The Great Drought of 1540

Hot and dry summers like the one we're experiencing now have occurred time and again, which is why the article "The Year-Long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought of 1540 - A Worst-Case Scenario," published in the journal Climatic Change, caught Red Baron's attention.

I tried to read the original article - especially since my late friend Iso is a co-author - but Springer Publishing has a paywall that can only be passed for €39.90.

In the article, 32 climate historians have painstakingly compiled, analyzed, and evaluated data from more than 300 chronicles, i.e., records kept by farmers, churches, and lock keepers, revealing Europe's great natural disaster.

It's a shame, but the price was too high. However, the European heat and drought wave of 1540 is well documented elsewhere, so I've compiled the information from those freely available sources.

The weather disaster of 1540 had already begun in 1539 in southern Europe but went unnoticed north of the Alps. In Spain, people had been holding processions to pray for rain since October. 

In Italy, the winter of 1539/40 was dry and warm "like July." Although the 16th century fell right in the middle of Europe's Little Ice Age, not a single drop of rain fell from October 1539 to early 1540, while people were rather sensitive to wet and cold summers.

North of the Alps, the millennium drought of 1540 began in the winter. As early as February, a high-pressure system formed over Europe, blocking the influence of the Atlantic and, in turn, the supply of moisture. Although a few storms still moved in, by April the continent was largely shielded from rain clouds.

For 26 weeks, no precipitation fell from France to Poland and from the Po Valley to northern Germany. From late June to early August, not a single drop cooled the brutal heat. An unprecedented 11-month-long Megadrought swept across Europe, including the British Isles.

The dried-up earth reflected even more heat into the atmosphere, feeding an unbearable heatwave. Temperatures were five to seven degrees above the high 20th-century levels. Reformer Martin Luther interpreted this as a sign of the end times. Officials ordered clergy in Germany, Italy, and England to beg God for forgiveness and pray for rain.

Hans Stolz, a winemaker from Guebwiller, Alsace, provided a detailed month-by-month account of the drought of 1540:

©Wikimedia

The year 1540. Although January of that year was unusually cold, February began warm and dry throughout; in March, it rained for three days, and on the first morning after that, there was frost; once the morning passed, the day became quite warm until the end of March; April was completely dry and arid, with no rain or snow falling until the end; May was completely dry and nice until the end; a quarter pound of grain was worth a pound of wine. June was completely dry at the beginning, but toward the end it rained occasionally, though not much, and there was plenty of hay; the month of June began to become terribly dry, and remained so until the end, so that such a dreadful water shortage began in this country that the people suffered great hunger due to the lack of grain, and the crops ...

Streams dried up and grew narrower and narrower. Even major rivers like the Elbe, Rhine, and Seine were so small that one could wade across without getting one's feet wet.

No water powered the mills to grind grain into flour: flour and bread prices skyrocketed.

The harvest withered, and most food was in short supply. With nowhere to pasture, cattle died of heat stroke and hunger, decimating Europe's dairy supply.

As early as the beginning of August, the trees were shedding their bone-dry leaves, as if it were already fall.

As if famine wasn't enough, Europeans were also chased from their homes by forest and structural fires. The dry ground caught fire, and forest and brush fires blazed across the countryside, creeping into the towns densely packed with half-timbered houses. There wasn't any water to put out the fire.

In Germany alone, 33 towns burned. The blaze of Einbeck reduced the entire town to ashes in a matter of hours, causing as many as 500 deaths. For weeks, gray smoke shrouded the continent, behind which the sun and moon nearly vanished as pale red glimmers.

Instead of water, God delivered wine - some of the best ever "created." The extreme heat meant that by the usual harvest time, grapes in Germany and France had dried almost to raisins. The resulting "late harvest" or Spätlese wine was deliciously sweet.

A "Kaiserwein" was harvested in Würzburg from a grape crop that had largely withered away and was pressed into specially crafted Prunkfässer (ceremonial barrels).

