Friedrich Hecker - 1848-49 Revolutions

1848-49 Revolutions

In 1847 he was temporarily occupied with ideas of emigration, and with this object made a journey to Algiers, but returned to Baden and resumed his former position as the radical champion of popular rights, later becoming president of the Volksverein, where he was destined to fall still further under the influence of the agitator Gustav von Struve. In conjunction with Struve he drew up the radical programme carried at the great Liberal meeting held at Offenburg on September 12, 1847 (entitled Thirteen Claims put forward by the People of Baden). In addition to the Offenburg programme, the Sturm petition of March 1, 1848, attempted to extort from the government the most far-reaching concessions. But it was in vain that on becoming a deputy Hecker endeavoured to carry out its impracticable provisions. He had to yield to the more moderate majority, but on this account was driven still further towards the Left. The proof lies in the new Offenburg demands of March 19, and in the resolution moved by Hecker in the preliminary Frankfurt Parliament that Germany should be declared a republic. But neither in Baden nor Frankfurt did he at any time gain his point.

This double failure, combined with various energetic measures of the government, which were indirectly aimed at him (e.g. the arrest of the editor of the Constanzer Seeblatt, a friend of Hecker's, in Karlsruhe station on April 8), inspired Hecker with the idea of an armed rising under pretext of the foundation of the German republic. The 9th to the 11th of April were secretly spent in preliminaries of what would be known as the Hecker Uprising. On April 12, Hecker and Struve sent a proclamation to the inhabitants of the Seekreis and of the Black Forest to summon the people who could bear arms to Donaueschingen at mid-day on the 14th, with arms, ammunition and provisions for six days. They expected 70,000 men, but only a few thousand appeared.

The grand-ducal government of the Seekreis was dissolved, and Hecker gradually gained reinforcements. But friendly advisers also joined him, pointing out the risks of his undertaking. Hecker, however, was not at all ready to listen to them. On the contrary, he added to violence an absurd defiance, and offered an amnesty to the German princes on condition of their retiring within fourteen days into private life. The troops of Baden and Hesse marched against him, under the command of General Friedrich von Gagern, and on April 20 they met near Kandern, where, although Gagern was killed, Hecker was completely defeated.

He fled into the Canton of Basel, where he published a radical newspaper, and wrote his work Die Volkserhebung in Baden (“The popular uprising in Baden”). Although he was again elected to the chamber of Baden, the government, no longer willing to respect his immunity as a deputy, refused its ratification. On being refused admission to the Frankfort Parliament, though twice elected to represent Thiengen, Hecker resolved in September 1848 to emigrate to North America like many other “Forty-Eighters,” and bought a farm near Belleville, Illinois.

The second rising in Baden in the spring of 1849 brought him back to Europe, and he again made efforts to obtain a footing in his own state, but without success. He only came as far as Strassburg, but had to retreat before the victories of the Prussian troops over the Baden insurgents.

Hecker provided a foreword to the German translation of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man which was published in Leipzig in 1851.