

Arrived at the Schloss, led by General von Below, himself afoot, we were ushered through "Portal No. I" into the Castle Yard, where General von Prittwitz was to be seen mounted on a chestnut with some officers round about him. We had now to down arms and we began almost to freeze in the cold morning air. It was very pleasant for us, therefore, when we were taken, troop by troop, into the kitchen, and given coffee. There was now a lively va-et-vient of mounted aides-de-camp, and others in the Castle Yard. The streets through which we had passed, and the open places outside the Schloss, had, of course, been empty. Now we saw many waggons [sic] and bodies of troops bivouacking. Prisoners were being brought in every now and again and taken into the Castle cellars. After a wait of two hours or so we were given orders to march back to Potsdam.

On March 21, the King proceeded through the streets of Berlin to attend a mass funeral at the Friedrichshain cemetery for the civilian victims of the uprising. He and his ministers and generals wore the revolutionary tricolor of black, red, and gold. Polish prisoners, who had been jailed for planning a rebellion in formerly Polish territories now ruled by Prussia, were liberated and paraded through the city to the acclaim of the people. The 254 persons killed during the riots were laid out on catafalques on the Gendarmenmarkt. Some 40,000 people accompanied these fallen demonstrators to their burial place at Friedrichshain.

A Constituent National Assembly was elected and gathered in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt am Main on May 18, 1848 Officially called the all-German National Assembly, it was composed of deputies democratically elected from various German states in late April and early May 1848. The deputies consisted of 122 government officials, 95 judges, 81 lawyers, 103 teachers, 17 manufacturers and wholesale dealers, 15 physicians, and 40 landowners. A majority of the Assembly were liberals. It became known as the "professors' parliament", as many of its members were academics in addition to their other responsibilities. The one working-class member was Polish and, like colleagues from the Tyrol, not taken seriously.

Starting on May 18, 1848, the Frankfurt Assembly worked to find ways to unite the various German states and to write a constitution. The Assembly was unable to pass resolutions and dissolved into endless debate.

On May 22, 1848, another elected assembly sat for the first time in Berlin. They were elected under the law of April 8, 1848, which allowed for universal suffrage and a two-stage voting system. Most of the deputies elected to the Berlin Assembly, called the Prussian National Assembly, were members of the burghers or liberal bureaucracy. They set about the task of writing a constitution "by agreement with the Crown". King Frederick William IV of Prussia unilaterally imposed a monarchist constitution to undercut the democratic forces. This constitution took effect on December 5, 1848. On December 5, 1848, the Berlin Assembly was dissolved and replaced with the bicameral legislature allowed under the monarchist Constitution. This legislature was composed of a Herrenhaus and a Otto von Bismarck was elected to the first Landtag elected under the new monarchical constitution.

In Dresden, the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony, the people took to the streets asking King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony to engage in electoral reform, social justice and for a constitution.

German composer Richard Wagner passionately engaged himself in the revolution in Dresden, supporting the democratic-republican movement. Later during the May Uprising in Dresden from May 3-9, 1849, he supported the provisional government. Others participating in the Uprising were the Russian revolutionary Michael Bakunin and the German working-class leader Stephen Born. In all, about 2,500 combatants manned the barricades during the May Uprising. On May 9, 1849, together with the leaders of the uprising, Wagner left Dresden for Switzerland to avoid arrest. He spent a number of years in exile abroad, in Switzerland, Italy, and Paris. Finally the government lifted its ban against him and he returned to Germany.

Since the revolutionary events of 1830, Saxony had been ruled as a constitutional monarchy with a two-chamber legislature and an accountable ministry. This constitution continued to serve as the basis of the Saxon government until 1918. The Revolution of 1848 brought more popular reforms in the government of Saxony.

In 1849, many Saxon residents emigrated to the United States, including Michael Machemehl. They landed in Galveston, Texas and created what became the German Texan community. In mid-century, some lived in cities, but many developed substantial farms to the west in Texas.

The Rhineland shared a common history with the Rhenish Hesse, Luxembourg and the Palatinate of having been under the control of Revolutionary and then Napoleonic France from 1795. His rule established social, administrative and legislative measures taken that broke up the feudal rule that the clergy and the nobility had exercised over the area previously. The soil of the Rhineland is not the best for agriculture, but forestry has traditionally been a strong industry there. The relative lack of agriculture, late 18th-century elimination of the feudal structure, and the strong logging industry contributed to the industrialization of the Rhineland. With nearby sources of coal in the Mark, and access via the Rhine to the North Sea, the west bank of the Rhine in the Rhineland became the premier industrial area in Germany in the 19th century. By 1848, the towns of Aachen, Cologne and Düsseldorf were heavily industrialized, with a number of different industries represented. At the beginning of the 19th century, more than 90% of the population of the Rhineland was engaged in agriculture (including lumbering), but by 1933, only 12% were still working in agriculture

By 1848, a large industrial working class, the proletariat, had developed and, owing to Napoleonic France, the level of education was relatively high and it was politically active. While in other German states the liberal petty bourgeoisie led the uprisings of 1848, in the Rhineland the proletariat was asserting its interests openly against the bourgeoisie as early as 1840.

In 1848, Prussia controlled the Rhineland as part of "Western Prussia", having first acquired territory in this area in 1614. During the Napoleonic Era, as noted above, the Rhineland west of the Rhine had been incorporated into France and its feudal structures dismantled. But, following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, Prussia took over the west bank of the Rhineland. Its government treated the Rhinelanders as subjects and alien peoples, and it began to reinstate the hated feudal structures. Much of the revolutionary impulse in the Rhineland in 1848 was colored by a strong anti-Prussian feeling. The Rhinelanders took careful note of the announcement by King Frederick William IV on March 18, 1848 in Berlin that a United Diet would be formed and that other democratic reforms would be instituted. Elections for the United Diet were indirect. The elections were conducted on the basis of universal male suffrage, and they were to choose the members of the United Diet. Rhinelanders remained hopeful regarding this progress and did not participate in the early round of uprisings that were occurring in other parts of Germany.

The Prussian government mistook this quietude in the Rhineland for loyalty to the autocratic Prussian government. The Prussian government began offering military assistance to other states in suppressing the revolts in their territories and cities, i.e. Dresden, the Palatinate, Baden, Wűrttemberg, Franconia, etc. Soon the Prussians discovered that they needed additional troops in this effort. Taking the loyalty of the Rhineland for granted, in the spring of 1849 the Prussian government called up a large portion of the army reserve-the in Westphalia and the Rhineland. This action was opposed: the order to call up the Landwehr affected all males under the age of 40 years, and such a call up was to be done only in time of war, not in peacetime, when it was considered illegal. The Prussian King dissolved the Second Chamber of the United Diet because on March 27, 1849 it passed an unpopular constitution. The entire citizenry of the Rhineland, including the petty bourgeoisie, the grand bourgeoisie and the proletariat, rose up to protect the political reforms which they believed were slipping away.

On May 9, 1849, uprisings occurred in the Rhenish towns of Elberfeld, Düsseldorf, Iserlohn and Solingen. The uprising in Düsseldorf was suppressed the following day on May 10, 1849. In the town of Elberfeld, the uprising showed strength and persistence, as 15,000 workers took to the streets and erected barricades; they confronted the Prussian troops sent to suppress the unrest and to collect a quota of Landwehr conscripts. In the end, the troops collected only about 40 conscripts from Elberfeld. A Committee of Public Safety was formed in the town, to organize the citizens in revolt. Members of the Committee included Karl Nickolaus Riotte, a democrat and a lawyer in Elberfeld; Ernst Hermann Höchster, another lawyer and democrat, elected as chairman of the Committee, and Alexis Heintzmann, a lawyer and a liberal who was also the public prosecutor in Elberfeld. Members of the Palatinate provisional government included Nikolaus Schmitt, serving as Minister of the Interior, and Theodor Ludwig Greiner. Karl Hecker, Franz Heinrch Zitz and Ludwig Blenker were among the other of the leaders of the Elberfeld uprising.

The members of the Committee for Public Safety could not agree on a common plan, let alone control the various groups taking part in the uprising. The awakened working classes were pursuing their goals with single-minded determination. Citizen-military forces ( paramilitary) organized to support the uprising. Military leaders of these forces included August Willich and Feliks Trociński and Captain Christian Zinn. On May 17 through 18, 1849, a group of workers and democrats from Trier and neighboring townships stormed the arsenal at Prüm to obtain arms for the insurgents. Workers from Solingen stormed the arsenal at Gräfrath and obtained arms and cartridges for the insurgents. (As noted above under the heading on "The Palatinate") Frederick Engels was active in the uprising in Elberfeld from May 11, 1849 until the end of the revolt. On May 10, 1849, he was in Solingen and making his way toward Elberfeld. He obtained two cases of cartridges from the arsenal at Gräfrath and carried them to Elberfeld.

The upper bourgeoisie were frightened by the armed working classes taking to the streets. They began to separate themselves from the movement for constitutional reform and the Committee of Public Safety, describing the leaders as bloodthirsty terrorists. Leaders of the Committee, who were mostly petty bourgeoisie, were starting to vacillate. Rather than working to organize and direct the various factions of protests, they began to draw back from the revolutionary movement, especially the destruction of property. The Committee of Public Safety tried to calm the reformist movement and quell the demonstrations.

In Bavaria, King Ludwig I lost prestige because of his open relationship with his favourite mistress Lola Montez, a dancer and actress unacceptable to the aristocracy or the Church. She tried to launch liberal reforms through a Protestant prime minister, which outraged the state's Catholic conservatives. On February 9, conservatives came out onto the streets in protest. This February 9, 1848 demonstration was the first in that revolutionary year. It was an exception among the wave of liberal protests. The conservatives wanted to be rid of Lola Montez, and had no other political agenda. Liberal students took advantage of the Lola Montez affair to stress their demands for political change. All over Bavaria, students started demonstrating for constitutional reform, just as students were doing in other cities.

Ludwig tried to institute a few minor reforms but they proved insufficient to quell the storm of protests. On March 16, 1848, Ludwig I abdicated in favor of his eldest son Maximilian II. Ludwig complained that "I could not rule any longer, and I did not want to give up my powers. In order to not become a slave, I became a lord." Ludwig was the only German ruler who abdicated in the 1848 revolutions. Although some popular reforms were introduced, the government regained full control.

While technically Greater Poland was not a German state, the roughly corresponding territory of the Grand Duchy of Posen had been under Prussian control since the First and Second Partition of Poland in the late 18th century. The Greater Poland Uprising of 1848, also known as the Poznań ( German: Posen) Uprising, was an unsuccessful military insurrection of Polish troops under Ludwik Mierosławski against the Prussian forces. It began on 20 March 1848 and resulted in Prussia annexing the Greater Polish region as the Province of Posen.

In Heidelberg, in the state of Baden (southwest Germany), on March 6, 1848, a group of German liberals began to make plans for an election to a German national assembly. This prototype Parliament met on March 31, in Frankfurt's St. Paul's Church. Its members called for free elections to an assembly for all of Germany - and the German states agreed.

Finally, on May 18, 1848 the National Assembly opened its session in St. Paul's Church. Of the 586 delegates of the first freely elected German parliament, so many were professors (94), teachers (30) or had a university education (233) that it was called a "professors' parliament" ("Professorenparlament").