It was a stroke of luck; the 1540 Würzburg Stein is considered the oldest known single-vineyard wine and the invention of the Spätlese style.

The Millennium Wine of 1540 is in the middle bottle.

The last known bottle of this wine is kept at the Bürgerspital zum Heiligen Geist in Würzburg.

Most wells and springs lay barren. Those that still gave a little water were strictly guarded. In some regions, drinking wine was cheaper and safer than drinking water, since peasants were charged for well water, which was often contaminated by human waste.

Several hundred thousand people lost their lives because of dysentery, an intestinal infection that causes bloody diarrhea. It is thought that the death toll from disease had the greatest impact of all the miseries wrought by the 1540 drought. Estimates are that half a million Europeans succumbed to diseases, most after drinking tainted water.

With tens of thousands left unhoused, unemployed, and often diseased, local leaders quickly gave in to paranoia to explain the calamities. Authorities searched for scapegoats. At the time of the Reformation, they were found in religious opponents and climate refugees wandering around Germany.

Temperature anomaly in Freiburg for July and August 2026 (©BZ)

What about 2026? For weeks now, Red Baron has watched nature wither from exceptional dryness: the grass is yellow, the Dreisam is nearly dry, and the soil has turned to dust. More and more trees are dropping their leaves. Rivers like the Rhine have turned into trickles.

         In Freiburg, 2026 holds the longest streak of temperatures above 30 °C, and the summer is not over yet (©BZ)

Spring 2026 and the first half of summer rank among the driest ever recorded. The drought is comparable to the historic dry spells of 1976, 2003, and 2018. 

©Hadi/Wikipedia

Are we facing the threat of a millennium drought like in 1540? 

©Copernicus

The 2026 drought will probably not end in the summer. It will extend well into the fall, and rivers are likely to reach even lower levels in early fall than they are now.

Burning of witches (©Wikimedia)

The 16th-century drought and today's drought are similar in many ways, but back then, the blame wasn't placed on climate change - it was on witches. Hungry migrants were rounded up and tortured in hopes of eliciting confessions.

In 1540, for city fires, Martin Luther gave credence to fake news of a papal plot to incinerate Protestant towns.

In 2026, forest fires raging across Europe are being blamed on paranoid arsonists.

On Monday morning, I witnessed a rare weather phenomenon. I think they call it rain. People were dancing bareheaded, and dogs were sticking out their tongues to catch the precious drops.

It was too little, too late.

**

Of Craters, Rural Postmen, and Cruise Ships

Our journey continued northward. Along the way, we stopped at the Grábrókargigar craters.

We read: From the parking (on the left), the crater system is easily accessible via wooden staircases. Since time was short, our group started by visiting Grábrók only.

On our way, I admired the moss that had grown on the lava that had flowed out of the volcano 3600 years ago. Our tour guide, Andrí, corrected me: "It's not moss, but lichen."

Suddenly, the handrails were missing, so Red Baron had to drop out halfway through because of his balance problems.

Our small group set off toward Akureyri. Along the way, we stopped in Stadur, where in years past six rural mail carriers from various postal services would meet on the 15th of every month to exchange mail. This made the site Iceland's largest postal center. 

The monument was erected in memory of Iceland's rural postal service.

On our way to the Capital of Northern Iceland, Akureyri, we made another photo stop at the plateau of the Holtavörðuheiði highlands ...

... and were rewarded with the view on an impressive rock spire.

After that, Andrí drove us to the Akureyri Botanical Garden, which is located about 45 meters above the port city of Akureyri. Since the garden is located approximately 50 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, it is an interesting experimental and demonstration piece of earth. The Lystigarður Akureyrar boasts approximately 7,000  plants. These include Icelandic species as well as those from Arctic regions and high mountain areas.

We walked down when we noticed a huge cruise ship in the distance, anchored in the harbor.

We approached Akureyri's church. The Akureyrarkirkja is a Lutheran church completed in 1940.

The church's interior is simple in design and sparsely decorated.

