Bamberger and Zitz, commanders of the Free Guards
“A constitution for Germany”
On March 27, 1849, the German National Assembly in Frankfurt/Main fulfilled its mandate and adopted a constitution for Germany, for the entire empire. It included a comprehensive catalog of fundamental rights: Freedom of persons, equality before the law, freedom of faith and conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of movement, inviolability of the home, freedom of art, science and teaching. The Constitution of 1849 thus already developed the core of the catalog of fundamental rights guaranteed today in the Basic Law.
The separation of powers was also established in the legislative (Reichstag and House of States, corresponding to today’s Bundestag and Bundesrat), executive (government) and judicial (courts) branches.
However, there are also fundamental differences to today’s constitutional system: the government was not responsible to parliament, but to the head of state. And that was the Emperor of the Germans.
Nevertheless, the “Constitution of the German Empire” can still be considered “modern” for the 19th century.
Freelancer enthusiasm
As politically enthusiastic as the irregulars felt in May/June 1849, their role was problematic. In 19th century political thinking, a distinction was made between the regular troops of a state and “exceptional military formations”. Such “exceptional formations” were considered to be, above all, bands of irregulars who were classified as “insurgents” or even “insurgent gangs” with the aim of armed resistance against the legitimate state order.
Such a situation arose in the spring of 1949, when the kings of Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria did not recognize the imperial constitution adopted in the Frankfurt National Assembly. For the Freischaren groups that already existed in many places in the Palatinate, this was the beginning of the “emergency”. For when the government became a rebellion, the free citizens of the Palatinate became the enforcers of the laws – and took the right to enforce the imperial constitution by force.
The term “imperial constitutional campaign” became the legitimizing catchphrase for this.
However, of the approximately 13,000 Palatine “rebels” in mid-June 1849, only one in three had a rifle. Others were armed with scythes. More than half had no weapons at all.
The contemporary sketch, which has been handed down by a Palatine irregular, therefore only gives a partial picture.
However, it is easy to imagine the approximately 1,100 Rheinhessen irregulars who had their headquarters in Kirchheimbolanden in May/June 1849 under Ludwig Bamberger and Franz Zitz in a similar way.
What united them was political enthusiasm for unity, justice and freedom, as expressed by August Heinrich von Fallersleben (1798-1874) in the “Song of the Germans” in 1841.
Ludwig Bamberger
During the five weeks that Ludwig Bamberger (1832-99) was based in Kirchheimbolanden as “Civil Commissar” of the Rheinhessen Free Guards – from 10 May to 14 June 1849 – his main tasks were to organize our corps and liaise with the civilian offices of the Palatinate Uprising. Together with Franz Zitz, he thus played the key role in the command of the “Rheinhessen Corps” located in the town.
Born in Mainz, he studied law in Giessen, Heidelberg and Göttingen and passed both state law examinations in 1845/47. During the 1848/49 revolution, he became a republican publicist and spokesman for the Rheinhessen Freischaren.
He was therefore sentenced to eight years in prison for treason or participation in treason in 1851 and to death in 1852. However, he evaded this by fleeing, first to Switzerland and then to London, where he worked for a bank and managed its Paris branch as early as 1853. From 1866 onwards, his experience in international banking also stood him in good stead in Germany, where he had returned – having been pardoned in the meantime.
In the same year, there were signs of a Prussian-German empire being founded “from above”. As a result, Bamberger became a supporter of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898). In 1868, he even published a book about him (“Monsieur de Bismarck”).
He was then a member of the Reichstag from 1871-93. As a member of the National Liberal faction supporting Bismarck, he was involved in the standardization of the German coinage system, among other things, and is considered one of the protagonists of the German Reichsbank. However, his stance as a classic representative of liberal economic ideas led him to become an opponent of the Chancellor in 1880, because he now favored protective tariffs and state social insurance.
From 1894-98, he was once again active as a publicist (“Gesammelte Schriften” in five volumes, “Bismarck posthumus”).
He had already published his experiences of the Palatinate uprising in May and June 1849 immediately afterwards (dated: July 1849). In it, he justified his attitude of having supported the revolution in 1849 only as long as there was a chance of success with the resolution: “Our people want to live and not become [als Todesopfer] famous. That was my judgment when I considered it my duty,
no longer ask anyone to sacrifice for a lost cause. This may also explain his behavior on June 14, 1849 in Kirchheimbolanden.
It was not unusual for revolutionaries of 1848/49 to come to terms with the idea of a Prussian-German empire being founded “from above” as early as 1866 and to “make a career” as a result. Just think of Gottfried Semper (1803-79) or Richard Wagner (1813-83), both of whom had taken part in the Dresden barricade battles.
Franz Zitz
During the five weeks that Franz Zitz (1803-77) was based in Kirchheimbolanden as “civil commissioner” of the Rheinhessen Free Guards – from May 10 to June 14, 1849 – he played a key role in the command of the “Rheinhessen Corps” located in the town, together with Ludwig Bamberger.
Born in Mainz, he studied law and worked as a lawyer, first in Alzey and then in Mainz. In 1837, he married Kathrinka Halein, two years his senior, who soon became a widely read (also political) writer.
Franz Zitz began his political involvement in the 1830s as a leading member of the Mainz “opposition movement”. In 1848/49, he was chairman of the “Democratic Association” and commander of the Mainz militia. This brought him city-wide popularity and, on May 16, 1848, election as a member of the National Assembly in Frankfurt. There he joined the far left, which formed the “Democratic Party” and demanded a republic with a strong parliamentary power. However, he resigned from the National Assembly on March 1, 1849, as he did not want to support the development towards a German monarchy.
Soon afterwards, together with Ludwig Bamberger, he became the spokesman for the Rheinhessen Freischaren. And when, on May 2, 1849, a “National Defense Committee” set up the day before in Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate opposed the Bavarian authorities and a few days later requested an armed “influx from Hesse”, Zitz and Bamberger immediately issued a marching order calling on all residents of Rheinhessen with weapons to provide themselves with clothing and food and to arrive in Wörrstadt immediately. On May 12th, the Rheinhessen Free Guards then entered Kirchheimbolanden under the command of Zitz and Bamberger.
Five weeks later, the military conflict with Prussian troops came to a head. For Zitz and Bamberger, this marked the end of the “Palatinate campaign”. They left the city in a carriage and fled via Neustadt to Baden and on to Switzerland, as they were already wanted for arrest. But even Switzerland only allowed a short stay, so Zitz decided to emigrate to the USA, where he opened a notary’s office in New York.
A return to Germany was not possible for the time being. In 1851, the jury court in Mainz sentenced both Zitz and Bamberger to death in absentia.
Zitz died in Munich in 1877, having been pardoned and returned to Germany nine years earlier. In comparison with Bamberger, his biography after June 14, 1849 was therefore very different.