There were few practical politicians. Some 400 delegates can be identified in terms of political factions - usually named after their meeting places:

Under the chairmanship of the liberal politician Heinrich von Gagern, the assembly started on its ambitious plan to create a modern constitution as the foundation for a unified Germany.

From the beginning the main problems were regionalism, support of local issues over pan-German issues, and Austro-Prussian conflicts. Archduke Johann of Austria was chosen as a temporary head of state ("Reichsverweser" i.e. imperial vicar). This was an attempt to create a provisional executive power, but it did not get very far since most states failed to fully recognize the new government. The National Assembly lost reputation in the eyes of the German public when Prussia carried through its own political intentions in the Schleswig-Holstein Question without the prior consent of Parliament. A similar discrediting occurred when Austria suppressed a popular uprising in Vienna by military force.

Nonetheless, discussions on the future constitution had started. The main questions to be decided were:

Should the new united Germany include the German-speaking areas of Austria and thus separate these territories constitutionally from the remaining areas of the Habsburg Empire ("greater German solution", Großdeutschland), or should it exclude Austria, with leadership falling to Prussia ("smaller German solution", Kleindeutschland)? Finally, this question was settled when the Austrian Prime Minister introduced a centralised constitution for the entire Austrian Empire, thus delegates had to give up their hopes for a "Greater Germany".

Should Germany become a hereditary monarchy, have an elected monarch, or even become a republic?

Should it be a federation of relatively independent states or have a strong central government?

Soon events began to overtake discussions. Delegate Robert Blum had been sent to Vienna by his left-wing political colleagues on a fact-finding mission to see how Austria's government was rolling back liberal achievements by military force. Blum participated in the street fighting, was arrested and executed on November 9, despite his claim to immunity from prosecution as a member of the National Assembly.

Although the achievements of the March Revolution were rolled back in many German states, the discussions in Frankfurt continued, increasingly losing touch with society.

In December 1848 the "Basic Rights for the German People" proclaimed equal rights for all citizens before the law. On March 28, 1849, the draft of the Paulskirchenverfassung constitution was finally passed. The new Germany was to be a constitutional monarchy, and the office of head of state ("Emperor of the Germans") was to be hereditary and held by the respective King of Prussia. The latter proposal was carried by a mere 290 votes in favour, with 248 abstentions. The constitution was recognized by 29 smaller states but not by Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover and Saxony.

By late 1848, the Prussian aristocrats and generals had regained power in Berlin. They had not been defeated permanently during the incidents of March, but had only retreated temporarily. General von Wrangel led the troops who recaptured Berlin for the old powers, and King Frederick William IV of Prussia immediately rejoined the old forces. In November, the king dissolved the new Prussian parliament and put forth a constitution of his own which was based upon the work of the assembly, yet maintaining the ultimate authority of the king. Elaborated in the following years, the constitution came to provide for an upper house (Herrenhaus), and a lower house (Landtag), chosen by universal suffrage but under a three-class system of voting ("Dreiklassenwahlrecht"): representation was proportional to taxes paid, so that more than 80% of the electorate controlled only one-third of the seats.

On April 2, 1849, a delegation of the National Assembly met with King Frederick William IV in Berlin and offered him the crown of the Emperor under this new constitution.

Frederick William told the delegation that he felt honoured but could only accept the crown with the consent of his peers, the other sovereign monarchs and free cities. But later, in a letter to a relative in England, he wrote that he felt deeply insulted by being offered a crown "from the gutter", "disgraced by the stink of revolution, defiled with dirt and mud".

Austria and Prussia withdrew their delegates from the Assembly, which was little more than a debating club. The radical members were forced to go to Stuttgart, where they sat from June 6-18 as a rump parliament until it too was dispersed by Württemberg troops. Armed uprisings in support of the constitution, especially in Saxony, the Palatinate and Baden were short-lived, as the local military, aided by Prussian troops, crushed them quickly. Leaders and participants, if caught, were executed or sentenced to long prison terms.

The achievements of the revolutionaries of March 1848 were reversed in all of the German states and by 1851, the Basic Rights had also been abolished nearly everywhere. In the end, the revolution fizzled because of the divisions between the various factions in Frankfurt, the calculating caution of the liberals, the failure of the left to marshal popular support and the overwhelming superiority of the monarchist forces.

Many disappointed German patriots went to the United States, among them most notably Carl Schurz, Franz Sigel and Friedrich Hecker. Such emigrants became known as the Forty-Eighters.

The Revolution of 1848 failed in its attempt to unify the German-speaking states because the Frankfurt Assembly reflected the many different interests of the German ruling classes. Its members were unable to form coalitions and push for specific goals. The first conflict arose over the goals of the assembly. The moderate liberals wanted to draft a constitution to present to the monarchs, whereas the smaller group of radical members wanted the assembly to declare itself as a law-giving parliament. They were unable to overcome this fundamental division, and did not take any definitive action toward unification or the introduction of democratic rules. The assembly declined into debate. While the French revolution drew on an existing nation state, the democratic and liberal forces in Germany of 1848 were confronted with the need to build a nation state and a constitution at the same time, which overtaxed them.

When the Frankfurt Assembly opened on May 18, 1848, the deputies elected Heinrich von Gagern as the first President of the Assembly. He had strong support from the Center-Right Unionist party and some influence with moderates of the left, such that he could control perhaps 250 of the deputies of the Frankfurt Assembly. Gagern strongly supported unification of the German states. He insisted, however, that the Assembly needed to gain agreement of the monarchs, who were highly reactionary. In addition, only the Kingdom of Prussia had the military force necessary to effect this unification. Many in the Assembly, including Gagern, distrusted the intentions of the Prussian state and its absolutist government. Fearful of losing their positions as servants of the monarchs, the moderate liberals quickly concluded that only negotiations would lead to political progress. The Prussian army ignored the demands for reforms and chased the rump assembly out of Frankfurt in 1849.

The Frankfurt Assembly had no powers to raise taxes and relied completely on the goodwill of the monarchs. As many of the members held influential provincial positions, their reluctance to call for radical reforms or annoy their employers meant that they could not raise funds for armed forces, nor enforce laws they might pass. The hundred or so radicals, who believed that an armed uprising was necessary, lost interest and left the assembly to try to raise forces at a local level to bring about a 'real' revolution. Without a bureaucracy, they could not raise any money.

The Assembly members were highly motivated for reform, but the major divides among them became obvious and inhibited progress; for instance, advocates of Grossdeutschland versus advocates of Kleindeutschland, Catholics versus Protestants, supporters of Austria versus supporters of Prussia. The major conflict that caused the collapse of the Assembly was the stand-off between demands of the moderates to write a democratic constitution and liberals' reliance on negotiation with reactionary monarchs to produce reforms. The various interest groups began to gather outside the Assembly to decide on their tactics.

Meanwhile, the rulers of the German states gradually realised that their positions were no longer under threat. The King of Bavaria had stepped down, but that was only partly the result of pressure from below. As the threat of an armed uprising receded, the monarchs realized unification would not be realized. They were unwilling to give up any power in its pursuit. As princes quelled rebellions in their territories, they followed the example of Prussia, recalling their elected deputies from the Assembly. Only Prussia, with its overwhelming military might, was able to protect the Frankfurt Assembly from military attack by the princes. But Prussia had its own interests in mind.

The Frankfurt National Assembly did agree to found the Reichsflotte, the German Navy, on June 14, 1848, which was significant to Germany's future power and reach.

The powerlessness of the Frankfurt Assembly, however, was reflected in the debate over the Danish Conflict of 1848. Like many other events of 1848, the Danish conflict was sparked by a street demonstration. On March 21, 1848, the people of Copenhagen protested in the streets to demand a liberal Constitution. The majority in the Duchy of Holstein and in the southern part of the Duchy of Schleswig were German-speaking. However, the Duke of both duchies was King Frederick VII of Denmark, the last absolute monarch of Denmark. The citizens of Kiel and Holstein were unsure of what was occurring in Copenhagen. They revolted to found a separate and autonomous province with closer relations with the German states. On March 24, 1848, they set up a new provisional, autonomous government in Holstein and raised a Schleswig-Holstein army of 7,000 soldiers. Unification opinion in the German states supported annexing the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein.

Prussia sent an army to support this independence movement, and ignored the Frankfurt National Assembly when Great Britain and Russia applied international pressure to end the war. The Prussians signed a peace at Malmö, requiring them to remove all Prussian troops from the two duchies and agree to all other Danish demands. The Armistice of Malmö was greeted with great consternation in Germany, and debated in the Assembly, but it was powerless to control Prussia. On September 16, 1848, the Frankfurt National Assembly approved of the Malmö Treaty by a majority vote. Public support for the National Assembly declined sharply following this vote, and the Radical Republicans publicly stated their opposition to the Assembly.

After many diversions, the Frankfurt National Assembly took up the issue of a German constitution. In October 1848, King Frederick William IV of Prussia unilaterally issued a monarchist constitution. Under this new monarchist constitution, a Prussian Assembly was established. The Assembly was a bicameral legislature, consisting of a Herrenhaus (House of Lords) or upper house, whose members were selected by the provincial governments, and a Landtag (Country Diet), whose members were elected by male suffrage but were seated only through a complicated system of electoral committees. Otto von Bismarck was elected to this first Landtag. The Landtag was founded to undercut the authority of the Frankfurt National Assembly. In an attempt to regain some authority, in April 1849, the Frankfurt Assembly offered King Frederick William IV the crown as German emperor. He turned it down, saying he would accept a crown only by the grace of God, not "from the gutter".

The Frankfurt National Assembly had been founded partly following the revolutionary events in Vienna, Austria, which resulted in the fall of Prince Metternich. Its strongest support came from the southern provinces, where there was a tradition of opposition to the local tyrants. After Austria crushed the Italian revolts of 1848/1849, the Habsburgs were ready to deal with the German states. Unable to muster an army and lacking broader support, the Assembly could not resist Austrian power. The Frankfurt National Assembly was dissolved on May 31, 1849.

Nationalism did not become the usual way of founding and legitimising states across Europe until after World War I. In the mid-19th century, over 90% of the population in the Austrian Empire and the German Confederation were peasants. Most of them suffered the indignity of serfdom or some lingering elements of the system of forced labor. Peasant revolts in 1848-1849 involved more participants than the national revolutions of the period. Most importantly, they were successful bringing the final abolition of serfdom or its remnants across the German Confederation, the Austrian Empire and Prussia. The leader of the anti-serfdom peasant movement was Hans Kudlich, subsequently revered as Bauernbefreier ('liberator of peasants').

Bibliography

Davis Randers-Pehrson, Justine (1999). Germans and the Revolution of 1848-1849. New German-American Studies/Neue Deutsch-Amerikanische Studien. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 0-8204-4118-X.

Dill, Marshall (1970). Germany: A Modern History. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-07101-7.

Evans, R. J. W.; Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, eds. (2000). The Revolutions in Europe, 1848-1849: From Reform to Reaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820840-5.

Hamerow, Theodore S. "History and the German Revolution of 1848." American Historical Review 60.1 (1954): 27-44. online.

Hamerow, Theodore (1967). Restoration, Revolution, Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815-1871. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hewitson, Mark (2010). "'The Old Forms are Breaking Up, ... Our New Germany is Rebuilding Itself". The English Historical Review. CXXV (516): 1173-1214. doi:10.1093/ehr/ceq276. ISSN 0013-8266.

Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich (1977). Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Collected Works. New York: International Press.