The giant cruise ship looms menacingly from behind our bus. What happens to a town of 20,000 residents when several thousand crusaders and crew members suddenly pour into it?

Iceland is sparsely populated, with about 400,000 inhabitants, of whom 140,000 live in Reykjavík and approximately 250,000 in the surrounding metropolitan area.

We were exhausted from the long bus ride and glad to finally check into our "bungalows" near Akureyri under the mild night sun.

It was just the beginning. Many more highlights were still in store for us.

**

Berthold from the Offstage

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the death of a writer, a master of the German language, and a political voice of conscience: Berthold Brecht.

The graves of Berthold Brecht and Helene Weigel at the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin.

Berthold Brecht, the already successful author, was an ideological communist who fled Germany on February 28, 1933 - one day after the Reichstag fire and two days before the Nazis seized power - first to Prague, Vienna, and Zurich, and then to Paris. Further stops on his journey into exile - the Nazis had stripped Brecht of his citizenship - included Svendborg (Denmark), Lidingö (Sweden), and Helsinki.

In May 1941, Brecht received an entry visa to the United States and traveled with his family via Moscow and Vladivostok by ship to Santa Monica, California, where he lived in a rented house.

After the war ended, the House Un-American Activities Committee questioned him on October 30, 1947, asking whether he had ever been a member of a Communist Party. Brecht truthfully answered "no."

However, he could no longer stay in America. The following day, he traveled to Paris and soon after to Zurich. Switzerland was the only country that granted the stateless Brecht a residence permit.

Finally - since Brecht remained barred from entering the Western occupation zones of Germany - he traveled from Zurich via Prague to East Berlin in October 1948 at the invitation of the East German Cultural Association for the Democratic Renewal of Germany. 

The result of this statelessness was Brecht's "Flüchtlingsgespräche," Refugee Conversations at a wooden table in the spartan train station restaurant in Helsinki between the physicist Ziffel and the worker Kalle: "The passport is the noblest part of a human being. It doesn't come into being as easily as a human being does. A human being can come into being anywhere, in the most reckless way and without any good reason, but a passport never does. On the other hand, it is recognized when it is good, whereas a person can be as good as he wants and still not be recognized."

This loose collection of dialogues premiered on February 15, 1962, in the Werkraum of the Munich Kammerspiele, and Red Baron - I was a doctoral student at the university at the time - was there.

Famous Erwin Piscator directed the production, and the cast included cabaret artist Werner Finck as the tall, somewhat clumsy bourgeois intellectual and physicist Ziffel, and the Swabian folk actor Willy Reichert as the stocky, down-to-earth communist worker Kalle.

Ziffel had fled Germany primarily because the Nazis had exploited science for their war effort. He argues philosophically and ironically.

Kalle had already been imprisoned in a German concentration camp. He views the world with a sharp, materialistic class consciousness.

In their dialogues, the protagonists deconstruct the "virtues" of diligence, patriotism, and courage. Bad governments demand these virtues from their citizens to cover up mismanagement, wars, and their own mistakes. An ideal state doesn't need any heroes, capitalism, or fascism. 

For Ziffel and Kalle, National Socialism is not an "accident"* of history, but a logical consequence of the capitalist economic system, which relies on dictatorships in times of crisis. 

*Nor is it bird droppings

In the waiting room "Exile," the two refugees explore the agonizing feeling of waiting, their dependence on visas, and their longing for a homeland that no longer exists.

Against this backdrop, Brecht's warnings from beyond the grave regarding the current political situation in Germany read like an omen. The author is Florian Harms, editor-in-chief of the German news service T-Online.

Once again, Red Baron is promoting someone else's work and providing the translation of the German text here:

Greetings to you who are reading this:

You must listen to me. Today marks 70 years since my death, and as is the custom with all those who were a thorn in the side, I have been set in marble so that I may remain silent. 

But even in life, I considered silence to be the worst of all arts. That is why I speak once more today. It will be a short speech, for the dead have little time.

