Johann Theobald and Carl Adolf Ritter
“What is recognized as good”
Dr. Friedrich Glaser (1814-49) had a decisive influence on the moderate revolutionary events in Kirchheimbolanden until his death on 23 January 1849.
The general practitioner became a political actor not least because of the social conditions with which he was confronted on a daily basis in his professional work. He therefore focused his interest primarily on the propertyless class. In an appeal to his fellow citizens dated March 15, 1848, he stated: “In the past decades, the propertyless class has increased significantly, [verursacht durch den] self-protection and the selfishness of the arrogant moneyed aristocracy.
Glaser therefore concludes that reforms must be introduced in a targeted manner in order to prevent the potential overthrow of everything that already exists.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ analysis of society in 1848 was very similar. In contrast to them, however, Glaser strove for a pragmatic solution based on very concrete reform measures.
He formulated these reform projects in an eight-point plan on May 15, 1848. The guiding principle was to enable co-determination and transparency with regard to communal decisions, to establish a tax system that was fair to all “income classes” and not to force workers to embrace the idea of communism. In addition, it must be ensured that the poor [nicht] have to struggle daily with food worries. For this reason, wages for work assigned by the city had to be based on individual subsistence. This should also support the establishment of a municipal kindergarten.
He then hoped for a political realization of what he had “recognized as good” with the help of a “Kirchheimboland Citizens’ Association” [Standort 60].
However, this was beyond his strength, as his medical work should not take a back seat. In addition, his political work was repeatedly exposed to all kinds of “opposing attacks”. After all, the building of liberal, socio-political reforms that he was striving for was by no means the cause of everyone in Kirchheimbolanden. In addition, his intellectually demanding idea of freedom was based on reason and the tension between self-determination and submission to democratic laws. The specific form of government – constitutional, monarchical or republican – was of secondary importance to him.
In 1848, this was as idealistic as it was politically pragmatic. In 1849, however, Glaser would probably have had to make a fundamental preference. With his death from pneumonia on January 23, 1849, Kirchheimbolanden therefore lost a socio-political pioneer halfway along his unfinished path.
So what further impetus could have been expected from him?
“Our fellow citizens”
When Friedrich Glaser (1814-49) and Regine Giessen (1818-56) married, she was 22 years old. Her husband died nine years later.
Together, Friedrich and Regine Glaser and her husband played a pioneering role in the political life of Kirchheimboland in 1848: he (Friedrich Glaser, citizens’ meeting of April 5, 1848, Kirchheimbolander Bürgerverein) as an opinion leader, primarily for social reforms, she by supporting the “democratic cause” on a completely different level. This is documented by an invitation in the “Kirchheimbolander Wochenblatt” on April 28, 1848″.
Regine Glaser and Therese Giessen, one 28 years old in 1848, the other 29, were not only connected by the project of a citizens’ militia flag. They were also related by family (Therese was the wife of one of Regine’s cousins).
This involvement became existential for Regine after Friedrich Glaser’s death. Their son Carl, the later BASF chemist and Chairman of the Supervisory Board and honorary citizen of Kirchheimboland, was just eight years old in 1849.