Mattheisen, Donald J. (1983). "History as Current Events: Recent Works on the German Revolution of 1848". The American Historical Review. 88 (5): 1219-1237. doi:10.2307/1904890. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 1904890.

O'Boyle, Lenore (1961). "The Democratic Left in Germany, 1848". The Journal of Modern History. 33 (4): 374-383. doi:10.1086/238910. ISSN 0022-2801. JSTOR 1877214.

Pollock, James Kerr; Thomas, Homer Leonard (1952). Germany in power and eclipse : the background of German development. Van Nostrand. OCLC 930492299.

Robertson, Priscilla (1969). "Students on the Barricades: Germany and Austria, 1848". Political Science Quarterly. Wiley. 84 (2): 367-379. doi:10.2307/2147265. ISSN 0032-3195. JSTOR 2147265.

Sheehan, James J. (1990). German History, 1770-1866. Oxford History of Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822120-7.

Sperber, Jonathan (2005). The European Revolutions, 1848-1851. New Approaches to European History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-83907-6.

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The German revolutions of 1848-49 ( German: Deutsche Revolution 1848/1849), the opening phase of which was also called the March Revolution ( German: Märzrevolution), were initially part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. They were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire.

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Revolutions of 1848, series of republican revolts against European monarchies, beginning in Sicily and spreading to France, Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire. They all ended in failure and repression and were followed by widespread disillusionment among liberals.

The revolutionary movement began in Italy with a local revolution in Sicily in January 1848, and, after the revolution of February 24 in France, the movement extended throughout the whole of Europe, with the exception of Russia, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries. In the United Kingdom it amounted to little more than a Chartist demonstration and a republican agitation in Ireland. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark it manifested itself in peaceful reforms of existing institutions, but democratic insurrections broke out in the capitals of the three great monarchies, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, where the governments, rendered powerless by their fear of "the revolution," did little to defend themselves. The revolution was successful in France alone; the Second Republic and universal manhood suffrage were established, but the quarrel between the supporters of the république démocratique and the partisans of république démocratique et sociale culminated in a workers' insurrection in June 1848.

In Austria, where the new ministers promised to grant constitutions, the monarchy withstood the storm, and in Prussia King Frederick William IV, who led the movement for the unification of Germany, hoisted the black, red, and gold flag that had become the symbol of German unity. The German governments agreed to the convocation of three constituent assemblies at Berlin, Vienna, and Frankfurt by which democratic constitutions were to be drafted for Prussia, Austria, and Germany.

In Italy, at first, the revolution only took the form of a nationalist rising against Austria led by the king of Sardinia under the Italian tricolour, the "white, red, and green." The republic was proclaimed in 1849, and then only in Rome and Tuscany. Within the Austrian Empire the nationalities subjected to the German Government of Vienna agitated for a national government, and Hungary succeeded in organizing itself on an autonomous basis.

This upheaval seemed to indicate a redistribution of the territories of Europe. In the name of the Provisional Government in France, Alphonse de Lamartine declared that the treaties of 1815 were no longer valid in the eyes of the French Republic, but he added that he accepted the territorial delimitations effected by those treaties. France did not lend its support to the revolutionaries in Europe.

The restoration had commenced even before the revolution was over, and it was accomplished by the armies that had remained faithful to their respective governments. Military repression was first employed in Paris by Louis-Eugène Cavaignac against the insurgents in June and by Alfred, prince von Windischgrätz, on June 17 against the Czechs in Prague and later by the Austrian army in Lombardy and in Vienna; then in Berlin in December, and in 1849 by the Prussian army in Saxony and Baden. Order was restored in Rome only by French intervention and in Hungary with the help of the Russian army. The king of Prussia, having refused the title of emperor offered to him by the Frankfurt Assembly, sought to achieve the unity of Germany by a union between the German princes. Austria and Russia, however, compelled him to abandon his design by the Convention of Olmütz in 1850. The immediate result of the reaction became manifest in the withdrawal of liberal democratic or nationalist concessions which had been made during the revolution: universal manhood suffrage and liberty of the press and of assembly. Absolute monarchy was reestablished in Germany, Austria, and Italy; and the governments, in alliance with the middle classes and the clergy, who were terrified by the socialist proposals, strengthened the police forces and organized a persecution of the popular press and associations that paralyzed political life. In France the reaction led to the coup d'état against the assembly on the part of Prince Louis-Napoléon on December 2, 1851, and the reestablishment of the hereditary empire under Napoleon III in 1852.

The restoration, however, was not complete, for universal manhood suffrage was not abolished in France; in Prussia the Constitution of January 1850, which established an elective assembly, and in Sardinia the Constitution of March 1848 were retained; and the signorial rights were not restored in Austria.

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Revolutions of 1848 | Causes, Summary, & Significance

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Revolutions of 1848, series of republican revolts against European monarchies, beginning in Sicily and spreading to France, Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire. The revolutions all ultimately ended in failure and repression, and they were followed by widespread disillusionment among liberals.

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The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

Der Sonntagsspaziergang painting by Carl Spitzweg, a typical representation of the Biedermeier period (1841)

Austrian Biedermeier sofa, c. 1815-1825, mahogany, upholstery (not original), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada)

The term derives from the fictional mediocre poet Gottlieb Biedermaier [sic], who featured in the Munich magazine Fliegende Blätter (Flying Leaves).[1] It is used mostly to denote the unchallenging artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design. Biedermeier has influenced later styles.

Emperor Francis I of Austria in his study at the Hofburg palace. The interior is in the Biedermeier style. The Concert of Europe, ensured by the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, enabled the period of peace in which Biedermeier sensibilities developed.

The Biedermeier period does not refer to the era as a whole, but to a particular mood and set of trends that grew out of the unique underpinnings of the time in Central Europe. There were two driving forces for the development of the period. One was the growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class, which created a new kind of audience for the arts. The other was the political stability prevalent under Klemens von Metternich following the end of the Napoleonic Wars[2] and the Congress of Vienna.

The effect was for artists and society in general to concentrate on the domestic and, at least in public, the non-political. Writers, painters, and musicians began to stay in safer territory, and the emphasis on home life for the growing middle class meant a blossoming of furniture design and interior decorating.[3]

The affluent middle class values that are associated with Biedermeier include affection, sensibility, moderation, and modesty. Biedermeier Gemütlichkeit means, that one reaches a state of cosiness, as well as friendliness. Biedermeier style displays the conflict between ideals and reality, as human life was grey and gloomy.

Biedermeier family values reflected the bourgeois consensus and the housewife was responsible for furnishing and choosing the appropriate design. Middle class women were held responsible for family cohesion and children had to be socialized within the family.

The term Biedermeier appeared first in literary circles in the form of a pseudonym, Gottlieb Biedermaier, used by the country doctor Adolf Kussmaul and lawyer Ludwig Eichrodt in poems that the duo had published in the Munich satirical weekly Fliegende Blätter in 1850.

The verses parodied the people of the era, namely Samuel Friedrich Sauter, a primary teacher and sort of amateurish poet, as depoliticized and petit-bourgeois. The name was constructed from the titles of two poems-"Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit" (Biedermann's Evening Comfort) and "Bummelmaiers Klage" (Bummelmaier's Complaint)-which Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in 1848 in the same magazine.

As a label for the epoch, the term has been used since around 1900.

Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Friedrich Halm, Adelbert von Chamisso, Eduard Mörike, and Wilhelm Müller, the last three of whom have well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert respectively. Adalbert Stifter was a novelist and short story writer whose work also reflected the concerns of the Biedermeier movement, particularly with his novel Der Nachsommer. As historian Carl Emil Schorske put it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of Bildung, compounded of Benedictine world piety, German humanism, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel Der Nachsommer".

Biedermeier room in the museum of Chrzanów, Poland

Zimmerbild (chamber painting) of a Biedermeier interior in Berlin: fitted carpets, unified window, and pier-mirror draperies, and framed engravings in a restrained classicising style, around 1825, by Leopold Zielcke (1791-1861)

Biedermeier furniture is admired for quality craftsmanship and comfort. Original early 19th century Biedermeier furniture was manufactured to be publicly displayed, with less concern for convenience and private enjoyment. Biedermeier upholstery makes extensive use of coil-springs. Biedermeier furniture design was purchased or commissioned by the prosperous middle class to celebrate comfort and leisure.[9]

Middle to late-Biedermeier furniture design represented a heralding towards historicism and revival eras long sought for. Social forces originating in France would change the artisan-patron system that achieved this period of design, first in the German states, and then into Scandinavia. The middle class growth originated in the Industrial Revolution in Britain and many Biedermeier designs owe their simplicity to Georgian lines of the 19th century, as the proliferation of design publications reached the German states and the Austrian Empire.[10]

The Biedermeier style was a simplified interpretation of the influential French Empire style of Napoleon, which introduced the romance of ancient Roman Empire styles, adapting these to modern early 19th century households. Biedermeier furniture used locally available materials such as cherry, ash, and oak woods rather than the expensive timbers such as fully imported mahogany.

Unique designs were created in Vienna. Furniture from the earlier period (1815-1830) was the most severe and neoclassical in inspiration. It also supplied the most fantastic forms which the second half of the period (1830-1848) lacked, being influenced by the many style publications from Britain. Biedermeier furniture was the first style in the world that emanated from the growing middle class. It preceded Victoriana and influenced mainly German-speaking countries.

In Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who was adopted by King Charles XIII (who was childless), became Sweden's new king in 1818 as Karl XIV Johan. The Swedish Karl Johan style, similar to Biedermeier, retained its elegant and blatantly Napoleonic style throughout the 19th century.

Biedermeier furniture and lifestyle was a focus on exhibitions at the Vienna applied arts museum in 1896. The many visitors to this exhibition were so influenced by this fantasy style and its elegance that a new resurgence or revival period became popular amongst European cabinetmakers. This revival period lasted up until the Art Deco style was taken up. Biedermeier also influenced the various Bauhaus styles through their truth in material philosophy.

The original Biedermeier period changed with the political unrests of 1845-1848 (its end date). With the revolutions in European historicism, furniture of the later years of the period took on a distinct Wilhelminian or Victorian style.

The term Biedermeier is also used to refer to a style of clocks made in Vienna in the early 19th century. The clean and simple lines included a light and airy aesthetic, especially in Viennese regulators of the Laterndluhr and Dachluhr styles.

Globe-shaped work table; 1815-1820; maple veneer, bird's eye maple, fruitwoods, gilded and ebonized wood, mirror, brass; from Vienna; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ( Montreal, Canada)

Footstool; 1820-1840; carpentry embroidery upolstery; height: 29 cm, width: 46.3 cm; National Museum of Warsaw ( Warsaw, Poland)

Console; 1825-1830; carpentry wood carving veneering; height: 86.6 cm, width: 104.2 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

Chess table; 1825-1835; carpentry veneering inlay; height: 77 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

The Geymüllerschlössel in Vienna constructed in 1808, it houses the Biedermeier collection

The 19th century population growth and urbanization in Europe resulted in Biedermeier architecture marked by functionality and elegance.[11]

Architectural legacy

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In Wilhelmine Germany social reformers regarded Biedermeier architecture as the perfect example for middle class culture and domestic reform.[12]

During the Weimar Republic Germany faced another housing crisis. Paul Schultze-Naumburg was among Germany's most respected neo-Biedermeier architects and in his mind, new housing should imitate the German Biedermeier architecture of around 1800. Paul Mebes popularized the neo-Biedermeier style, which was widely endorsed by German architects. A modernist neo-Biedermeier architectural style was contrived by Adolf Behne, Bruno Taut, and Peter Behrens.[13] Schultz-Naumburg and Heinrich Tessenow advocated for interpreting Biedermeier architecture liberally, allowing for little modernization.[14]

Am Fronleichnamsmorgen, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1857) is an example of Biedermeier paintings evoking harmony, belief, and tradition.

