Historical Awareness Today

Developing Historical Awareness

The revolutionary scene depicted in the mural by Dr. Edeltraud Sießl combines three elements: the euphoria of the Freischärler, their military resources, and the myth of the barricades.

However, the development of historical awareness should not be guided solely by sentiments and myths. As a well-founded statement on a historical issue (event, decision, conflict), it must be viewed particularly from normative and ethical perspectives.

From a normative standpoint, the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) must be considered first and foremost. The right to resistance, enshrined in Article 20.4, stipulates: “All Germans have the right to resist anyone who attempts to abolish this order, if no other remedy is possible.” – Here, “order” refers to the constitutional concept of fundamental rights, popular sovereignty, and the separation of powers.

However, the “order” that existed in 1848/49 was different. There was no constitutionally guaranteed right to resistance.

Rhenish Hessian Freischaren

The Rhenish Hessian Freischaren were recruited partly from local citizen militias and partly from spontaneous supporters.

The roots in the citizen militias are evident in the fact that Franz Zitz, one of the two commanders of the Rhenish Hessian Freischaren in Kirchheimbolanden, had begun his political involvement as a colonel in the Mainz citizen militia, founded in February 1848.

The second origin of the Rhenish Hessian Freischaren was the established “Rhenish Hessian Provincial Committee for the Implementation of the Imperial Constitution,” based in Wörrstadt. In its name, Bamberger and Zitz issued a marching order, which was primarily disseminated through gymnastics clubs:

All inhabitants of Rhenish Hesse who have committed themselves and feel obligated to uphold the German constitution are hereby ordered to equip themselves as best they can with firearms, cutting and stabbing weapons, ammunition, and

provisions, and to depart immediately upon receipt of this order, arriving in Wörrstadt by the evening of Thursday, May 10, 1849, to march on from there.

One of the participants in this march reported in a letter on May 16, 1849:

As we marched from Wörrstadt, we arrived in Alzey at noon, where we were received in the best possible way. We received so much to eat and drink that all of us, about 3,000 men, felt the effects of the wine. In Niederflörsheim, we split up; the men from Alzey, Bingen, and Oppenheim went to Monsheim […]. We arrived there at 6 PM and were received so warmly that we ourselves were astonished. You can imagine, the farmers grumbled at each other if one didn’t get more billeting than the other; one took 86 men, another 76, each at least 10-15; indeed, we even had to fetch another 100 men from elsewhere to satisfy the farmers. The next morning, we marched to Kirchheimbolanden […] and were welcomed in every village with wine and music. […] Our vanguard is 1,200 strong, all riflemen.

However, it wasn’t only riflemen who marched to Kirchheimbolanden. There were also “scythe men” among them, as well as completely unarmed individuals.

An Encounter with Freischärler in Kirchheimbolanden

The Freischärler sculpture on the square at the Grey Tower exudes a romanticism in which, without a doubt, most of the “men of action” also saw themselves — they are referred to as men of action in a report published in February 1850 by the “Rheinische Zeitung, Politisch-ökonomische Revue”:

We were sitting in the inn that evening with several Freischärler. Among them were some of those serious, enthusiastic “men of action” […] who saw no difficulty whatsoever in defeating any army in the world with few weapons and much enthusiasm. These are people who had at most seen a guard parade in the military, who never concerned themselves with the material means to achieve any goal, and who therefore usually, as I later had several opportunities to observe, experienced such a crushing disappointment in the first engagement that they quickly made off. I asked one of these heroes if he really intended […] to defeat the Prussians, and was generally in the mood to amuse myself at the holy indignation of the man of action, wounded in his noblest enthusiasm, when the guard entered and declared me arrested. […] At the same time, an old acquaintance of mine, a captain in the Rhenish Hessian Corps, stood up and declared that if I were arrested, he and a significant number of the best men in the corps would immediately leave. Those present split into two parties, the scene threatened to become interesting, and I declared that I would, of course, gladly allow myself to be arrested: It would finally become clear what nature the Palatinate movement had. I went with the guard.

The next morning, after a comical interrogation, I was handed over to the civil commissioner, who then passed me to a gendarme. The gendarme, who had been instructed to treat me as a spy, bound both my hands and led me away on foot, accused of disparaging the uprising of the Palatinate people and inciting against the government, about which I had incidentally said not a word.

The rest can be quickly summarized. The detainee was transferred to Kaiserslautern and released from custody the following day without any conditions.

It remains to add his name: Friedrich Engels (1820-95), who is closely associated with Karl Marx’s revolutionary program.

A Visit to the Freischärler in Kirchheimbolanden

Another revolutionary of 1848/49, Karl Schurz (1829-1906) – who later became a Senator for Missouri in the USA and subsequently the American Secretary of the Interior as an emigrant – visited the Rhenish Hessian Freischärler in the Palatinate in 1849 while on his way from Mainz to Strasbourg. In Kirchheimbolanden, he intended to meet Franz Zitz.

So I set off on foot for Kirchheimbolanden, carrying my luggage in a rucksack on my back. In the small town of Kirchheimbolanden, I found Zitz, a tall, stately man, amidst his seemingly well-equipped and somewhat disciplined Freischar. The camp did not make a bad impression. […] However, the artillery, which consisted of three or four small saluting cannons, of the kind used for celebratory noise, had a somewhat toy-like appearance.

These were conceivably poor conditions for a confrontation with regular troops.