The German word bieder translates into plain, while Maier is a common bourgeois surname. In the visual arts, Biedermeier style is associated with sentimentality and dullness. Biedermeier paintings are known for their preoccupation with the everyday world with few grand gestures.[15]

This formed an aesthetic is evidenced in the portraits (e.g., Portrait of the Arthaber Family, 1837, by Friedrich von Amerling), landscapes (e.g. see Waldmüller or Gauermann landscapes) and contemporary-reporting genre scenes (e.g., Controversy of the Coachmen, 1828, by Michael Neder).

Clara Schumann, noted pianist, portrayed in 1838 by Andreas Staub

Key painters of the Biedermeier movement were [ Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885), Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1795-1865), Henrik Weber (1818-1866), Josip Tominc (1780-1866), Friedrich von Amerling (1803-1887), Friedrich Gauermann (1807-1862), Johann Baptist Reiter (1813-1890), Peter Fendi (1796-1842), Michael Neder de] (1807-1882), Josef Danhauser (1805-1845), and Edmund Wodick (1806-1886) among others.

Biedermeier music was most evident in the numerous publications for in-home music making. Published arrangements of operatic excerpts, German Lieder, and some symphonic works that could be performed at the piano without professional musical training, illustrated the broadened reach of music in this period. Composers from this period include Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.

The so called Schubertiad were people who gathered around the composer Franz Schubert to provide a forum or meeting place for political secret societies. However, Biedermeier home music making was decidedly unpretentious and nonpolitical, the backdrop being politically explosive. Even the critical discussion of music itself was avoided.

The Biedermeier period coincided with the Czech National Revival movement in the Czech-speaking areas. The most famous writers of the period were Božena Němcová, Karel Hynek Mácha, František Ladislav Čelakovský, Václav Kliment Klicpera, and Josef Kajetán Tyl. Key painters of the Czech Biedermeier were Josef Navrátil, Antonín Machek, and Antonín Mánes. Landscapes, still lifes, courtyards, family scenes, and portraits were very popular. Václav Tomášek composed lyric piano pieces and songs to the patriotic lyrics of Czech authors. Biedermeier was also reflected in the applied arts: glass and porcelain, fashion, jewellery, and furniture.

Ilsa Barea (1966, republished 1992), Vienna: Legend and Reality, London: Pimlico. Chapter 111, Biedermeier, pp. 111-188.

Jane K. Brown, in The Cambridge Companion to the Lied, James Parsons (ed.), 2004, Cambridge.

Martin Swales & Erika Swales, Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

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Karl Ludwig Börne (born Loeb Baruch; 6 May 1786 - 12 February 1837) was a German-Jewish political writer and satirist, who is considered part of the Young Germany movement.

Neuer Börneplatz Frankfurt am Main

Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on 6 May 1786, at Frankfurt am Main, to a Jewish family. He was the son of Jakob Baruch, a banker. His grandfather had been a government bureaucrat.

Börne and his brothers were privately tutored by Jacob Sachs, and later by Rector Mosche. At age 14, he studied medicine with Professor Hetzel at Gießen. After a year, he was sent to study medicine at Berlin under a physician, Markus Herz, in whose house he lived. At age 16, Baruch became infatuated by his patron's 38-year-old wife, Henriette Herz. After her husband died in 1803, he expressed his adoration in a series of letters. When he enrolled at Halle University, she was influential in his boarding with Professor Reil. He studied constitutional law and political science at University of Heidelberg and Giessen. There, he received his PhD in 1809 with the dissertation Ueber die Geometrische Vertheilung der Staatsgebiete.

On his return to Frankfurt, now constituted as a grand duchy under the sovereignty of the prince bishop Karl von Dalberg, he received (1811) the appointment of police actuary in that city.

In 1814, he had to resign his post due to his ethnicity. Embittered by the oppression suffered by Jews in Germany, he took to journalism and edited the Frankfurt liberal newspapers Staatsristretto and Die Zeitschwingen.

In 1818, he converted to Lutheran Protestantism, changing his name from Loeb Baruch to Ludwig Börne. From 1818 to 1821, he edited Die Wage, a paper distinguished by its lively political articles and its powerful but sarcastic theatrical criticisms. This paper was suppressed by the police, and in 1821, Börne took a pause from journalism and led a quiet life in Paris, Hamburg, and Frankfurt.

After the July Revolution (1830), he hurried to Paris, expecting to find society nearer to his own ideas of freedom. Although to some extent disappointed in his hopes, he did not look any more kindly on the political condition of Germany; this lent additional zest to the brilliant satirical letters ( Briefe aus Paris, 1830-1833, published Paris, 1834), which he began to publish in his last literary venture, La Balance, a revival of Die Wage. The Briefe aus Paris was Börne's most important publication, and a landmark in the history of German journalism. Its appearance led him to be regarded as a leading thinker in Germany.

He died in Paris in 1837.

Nothing is permanent but change, nothing constant but death. Every pulsation of the heart inflicts a wound, and life would be an endless bleeding were it not for Poetry. She secures to us what Nature would deny - a golden age without rust, a spring which never fades, cloudless prosperity and eternal youth.

Börne's works are known for brilliant style and for thorough French satire. His best criticism is to be found in his Denkrede auf Jean Paul (1826) - a writer for whom he had warm sympathy and admiration -, in his Dramaturgische Blätter (1829-1834), and the witty satire Menzel der Franzosenfresser (1837). He also wrote a number of short stories and sketches, of which the best known are the Monographie der deutschen Postschnecke (1829) and Der Esskünstler (1822).

In his first volume of Sigmund Freud's biography, Ernest Jones relates that "Böeme" [sic] was an especial favourite in Freud's adolescence, a half century later quoting many passages from the essay "The Art of Becoming an Original Writer", which clearly played a part in Freud's putting his trust in free association during psycho-analysis:

Here follows the practical prescription I promised. Take a few sheets of paper and for three days in succession write down, without any falsification or hypocrisy, everything that comes into your head. Write what you think of yourself, of your women, of the Turkish War, of Goethe ... of the last judgment, of those senior to you in authority - and when the three days are over you will be amazed at what novel and startling thoughts have welled up in you. That is the art of becoming an original writer in three days.

Two portraits of him, by the Jewish painter Daniel M. Oppenheim, are in the Israel Museum Collection.

Gesammelte Schriften (trans. "Collected Writings"), in 4 volumes (1829-1834)

Nachgelassene Schriften (trans. "Posthumous Writings"), in 6 volumes (Mannheim, 1844-1850)

Nachgelassene Schriften (trans. "Posthumous Writings"), in 12 volumes (Hamburg, 1862-1863, reprint 1868)

Nachgelassene Schriften (trans. "Posthumous Writings") edited by A. Klaar in 8 volumes (Leipzig, 1900)

Börnes Leben (trans. "The Life of Börne"), (Hamburg: K. Gutzkow, 1840)

L. Börne, sein Leben und sein Wirken (trans. "L. Börne, his Life and his works"), (Berlin: M. Holzmann, 1888)

Börnes Briefe an Henriette Herz (trans. "Börne's Letters to Henriette Herz"), (1802-1807) re-edited by L. Geiger (Oldenburg, 1905)

Börnes Berliner Briefe (trans. "Börne's Berlin Letters") (Berlin, 1905)

Historische Schriften (trans. "Historical Writings"), (Darmstadt: G. Gervinus, 1838). (essay)

Hovedströmninger i det 19 de Aarhundredes Litteratur vol. vi. (Copenhagen: G. Brandes, 1890; German trans. 1891; English trans. 1905)

Das junge Deutschland (trans. "The Young Germany") (Stuttgart: J. Proelss, 1892).

The town of Boerne in the U.S. state of Texas, founded by German liberal immigrants ( Forty-Eighters), is named after him. The town is a part of the San Antonio metropolitan area.

The Börne Gallery at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt in Frankfurt, Germany is also named after him.

1. ^ Singer, Isadore; Cohen, Max. "Karl Börne". The Jewish Encyclopedia Online.

2. ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Börne, Karl Ludwig". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 255-256.

3. ^ Loesser, Arthur (2011). Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History. Dover Publications. p. 354. ISBN 978-0-486-26543-8.

4. ^ German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

5. Ludwig Börne, quoted in Sharon Klayman Farber, ^ Hungry for Ecstasy: Trauma, the Brain, and the Influence of the Sixties (Jason Aronson, 2013), p. 281. She references Ernest Jones' The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud as a source, among others.

Heine, Heinrich; Sammons, Jeffrey L (2006) [1840]. Ludwig Börne: A Memorial. Camden House. ISBN 978-1-57113-342-7.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Karl Ludwig Börne (born Loeb Baruch; 6 May 1786 - 12 February 1837) was a German-Jewish political writer and satirist, who is considered part of the Young Germany movement. Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on 6 May 1786, at Frankfurt am Main, to a Jewish family.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

Der Sonntagsspaziergang painting by Carl Spitzweg, a typical representation of the Biedermeier period (1841)

Austrian Biedermeier sofa, c. 1815-1825, mahogany, upholstery (not original), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada)

The term derives from the fictional mediocre poet Gottlieb Biedermaier [sic], who featured in the Munich magazine Fliegende Blätter (Flying Leaves).[1] It is used mostly to denote the unchallenging artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design. Biedermeier has influenced later styles.

Emperor Francis I of Austria in his study at the Hofburg palace. The interior is in the Biedermeier style. The Concert of Europe, ensured by the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, enabled the period of peace in which Biedermeier sensibilities developed.

The Biedermeier period does not refer to the era as a whole, but to a particular mood and set of trends that grew out of the unique underpinnings of the time in Central Europe. There were two driving forces for the development of the period. One was the growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class, which created a new kind of audience for the arts. The other was the political stability prevalent under Klemens von Metternich following the end of the Napoleonic Wars[2] and the Congress of Vienna.

The effect was for artists and society in general to concentrate on the domestic and, at least in public, the non-political. Writers, painters, and musicians began to stay in safer territory, and the emphasis on home life for the growing middle class meant a blossoming of furniture design and interior decorating.[3]

The affluent middle class values that are associated with Biedermeier include affection, sensibility, moderation, and modesty. Biedermeier Gemütlichkeit means, that one reaches a state of cosiness, as well as friendliness. Biedermeier style displays the conflict between ideals and reality, as human life was grey and gloomy.

Biedermeier family values reflected the bourgeois consensus and the housewife was responsible for furnishing and choosing the appropriate design. Middle class women were held responsible for family cohesion and children had to be socialized within the family.

The term Biedermeier appeared first in literary circles in the form of a pseudonym, Gottlieb Biedermaier, used by the country doctor Adolf Kussmaul and lawyer Ludwig Eichrodt in poems that the duo had published in the Munich satirical weekly Fliegende Blätter in 1850.

The verses parodied the people of the era, namely Samuel Friedrich Sauter, a primary teacher and sort of amateurish poet, as depoliticized and petit-bourgeois. The name was constructed from the titles of two poems-"Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit" (Biedermann's Evening Comfort) and "Bummelmaiers Klage" (Bummelmaier's Complaint)-which Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in 1848 in the same magazine.

As a label for the epoch, the term has been used since around 1900.

Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Friedrich Halm, Adelbert von Chamisso, Eduard Mörike, and Wilhelm Müller, the last three of whom have well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert respectively. Adalbert Stifter was a novelist and short story writer whose work also reflected the concerns of the Biedermeier movement, particularly with his novel Der Nachsommer. As historian Carl Emil Schorske put it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of Bildung, compounded of Benedictine world piety, German humanism, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel Der Nachsommer".

Biedermeier room in the museum of Chrzanów, Poland

Zimmerbild (chamber painting) of a Biedermeier interior in Berlin: fitted carpets, unified window, and pier-mirror draperies, and framed engravings in a restrained classicising style, around 1825, by Leopold Zielcke (1791-1861)

Biedermeier furniture is admired for quality craftsmanship and comfort. Original early 19th century Biedermeier furniture was manufactured to be publicly displayed, with less concern for convenience and private enjoyment. Biedermeier upholstery makes extensive use of coil-springs. Biedermeier furniture design was purchased or commissioned by the prosperous middle class to celebrate comfort and leisure.[9]

Middle to late-Biedermeier furniture design represented a heralding towards historicism and revival eras long sought for. Social forces originating in France would change the artisan-patron system that achieved this period of design, first in the German states, and then into Scandinavia. The middle class growth originated in the Industrial Revolution in Britain and many Biedermeier designs owe their simplicity to Georgian lines of the 19th century, as the proliferation of design publications reached the German states and the Austrian Empire.[10]

The Biedermeier style was a simplified interpretation of the influential French Empire style of Napoleon, which introduced the romance of ancient Roman Empire styles, adapting these to modern early 19th century households. Biedermeier furniture used locally available materials such as cherry, ash, and oak woods rather than the expensive timbers such as fully imported mahogany.

Unique designs were created in Vienna. Furniture from the earlier period (1815-1830) was the most severe and neoclassical in inspiration. It also supplied the most fantastic forms which the second half of the period (1830-1848) lacked, being influenced by the many style publications from Britain. Biedermeier furniture was the first style in the world that emanated from the growing middle class. It preceded Victoriana and influenced mainly German-speaking countries.

In Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who was adopted by King Charles XIII (who was childless), became Sweden's new king in 1818 as Karl XIV Johan. The Swedish Karl Johan style, similar to Biedermeier, retained its elegant and blatantly Napoleonic style throughout the 19th century.

Biedermeier furniture and lifestyle was a focus on exhibitions at the Vienna applied arts museum in 1896. The many visitors to this exhibition were so influenced by this fantasy style and its elegance that a new resurgence or revival period became popular amongst European cabinetmakers. This revival period lasted up until the Art Deco style was taken up. Biedermeier also influenced the various Bauhaus styles through their truth in material philosophy.

The original Biedermeier period changed with the political unrests of 1845-1848 (its end date). With the revolutions in European historicism, furniture of the later years of the period took on a distinct Wilhelminian or Victorian style.

The term Biedermeier is also used to refer to a style of clocks made in Vienna in the early 19th century. The clean and simple lines included a light and airy aesthetic, especially in Viennese regulators of the Laterndluhr and Dachluhr styles.

Globe-shaped work table; 1815-1820; maple veneer, bird's eye maple, fruitwoods, gilded and ebonized wood, mirror, brass; from Vienna; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ( Montreal, Canada)

Footstool; 1820-1840; carpentry embroidery upolstery; height: 29 cm, width: 46.3 cm; National Museum of Warsaw ( Warsaw, Poland)

Console; 1825-1830; carpentry wood carving veneering; height: 86.6 cm, width: 104.2 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

Chess table; 1825-1835; carpentry veneering inlay; height: 77 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

The Geymüllerschlössel in Vienna constructed in 1808, it houses the Biedermeier collection

The 19th century population growth and urbanization in Europe resulted in Biedermeier architecture marked by functionality and elegance.[11]

Architectural legacy

edit

In Wilhelmine Germany social reformers regarded Biedermeier architecture as the perfect example for middle class culture and domestic reform.[12]

During the Weimar Republic Germany faced another housing crisis. Paul Schultze-Naumburg was among Germany's most respected neo-Biedermeier architects and in his mind, new housing should imitate the German Biedermeier architecture of around 1800. Paul Mebes popularized the neo-Biedermeier style, which was widely endorsed by German architects. A modernist neo-Biedermeier architectural style was contrived by Adolf Behne, Bruno Taut, and Peter Behrens.[13] Schultz-Naumburg and Heinrich Tessenow advocated for interpreting Biedermeier architecture liberally, allowing for little modernization.[14]

Am Fronleichnamsmorgen, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1857) is an example of Biedermeier paintings evoking harmony, belief, and tradition.

The German word bieder translates into plain, while Maier is a common bourgeois surname. In the visual arts, Biedermeier style is associated with sentimentality and dullness. Biedermeier paintings are known for their preoccupation with the everyday world with few grand gestures.[15]

This formed an aesthetic is evidenced in the portraits (e.g., Portrait of the Arthaber Family, 1837, by Friedrich von Amerling), landscapes (e.g. see Waldmüller or Gauermann landscapes) and contemporary-reporting genre scenes (e.g., Controversy of the Coachmen, 1828, by Michael Neder).

Clara Schumann, noted pianist, portrayed in 1838 by Andreas Staub

Key painters of the Biedermeier movement were [ Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885), Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1795-1865), Henrik Weber (1818-1866), Josip Tominc (1780-1866), Friedrich von Amerling (1803-1887), Friedrich Gauermann (1807-1862), Johann Baptist Reiter (1813-1890), Peter Fendi (1796-1842), Michael Neder de] (1807-1882), Josef Danhauser (1805-1845), and Edmund Wodick (1806-1886) among others.

Biedermeier music was most evident in the numerous publications for in-home music making. Published arrangements of operatic excerpts, German Lieder, and some symphonic works that could be performed at the piano without professional musical training, illustrated the broadened reach of music in this period. Composers from this period include Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.

The so called Schubertiad were people who gathered around the composer Franz Schubert to provide a forum or meeting place for political secret societies. However, Biedermeier home music making was decidedly unpretentious and nonpolitical, the backdrop being politically explosive. Even the critical discussion of music itself was avoided.

The Biedermeier period coincided with the Czech National Revival movement in the Czech-speaking areas. The most famous writers of the period were Božena Němcová, Karel Hynek Mácha, František Ladislav Čelakovský, Václav Kliment Klicpera, and Josef Kajetán Tyl. Key painters of the Czech Biedermeier were Josef Navrátil, Antonín Machek, and Antonín Mánes. Landscapes, still lifes, courtyards, family scenes, and portraits were very popular. Václav Tomášek composed lyric piano pieces and songs to the patriotic lyrics of Czech authors. Biedermeier was also reflected in the applied arts: glass and porcelain, fashion, jewellery, and furniture.

Ilsa Barea (1966, republished 1992), Vienna: Legend and Reality, London: Pimlico. Chapter 111, Biedermeier, pp. 111-188.

Jane K. Brown, in The Cambridge Companion to the Lied, James Parsons (ed.), 2004, Cambridge.

Martin Swales & Erika Swales, Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

Der Sonntagsspaziergang painting by Carl Spitzweg, a typical representation of the Biedermeier period (1841)

Austrian Biedermeier sofa, c. 1815-1825, mahogany, upholstery (not original), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada)

The term derives from the fictional mediocre poet Gottlieb Biedermaier [sic], who featured in the Munich magazine Fliegende Blätter (Flying Leaves).[1] It is used mostly to denote the unchallenging artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design. Biedermeier has influenced later styles.

Emperor Francis I of Austria in his study at the Hofburg palace. The interior is in the Biedermeier style. The Concert of Europe, ensured by the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, enabled the period of peace in which Biedermeier sensibilities developed.

The Biedermeier period does not refer to the era as a whole, but to a particular mood and set of trends that grew out of the unique underpinnings of the time in Central Europe. There were two driving forces for the development of the period. One was the growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class, which created a new kind of audience for the arts. The other was the political stability prevalent under Klemens von Metternich following the end of the Napoleonic Wars[2] and the Congress of Vienna.

The effect was for artists and society in general to concentrate on the domestic and, at least in public, the non-political. Writers, painters, and musicians began to stay in safer territory, and the emphasis on home life for the growing middle class meant a blossoming of furniture design and interior decorating.[3]

The affluent middle class values that are associated with Biedermeier include affection, sensibility, moderation, and modesty. Biedermeier Gemütlichkeit means, that one reaches a state of cosiness, as well as friendliness. Biedermeier style displays the conflict between ideals and reality, as human life was grey and gloomy.

Biedermeier family values reflected the bourgeois consensus and the housewife was responsible for furnishing and choosing the appropriate design. Middle class women were held responsible for family cohesion and children had to be socialized within the family.

The term Biedermeier appeared first in literary circles in the form of a pseudonym, Gottlieb Biedermaier, used by the country doctor Adolf Kussmaul and lawyer Ludwig Eichrodt in poems that the duo had published in the Munich satirical weekly Fliegende Blätter in 1850.

The verses parodied the people of the era, namely Samuel Friedrich Sauter, a primary teacher and sort of amateurish poet, as depoliticized and petit-bourgeois. The name was constructed from the titles of two poems-"Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit" (Biedermann's Evening Comfort) and "Bummelmaiers Klage" (Bummelmaier's Complaint)-which Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in 1848 in the same magazine.

As a label for the epoch, the term has been used since around 1900.

Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Friedrich Halm, Adelbert von Chamisso, Eduard Mörike, and Wilhelm Müller, the last three of whom have well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert respectively. Adalbert Stifter was a novelist and short story writer whose work also reflected the concerns of the Biedermeier movement, particularly with his novel Der Nachsommer. As historian Carl Emil Schorske put it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of Bildung, compounded of Benedictine world piety, German humanism, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel Der Nachsommer".

Biedermeier room in the museum of Chrzanów, Poland

Zimmerbild (chamber painting) of a Biedermeier interior in Berlin: fitted carpets, unified window, and pier-mirror draperies, and framed engravings in a restrained classicising style, around 1825, by Leopold Zielcke (1791-1861)

Biedermeier furniture is admired for quality craftsmanship and comfort. Original early 19th century Biedermeier furniture was manufactured to be publicly displayed, with less concern for convenience and private enjoyment. Biedermeier upholstery makes extensive use of coil-springs. Biedermeier furniture design was purchased or commissioned by the prosperous middle class to celebrate comfort and leisure.[9]

Middle to late-Biedermeier furniture design represented a heralding towards historicism and revival eras long sought for. Social forces originating in France would change the artisan-patron system that achieved this period of design, first in the German states, and then into Scandinavia. The middle class growth originated in the Industrial Revolution in Britain and many Biedermeier designs owe their simplicity to Georgian lines of the 19th century, as the proliferation of design publications reached the German states and the Austrian Empire.[10]

The Biedermeier style was a simplified interpretation of the influential French Empire style of Napoleon, which introduced the romance of ancient Roman Empire styles, adapting these to modern early 19th century households. Biedermeier furniture used locally available materials such as cherry, ash, and oak woods rather than the expensive timbers such as fully imported mahogany.

Unique designs were created in Vienna. Furniture from the earlier period (1815-1830) was the most severe and neoclassical in inspiration. It also supplied the most fantastic forms which the second half of the period (1830-1848) lacked, being influenced by the many style publications from Britain. Biedermeier furniture was the first style in the world that emanated from the growing middle class. It preceded Victoriana and influenced mainly German-speaking countries.

In Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who was adopted by King Charles XIII (who was childless), became Sweden's new king in 1818 as Karl XIV Johan. The Swedish Karl Johan style, similar to Biedermeier, retained its elegant and blatantly Napoleonic style throughout the 19th century.

Biedermeier furniture and lifestyle was a focus on exhibitions at the Vienna applied arts museum in 1896. The many visitors to this exhibition were so influenced by this fantasy style and its elegance that a new resurgence or revival period became popular amongst European cabinetmakers. This revival period lasted up until the Art Deco style was taken up. Biedermeier also influenced the various Bauhaus styles through their truth in material philosophy.

The original Biedermeier period changed with the political unrests of 1845-1848 (its end date). With the revolutions in European historicism, furniture of the later years of the period took on a distinct Wilhelminian or Victorian style.

The term Biedermeier is also used to refer to a style of clocks made in Vienna in the early 19th century. The clean and simple lines included a light and airy aesthetic, especially in Viennese regulators of the Laterndluhr and Dachluhr styles.

Globe-shaped work table; 1815-1820; maple veneer, bird's eye maple, fruitwoods, gilded and ebonized wood, mirror, brass; from Vienna; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ( Montreal, Canada)

Footstool; 1820-1840; carpentry embroidery upolstery; height: 29 cm, width: 46.3 cm; National Museum of Warsaw ( Warsaw, Poland)

Console; 1825-1830; carpentry wood carving veneering; height: 86.6 cm, width: 104.2 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

Chess table; 1825-1835; carpentry veneering inlay; height: 77 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

The Geymüllerschlössel in Vienna constructed in 1808, it houses the Biedermeier collection

The 19th century population growth and urbanization in Europe resulted in Biedermeier architecture marked by functionality and elegance.[11]

Architectural legacy

edit

In Wilhelmine Germany social reformers regarded Biedermeier architecture as the perfect example for middle class culture and domestic reform.[12]

During the Weimar Republic Germany faced another housing crisis. Paul Schultze-Naumburg was among Germany's most respected neo-Biedermeier architects and in his mind, new housing should imitate the German Biedermeier architecture of around 1800. Paul Mebes popularized the neo-Biedermeier style, which was widely endorsed by German architects. A modernist neo-Biedermeier architectural style was contrived by Adolf Behne, Bruno Taut, and Peter Behrens.[13] Schultz-Naumburg and Heinrich Tessenow advocated for interpreting Biedermeier architecture liberally, allowing for little modernization.[14]

Am Fronleichnamsmorgen, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1857) is an example of Biedermeier paintings evoking harmony, belief, and tradition.

The German word bieder translates into plain, while Maier is a common bourgeois surname. In the visual arts, Biedermeier style is associated with sentimentality and dullness. Biedermeier paintings are known for their preoccupation with the everyday world with few grand gestures.[15]

This formed an aesthetic is evidenced in the portraits (e.g., Portrait of the Arthaber Family, 1837, by Friedrich von Amerling), landscapes (e.g. see Waldmüller or Gauermann landscapes) and contemporary-reporting genre scenes (e.g., Controversy of the Coachmen, 1828, by Michael Neder).

Clara Schumann, noted pianist, portrayed in 1838 by Andreas Staub

Key painters of the Biedermeier movement were [ Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885), Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1795-1865), Henrik Weber (1818-1866), Josip Tominc (1780-1866), Friedrich von Amerling (1803-1887), Friedrich Gauermann (1807-1862), Johann Baptist Reiter (1813-1890), Peter Fendi (1796-1842), Michael Neder de] (1807-1882), Josef Danhauser (1805-1845), and Edmund Wodick (1806-1886) among others.

Biedermeier music was most evident in the numerous publications for in-home music making. Published arrangements of operatic excerpts, German Lieder, and some symphonic works that could be performed at the piano without professional musical training, illustrated the broadened reach of music in this period. Composers from this period include Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.

The so called Schubertiad were people who gathered around the composer Franz Schubert to provide a forum or meeting place for political secret societies. However, Biedermeier home music making was decidedly unpretentious and nonpolitical, the backdrop being politically explosive. Even the critical discussion of music itself was avoided.

The Biedermeier period coincided with the Czech National Revival movement in the Czech-speaking areas. The most famous writers of the period were Božena Němcová, Karel Hynek Mácha, František Ladislav Čelakovský, Václav Kliment Klicpera, and Josef Kajetán Tyl. Key painters of the Czech Biedermeier were Josef Navrátil, Antonín Machek, and Antonín Mánes. Landscapes, still lifes, courtyards, family scenes, and portraits were very popular. Václav Tomášek composed lyric piano pieces and songs to the patriotic lyrics of Czech authors. Biedermeier was also reflected in the applied arts: glass and porcelain, fashion, jewellery, and furniture.

Ilsa Barea (1966, republished 1992), Vienna: Legend and Reality, London: Pimlico. Chapter 111, Biedermeier, pp. 111-188.

Jane K. Brown, in The Cambridge Companion to the Lied, James Parsons (ed.), 2004, Cambridge.

Martin Swales & Erika Swales, Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

Der Sonntagsspaziergang painting by Carl Spitzweg, a typical representation of the Biedermeier period (1841)

Austrian Biedermeier sofa, c. 1815-1825, mahogany, upholstery (not original), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada)

The term derives from the fictional mediocre poet Gottlieb Biedermaier [sic], who featured in the Munich magazine Fliegende Blätter (Flying Leaves).[1] It is used mostly to denote the unchallenging artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design. Biedermeier has influenced later styles.

Emperor Francis I of Austria in his study at the Hofburg palace. The interior is in the Biedermeier style. The Concert of Europe, ensured by the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, enabled the period of peace in which Biedermeier sensibilities developed.

The Biedermeier period does not refer to the era as a whole, but to a particular mood and set of trends that grew out of the unique underpinnings of the time in Central Europe. There were two driving forces for the development of the period. One was the growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class, which created a new kind of audience for the arts. The other was the political stability prevalent under Klemens von Metternich following the end of the Napoleonic Wars[2] and the Congress of Vienna.

The effect was for artists and society in general to concentrate on the domestic and, at least in public, the non-political. Writers, painters, and musicians began to stay in safer territory, and the emphasis on home life for the growing middle class meant a blossoming of furniture design and interior decorating.[3]

The affluent middle class values that are associated with Biedermeier include affection, sensibility, moderation, and modesty. Biedermeier Gemütlichkeit means, that one reaches a state of cosiness, as well as friendliness. Biedermeier style displays the conflict between ideals and reality, as human life was grey and gloomy.

Biedermeier family values reflected the bourgeois consensus and the housewife was responsible for furnishing and choosing the appropriate design. Middle class women were held responsible for family cohesion and children had to be socialized within the family.

The term Biedermeier appeared first in literary circles in the form of a pseudonym, Gottlieb Biedermaier, used by the country doctor Adolf Kussmaul and lawyer Ludwig Eichrodt in poems that the duo had published in the Munich satirical weekly Fliegende Blätter in 1850.

The verses parodied the people of the era, namely Samuel Friedrich Sauter, a primary teacher and sort of amateurish poet, as depoliticized and petit-bourgeois. The name was constructed from the titles of two poems-"Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit" (Biedermann's Evening Comfort) and "Bummelmaiers Klage" (Bummelmaier's Complaint)-which Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in 1848 in the same magazine.

As a label for the epoch, the term has been used since around 1900.

Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Friedrich Halm, Adelbert von Chamisso, Eduard Mörike, and Wilhelm Müller, the last three of whom have well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert respectively. Adalbert Stifter was a novelist and short story writer whose work also reflected the concerns of the Biedermeier movement, particularly with his novel Der Nachsommer. As historian Carl Emil Schorske put it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of Bildung, compounded of Benedictine world piety, German humanism, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel Der Nachsommer".

Biedermeier room in the museum of Chrzanów, Poland

Zimmerbild (chamber painting) of a Biedermeier interior in Berlin: fitted carpets, unified window, and pier-mirror draperies, and framed engravings in a restrained classicising style, around 1825, by Leopold Zielcke (1791-1861)

Biedermeier furniture is admired for quality craftsmanship and comfort. Original early 19th century Biedermeier furniture was manufactured to be publicly displayed, with less concern for convenience and private enjoyment. Biedermeier upholstery makes extensive use of coil-springs. Biedermeier furniture design was purchased or commissioned by the prosperous middle class to celebrate comfort and leisure.[9]

Middle to late-Biedermeier furniture design represented a heralding towards historicism and revival eras long sought for. Social forces originating in France would change the artisan-patron system that achieved this period of design, first in the German states, and then into Scandinavia. The middle class growth originated in the Industrial Revolution in Britain and many Biedermeier designs owe their simplicity to Georgian lines of the 19th century, as the proliferation of design publications reached the German states and the Austrian Empire.[10]

The Biedermeier style was a simplified interpretation of the influential French Empire style of Napoleon, which introduced the romance of ancient Roman Empire styles, adapting these to modern early 19th century households. Biedermeier furniture used locally available materials such as cherry, ash, and oak woods rather than the expensive timbers such as fully imported mahogany.

Unique designs were created in Vienna. Furniture from the earlier period (1815-1830) was the most severe and neoclassical in inspiration. It also supplied the most fantastic forms which the second half of the period (1830-1848) lacked, being influenced by the many style publications from Britain. Biedermeier furniture was the first style in the world that emanated from the growing middle class. It preceded Victoriana and influenced mainly German-speaking countries.

In Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who was adopted by King Charles XIII (who was childless), became Sweden's new king in 1818 as Karl XIV Johan. The Swedish Karl Johan style, similar to Biedermeier, retained its elegant and blatantly Napoleonic style throughout the 19th century.

Biedermeier furniture and lifestyle was a focus on exhibitions at the Vienna applied arts museum in 1896. The many visitors to this exhibition were so influenced by this fantasy style and its elegance that a new resurgence or revival period became popular amongst European cabinetmakers. This revival period lasted up until the Art Deco style was taken up. Biedermeier also influenced the various Bauhaus styles through their truth in material philosophy.

The original Biedermeier period changed with the political unrests of 1845-1848 (its end date). With the revolutions in European historicism, furniture of the later years of the period took on a distinct Wilhelminian or Victorian style.

The term Biedermeier is also used to refer to a style of clocks made in Vienna in the early 19th century. The clean and simple lines included a light and airy aesthetic, especially in Viennese regulators of the Laterndluhr and Dachluhr styles.

Globe-shaped work table; 1815-1820; maple veneer, bird's eye maple, fruitwoods, gilded and ebonized wood, mirror, brass; from Vienna; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ( Montreal, Canada)

Footstool; 1820-1840; carpentry embroidery upolstery; height: 29 cm, width: 46.3 cm; National Museum of Warsaw ( Warsaw, Poland)

Console; 1825-1830; carpentry wood carving veneering; height: 86.6 cm, width: 104.2 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

Chess table; 1825-1835; carpentry veneering inlay; height: 77 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

The Geymüllerschlössel in Vienna constructed in 1808, it houses the Biedermeier collection

The 19th century population growth and urbanization in Europe resulted in Biedermeier architecture marked by functionality and elegance.[11]

Architectural legacy

edit

In Wilhelmine Germany social reformers regarded Biedermeier architecture as the perfect example for middle class culture and domestic reform.[12]

During the Weimar Republic Germany faced another housing crisis. Paul Schultze-Naumburg was among Germany's most respected neo-Biedermeier architects and in his mind, new housing should imitate the German Biedermeier architecture of around 1800. Paul Mebes popularized the neo-Biedermeier style, which was widely endorsed by German architects. A modernist neo-Biedermeier architectural style was contrived by Adolf Behne, Bruno Taut, and Peter Behrens.[13] Schultz-Naumburg and Heinrich Tessenow advocated for interpreting Biedermeier architecture liberally, allowing for little modernization.[14]

Am Fronleichnamsmorgen, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1857) is an example of Biedermeier paintings evoking harmony, belief, and tradition.

The German word bieder translates into plain, while Maier is a common bourgeois surname. In the visual arts, Biedermeier style is associated with sentimentality and dullness. Biedermeier paintings are known for their preoccupation with the everyday world with few grand gestures.[15]

This formed an aesthetic is evidenced in the portraits (e.g., Portrait of the Arthaber Family, 1837, by Friedrich von Amerling), landscapes (e.g. see Waldmüller or Gauermann landscapes) and contemporary-reporting genre scenes (e.g., Controversy of the Coachmen, 1828, by Michael Neder).

Clara Schumann, noted pianist, portrayed in 1838 by Andreas Staub

Key painters of the Biedermeier movement were [ Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885), Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1795-1865), Henrik Weber (1818-1866), Josip Tominc (1780-1866), Friedrich von Amerling (1803-1887), Friedrich Gauermann (1807-1862), Johann Baptist Reiter (1813-1890), Peter Fendi (1796-1842), Michael Neder de] (1807-1882), Josef Danhauser (1805-1845), and Edmund Wodick (1806-1886) among others.

Biedermeier music was most evident in the numerous publications for in-home music making. Published arrangements of operatic excerpts, German Lieder, and some symphonic works that could be performed at the piano without professional musical training, illustrated the broadened reach of music in this period. Composers from this period include Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.

The so called Schubertiad were people who gathered around the composer Franz Schubert to provide a forum or meeting place for political secret societies. However, Biedermeier home music making was decidedly unpretentious and nonpolitical, the backdrop being politically explosive. Even the critical discussion of music itself was avoided.

The Biedermeier period coincided with the Czech National Revival movement in the Czech-speaking areas. The most famous writers of the period were Božena Němcová, Karel Hynek Mácha, František Ladislav Čelakovský, Václav Kliment Klicpera, and Josef Kajetán Tyl. Key painters of the Czech Biedermeier were Josef Navrátil, Antonín Machek, and Antonín Mánes. Landscapes, still lifes, courtyards, family scenes, and portraits were very popular. Václav Tomášek composed lyric piano pieces and songs to the patriotic lyrics of Czech authors. Biedermeier was also reflected in the applied arts: glass and porcelain, fashion, jewellery, and furniture.

Ilsa Barea (1966, republished 1992), Vienna: Legend and Reality, London: Pimlico. Chapter 111, Biedermeier, pp. 111-188.

Jane K. Brown, in The Cambridge Companion to the Lied, James Parsons (ed.), 2004, Cambridge.

Martin Swales & Erika Swales, Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

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The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

Der Sonntagsspaziergang painting by Carl Spitzweg, a typical representation of the Biedermeier period (1841)

Austrian Biedermeier sofa, c. 1815-1825, mahogany, upholstery (not original), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada)

The term derives from the fictional mediocre poet Gottlieb Biedermaier [sic], who featured in the Munich magazine Fliegende Blätter (Flying Leaves).[1] It is used mostly to denote the unchallenging artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design. Biedermeier has influenced later styles.

Emperor Francis I of Austria in his study at the Hofburg palace. The interior is in the Biedermeier style. The Concert of Europe, ensured by the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, enabled the period of peace in which Biedermeier sensibilities developed.

The Biedermeier period does not refer to the era as a whole, but to a particular mood and set of trends that grew out of the unique underpinnings of the time in Central Europe. There were two driving forces for the development of the period. One was the growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class, which created a new kind of audience for the arts. The other was the political stability prevalent under Klemens von Metternich following the end of the Napoleonic Wars[2] and the Congress of Vienna.

The effect was for artists and society in general to concentrate on the domestic and, at least in public, the non-political. Writers, painters, and musicians began to stay in safer territory, and the emphasis on home life for the growing middle class meant a blossoming of furniture design and interior decorating.[3]

The affluent middle class values that are associated with Biedermeier include affection, sensibility, moderation, and modesty. Biedermeier Gemütlichkeit means, that one reaches a state of cosiness, as well as friendliness. Biedermeier style displays the conflict between ideals and reality, as human life was grey and gloomy.

Biedermeier family values reflected the bourgeois consensus and the housewife was responsible for furnishing and choosing the appropriate design. Middle class women were held responsible for family cohesion and children had to be socialized within the family.

The term Biedermeier appeared first in literary circles in the form of a pseudonym, Gottlieb Biedermaier, used by the country doctor Adolf Kussmaul and lawyer Ludwig Eichrodt in poems that the duo had published in the Munich satirical weekly Fliegende Blätter in 1850.

The verses parodied the people of the era, namely Samuel Friedrich Sauter, a primary teacher and sort of amateurish poet, as depoliticized and petit-bourgeois. The name was constructed from the titles of two poems-"Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit" (Biedermann's Evening Comfort) and "Bummelmaiers Klage" (Bummelmaier's Complaint)-which Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in 1848 in the same magazine.

As a label for the epoch, the term has been used since around 1900.

Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Friedrich Halm, Adelbert von Chamisso, Eduard Mörike, and Wilhelm Müller, the last three of whom have well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert respectively. Adalbert Stifter was a novelist and short story writer whose work also reflected the concerns of the Biedermeier movement, particularly with his novel Der Nachsommer. As historian Carl Emil Schorske put it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of Bildung, compounded of Benedictine world piety, German humanism, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel Der Nachsommer".

Biedermeier room in the museum of Chrzanów, Poland

Zimmerbild (chamber painting) of a Biedermeier interior in Berlin: fitted carpets, unified window, and pier-mirror draperies, and framed engravings in a restrained classicising style, around 1825, by Leopold Zielcke (1791-1861)

Biedermeier furniture is admired for quality craftsmanship and comfort. Original early 19th century Biedermeier furniture was manufactured to be publicly displayed, with less concern for convenience and private enjoyment. Biedermeier upholstery makes extensive use of coil-springs. Biedermeier furniture design was purchased or commissioned by the prosperous middle class to celebrate comfort and leisure.[9]

Middle to late-Biedermeier furniture design represented a heralding towards historicism and revival eras long sought for. Social forces originating in France would change the artisan-patron system that achieved this period of design, first in the German states, and then into Scandinavia. The middle class growth originated in the Industrial Revolution in Britain and many Biedermeier designs owe their simplicity to Georgian lines of the 19th century, as the proliferation of design publications reached the German states and the Austrian Empire.[10]

The Biedermeier style was a simplified interpretation of the influential French Empire style of Napoleon, which introduced the romance of ancient Roman Empire styles, adapting these to modern early 19th century households. Biedermeier furniture used locally available materials such as cherry, ash, and oak woods rather than the expensive timbers such as fully imported mahogany.

Unique designs were created in Vienna. Furniture from the earlier period (1815-1830) was the most severe and neoclassical in inspiration. It also supplied the most fantastic forms which the second half of the period (1830-1848) lacked, being influenced by the many style publications from Britain. Biedermeier furniture was the first style in the world that emanated from the growing middle class. It preceded Victoriana and influenced mainly German-speaking countries.

In Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who was adopted by King Charles XIII (who was childless), became Sweden's new king in 1818 as Karl XIV Johan. The Swedish Karl Johan style, similar to Biedermeier, retained its elegant and blatantly Napoleonic style throughout the 19th century.

Biedermeier furniture and lifestyle was a focus on exhibitions at the Vienna applied arts museum in 1896. The many visitors to this exhibition were so influenced by this fantasy style and its elegance that a new resurgence or revival period became popular amongst European cabinetmakers. This revival period lasted up until the Art Deco style was taken up. Biedermeier also influenced the various Bauhaus styles through their truth in material philosophy.

The original Biedermeier period changed with the political unrests of 1845-1848 (its end date). With the revolutions in European historicism, furniture of the later years of the period took on a distinct Wilhelminian or Victorian style.

The term Biedermeier is also used to refer to a style of clocks made in Vienna in the early 19th century. The clean and simple lines included a light and airy aesthetic, especially in Viennese regulators of the Laterndluhr and Dachluhr styles.

Globe-shaped work table; 1815-1820; maple veneer, bird's eye maple, fruitwoods, gilded and ebonized wood, mirror, brass; from Vienna; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ( Montreal, Canada)

Footstool; 1820-1840; carpentry embroidery upolstery; height: 29 cm, width: 46.3 cm; National Museum of Warsaw ( Warsaw, Poland)

Console; 1825-1830; carpentry wood carving veneering; height: 86.6 cm, width: 104.2 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

Chess table; 1825-1835; carpentry veneering inlay; height: 77 cm; National Museum of Warsaw

The Geymüllerschlössel in Vienna constructed in 1808, it houses the Biedermeier collection

The 19th century population growth and urbanization in Europe resulted in Biedermeier architecture marked by functionality and elegance.[11]

Architectural legacy

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In Wilhelmine Germany social reformers regarded Biedermeier architecture as the perfect example for middle class culture and domestic reform.[12]

During the Weimar Republic Germany faced another housing crisis. Paul Schultze-Naumburg was among Germany's most respected neo-Biedermeier architects and in his mind, new housing should imitate the German Biedermeier architecture of around 1800. Paul Mebes popularized the neo-Biedermeier style, which was widely endorsed by German architects. A modernist neo-Biedermeier architectural style was contrived by Adolf Behne, Bruno Taut, and Peter Behrens.[13] Schultz-Naumburg and Heinrich Tessenow advocated for interpreting Biedermeier architecture liberally, allowing for little modernization.[14]

Am Fronleichnamsmorgen, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1857) is an example of Biedermeier paintings evoking harmony, belief, and tradition.

The German word bieder translates into plain, while Maier is a common bourgeois surname. In the visual arts, Biedermeier style is associated with sentimentality and dullness. Biedermeier paintings are known for their preoccupation with the everyday world with few grand gestures.[15]

This formed an aesthetic is evidenced in the portraits (e.g., Portrait of the Arthaber Family, 1837, by Friedrich von Amerling), landscapes (e.g. see Waldmüller or Gauermann landscapes) and contemporary-reporting genre scenes (e.g., Controversy of the Coachmen, 1828, by Michael Neder).

Clara Schumann, noted pianist, portrayed in 1838 by Andreas Staub

Key painters of the Biedermeier movement were [ Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885), Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1795-1865), Henrik Weber (1818-1866), Josip Tominc (1780-1866), Friedrich von Amerling (1803-1887), Friedrich Gauermann (1807-1862), Johann Baptist Reiter (1813-1890), Peter Fendi (1796-1842), Michael Neder de] (1807-1882), Josef Danhauser (1805-1845), and Edmund Wodick (1806-1886) among others.

Biedermeier music was most evident in the numerous publications for in-home music making. Published arrangements of operatic excerpts, German Lieder, and some symphonic works that could be performed at the piano without professional musical training, illustrated the broadened reach of music in this period. Composers from this period include Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.

The so called Schubertiad were people who gathered around the composer Franz Schubert to provide a forum or meeting place for political secret societies. However, Biedermeier home music making was decidedly unpretentious and nonpolitical, the backdrop being politically explosive. Even the critical discussion of music itself was avoided.

The Biedermeier period coincided with the Czech National Revival movement in the Czech-speaking areas. The most famous writers of the period were Božena Němcová, Karel Hynek Mácha, František Ladislav Čelakovský, Václav Kliment Klicpera, and Josef Kajetán Tyl. Key painters of the Czech Biedermeier were Josef Navrátil, Antonín Machek, and Antonín Mánes. Landscapes, still lifes, courtyards, family scenes, and portraits were very popular. Václav Tomášek composed lyric piano pieces and songs to the patriotic lyrics of Czech authors. Biedermeier was also reflected in the applied arts: glass and porcelain, fashion, jewellery, and furniture.

Ilsa Barea (1966, republished 1992), Vienna: Legend and Reality, London: Pimlico. Chapter 111, Biedermeier, pp. 111-188.

Jane K. Brown, in The Cambridge Companion to the Lied, James Parsons (ed.), 2004, Cambridge.

Martin Swales & Erika Swales, Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

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Heinrich Heine „Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen. Caput I"

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Deutschland - Ein Wintermärchen -- Heinrich Heine 1/6

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Deutschland - Ein Wintermärchen -- Heinrich Heine 1/6

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Biedermeier - Literaturepoche einfach erklärt - Merkmale, Literatur, Geschichte, Vertreter

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Am Nachmittag des 18. März 1848 versammelte sich eine große Menschenmenge auf dem Berliner Schlossplatz, um auf die Antwort des Königs auf die von einer Abordnung der Bürgerschaft überbrachten "Märzforderungen" zu warten. Gegen 14:30 Uhr fielen zwei Schüsse. Sie lösten einen Barrikadenkampf aus, der binnen weniger Stunden das ganze Stadtzentrum Berlins umfasste und mehr als 250 Menschen das Leben kostete. Der 18. März 1848 markierte einen Höhepunkt der bürgerlich-demokratischen Revolution von 1848/49 und ebnete den Weg zur ersten geschriebenen Verfassung in Preußen.

Die weithin herrschende Massenarmut, der grassierende Hunger, die nach wie vor drückenden Feudallasten und nicht zuletzt die politischen Unfreiheiten bereiteten im Deutschland des Vormärz den Boden für einen tiefgreifenden sozialen und politischen Wandel. Entscheidende Impulse, durch die der anstehende Umbruch zum revolutionären Aufbruch wurde, gingen zu Jahresbeginn 1848 von der Februarrevolution in Frankreich aus. Der revolutionäre Funke sprang zunächst auf den deutschen Südwesten und Westen über und ergriff schließlich im März ganz Deutschland. In allen deutschen Staaten machten sich die Massen die sogenannten Märzforderungen zu eigen: Zentral war dabei der Ruf nach einer freiheitlichen Verfassung, die insbesondere die Presse-, Vereins- und Versammlungsfreiheit garantierte. Hinzu kamen jene Losungen, die auf eine Aufhebung aller feudalen Vorrechte abzielten. Wegweisender noch - und auf nahezu allen das Land überflutenden Petitionen und Flugblättern zu finden - waren die Forderungen nach einem allgemeinen und freien Wahlrecht sowie nach der sofortigen "Herstellung eines deutschen Parlaments".

Auch in Berlin hatte die Nachricht von der Revolution in Paris die Menschen in Aufruhr versetzt. In den Lesecafés der Innenstadt und auf spontan organisierten Volksversammlungen außerhalb der Stadt, zum Beispiel "In den Zelten", einem Vergnügungsort im Tiergarten, wurde der Unmut über die politischen Verhältnisse laut. Die preußische Obrigkeit wurde der zunehmenden politischen Unruhe breiter Schichten nicht mehr Herr. Als das Militär in die Stadt beordert wurde, verstärkte das die angespannte Stimmung. Am Nachmittag des 18. März versammelte sich eine große Menschenmenge zu einer friedlichen Demonstration auf dem Schlossplatz. Sie wartete auf die Antwort des Königs, es hieß, alle Wünsche der Bürger, die von einer Abordnung der Bürgerschaft überbrachten "Märzforderungen", würden erfüllt werden. Dennoch fielen gegen 14:30 Uhr zwei Schüsse, angeblich versehentlich ausgelöst. Binnen weniger Stunden türmten sich im Zentrum Berlins die Barrikaden auf, hinter denen sich Kämpfer verschanzten und sich mit allen verfügbaren Waffen zur Wehr setzten.

Der Zeitzeuge August Varnhagen von Ense beschrieb die Situation am 18. März 1848 in Berlin in seinem Tagebuch: "Auch in meiner Wohngegend regte sich schnell der Eifer zum Barrikadenbau; von den Linden heimgehend, sah ich schon alles an der Arbeit, um nicht ausgesperrt zu werden, musst ich eilen, nach Hause zu gelangen, wo die Tür schon verschlossen war. Rechts nach der Jägerstraße, links nach der Behrenstrasse, vorwärts in der Französischen Straße, deren ganze Länge man von meinen Fenstern aus übersehen konnte, stiegen rasch die Schutzwehren empor, hinter denen wir uns bald wie in einer Festung abgeschieden fanden. Einige wohlgekleidete junge Leute, dem Ansehen nach Studenten, gaben Anleitung und Befehl, eine gemischte Menge, Hausknechte, Bürger, Alt und Jung, waren eifrig am Werk, Droschken und Wagen wurden angehalten und umgestürzt, die Rinnsteinbrücken und Pflaster aufgerissen, Fässer und Kästen herbeigeholt, ein in Bau begriffenes Haus lieferte Balken, Bretter und Ziegel; auf die Dächer der Eckhäuser häufte man einen großen Vorrat von Pflastersteinen, auch Kloben wurden hinausgeschleppt, um sie von der Höhe auf die Angreifenden herabzuschmettern."

Das Militär ging mit großer Härte und Brutalität auch gegen unbeteiligte Menschen in den Häusern vor, konnte sich aber in diesem Straßen- und Häuserkampf nicht durchsetzen. Als Bedingung für einen Waffenstillstand musste der König am 19. März das Militär zurückziehen. 183 zivile Opfer des Barrikadenkampfes wurden wenige Tage später in einem feierlichen Leichenzug zu Grabe getragen.

Am 21. März erließ König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. von Preußen eine Proklamation, in der er sich zur deutschen Einheit und Freiheit bekannte. "Ich habe heute die alten deutschen Farben angenommen und Mich und Mein Volk unter das ehrwürdige Banner des Deutschen Reiches gestellt. Preußen geht fortan in Deutschland auf." Die bislang verbotenen Farben Schwarz-Rot-Gold der deutschen Nationalbewegung, vom König als Farben des "alten Reiches" bezeichnet, wurden nun von ihm als Symbole der Revolution anerkannt. Das schon am 18. März gegebene Verfassungsversprechen wurde bekräftigt. Geschmückt mit den Farben Schwarz-Rot-Gold demonstrierte er durch einen feierlichen Umritt durch die Stadt seinen Willen, sich an die Spitze der deutschen Einheitsbewegung zu stellen. Die am 5. Dezember 1848 von Friedrich Wilhelm IV. oktroyierte Verfassung für Preußen nahm viele der Märzforderungen auf und enthielt einen liberalen Grundrechtskatalog.

Der "18. März" wurde zum Symbol für die Freiheit schlechthin, der Friedhof der Märzgefallenen in Berlin-Friedrichshain ein Wallfahrtsort für Freiheitskämpfer. Eine erste Großdemonstration mit rund 100.000 Teilnehmern fand noch im Juni 1848 statt, um die Ziele der Revolution zu bekräftigen und den Kampfgeist zu beschwören. Die Märzgefallenen wurden zum Symbol der Revolution und der Friedhof der Märzgefallenen im Friedrichshain ein Ort der Revolutionsfeier und des ritualisierten Protestes. Trotz Verbotes durch die preußische Obrigkeit im Jahre 1850 fanden jährlich am 18. März Gedenkfeiern statt, bei denen es immer wieder zu Zusammenstößen zwischen Polizei und Demonstranten kam. Einen ersten Höhepunkt erreichten die Feiern zum 25. Jahrestag 1873, der vor allem von der erstarkenden Arbeiterbewegung gefeiert wurde. An die 20.000 Arbeiter nahmen teil, nach den anschließenden Ausschreitungen gab es zahlreiche Verhaftungen. Auch der 50. Jahrestag wurde 1898 intensiv von der Sozialdemokratie mit zahlreichen Leit- und Gedenkartikeln sowie "Märzzeitungen" vorbereitet. Diesmal verliefen die Gedenkfeiern friedlich. Einem Polizeibericht zufolge besuchten 12.000 Menschen den Friedhof der Märzgefallenen und legten 465 Kränze nieder. Ab 1900 nahm das Interesse an den Märzfeiern stetig ab und wurde zunehmend vom 1. Mai als Aktionstag der Arbeiterbewegung verdrängt.

Die Hundertjahrfeier der Märzrevolution fiel in die Zeit der Deutschen Teilung; Ost und West setzten hinsichtlich des Erbes von 1848 unterschiedliche Akzente: Die SED sah sich als Erbe der Märzrevolution und bekräftigte dies mit einem riesigen Demonstrationszug zum Friedhof der Märzgefallenen am 18. März 1948. Auch der "II. Deutsche Volkskongress für Einheit und gerechten Frieden" tagte als verfassunggebende Nationalversammlung bewusst an diesem symbolträchtigen Tag im Berliner Admiralspalast. Die Revolution von 1848 wurde so zu einem wesentlichen Bestandteil des Gründungsmythos der DDR. In den westlichen Besatzungszonen stand der Zusammentritt der Nationalversammlung in der Frankfurter Paulskirche im Mai 1848 im Mittelpunkt der Gedenkveranstaltungen. Im Rahmen der friedlichen Revolution von 1989/90 trat die Erinnerung an die Freiheitsideale der Märzrevolution wieder in den Vordergrund. So fand die erste freie Volkskammerwahl der DDR bewusst am 18. März 1990 statt. Seit dem Jahr 2000 heißt der Platz vor dem Brandenburger Tor in Berlin "Platz des 18. März".

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Am Nachmittag des 18. März 1848 versammelte sich eine große Menschenmenge auf dem Berliner Schlossplatz, um auf die Antwort des Königs auf die von einer Abordnung der Bürgerschaft überbrachten "Märzforderungen" zu warten. Gegen 14:30 Uhr fielen zwei Schüsse. Sie lösten einen Barrikadenkampf aus, der binnen weniger Stunden das ganze Stadtzentrum Berlins umfasste und mehr als 250 Menschen das Leben kostete.

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What Makes You Beautiful - You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful

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What Makes You Beautiful - You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful

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What Makes You Beautiful - You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful

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Just Go to Hell Dil Full Video - Dear Zindagi|Alia Bhatt|Sunidhi Chauhan|Amit Trivedi

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Aaj Kal Zindagi - Video Lyrical | Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen | Wake Up Sid | Shankar Mahadevan

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