I see my country well-fed, yet seething with discontent. It has been taught to distrust, and now it distrusts the wrong people - not those who deceive it, but those who warn it. The seats of government and the parliaments, the offices and city halls no longer serve the people, and I ask: Who benefits when you smash them to pieces? Where trust falls, freedom does not rise. Instead, men rise who are loud.

I know the agitators. I saw them when they first came, in brown uniforms, with simple slogans for people who were a nuisance. People laughed at them, then voted for them, then idolized them. In the end, everything was destroyed. "The womb from which this crawled is still fertile," I once wrote. It was a warning, and warnings do not lose their validity.

Eighty-one years after the end of Hitler's regime, many are once again following those who promise simplicity but mean cruelty. They do so carefree, like stepping into the water on a summer day without knowing how deep it is. They say a fish never swims into the same net twice. People, however, are happy to swim right into it if the net is decorated with blue instead of brown flags and music is playing. I see it, and I'm worried.

For while you argue over who hates the state the most, there's a man in the East waging war. I won't call him a general, for generals lead armies; he, however, leads an army of butchers who are tearing Ukraine apart. He has plunged Europe into its deepest crisis since 1945 and is now striking at you as well: drones over airports, arson at warehouses, assassination plots against corporate leaders, sabotage of what is dearest to you. Hundreds of cases have already been counted. 

And yet many of you still believe that this man can be dealt with through compromise. He cannot. Evil must be brought to its knees; otherwise, it will sweep you off your feet—take it from someone who has seen more evil than all of you put together. Remember this: War is not far off. It's already in your basement, setting the clock.

It has eager accomplices. They set invisible traps for you ... They stoke anger and rake in billions upon billions of dollars: colorfully packaged rumors, portioned out, delivered right to your bedside. The executives at Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and that thing called X don't profit from peace - they profit from strife. Hate gets more clicks than reason, and whatever gets more clicks gets amplified. That's how they've built a business out of your worst traits and call it "community."

I'm telling you the old truth anew. "First comes food, then morality," I wrote. But these gentlemen and their henchmen have realized that you eat the most when you sell morality first. They feed you anger until you puke, and send the bill to democracy.

I have my concerns, but I also have hope. In every country, there are decent people. They aren't the loudest; often, they're the weary ones. But there are many of them - more than the agitators believe - and their time has come. Not tomorrow, when the fishermen's nets have been hauled in at Halle, Magdeburg, Schwerin, and Rostock*. Not the day after tomorrow, when the neighbor with the match is already standing in the living room. Decent people everywhere should unite.

*There are upcoming State elections in Sachsen-Anhalt und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

A decent person does not look away. One who steadfastly calls a lie a lie, even if it is shared a thousand times over. One who would rather help a discredited government office than shout it down. One who knows that freedom is not a summer retreat, but a work that must be built upon daily, because many are trying to undermine it every day.

So show that you are decent! That would be my wish. And in the spirit of those who came before me, who also wrote and suffered for this country - Lessing, Heine, Tucholsky - all of whom knew that a people can lose its reason as easily as a glove. That is what I can tell you on the 70th anniversary of my death, through the pen of a small-time journalist. Stand up. I can no longer do so myself.

**

Europe's Summer of 2026

There hasn't been any significant rainfall in southwestern Germany since mid-June, while one heat wave has followed another. The fifth one is on its way and will peak this Friday at 38°C (100°F).

 
Here is a photo gallery showing the full extent of the heat and drought damage in the Old World.

 

The Rhine River at Cologne (©AP)

The fire fronts of wildfires in Spain, Portugal, France, and Greece (©AP)

Beachgoers on France's Atlantic coast are contemplating wildfires near Bordeaux  (©AP)

Burnt-out forests ... (©AP)

... and charred cars (©AP)

Heat protests in Zurich, Switzerland (©AP)

A lorry is crossing the Tejo River in Spain (©AP)

At temperatures above 30 C, Leipzig's streetcars squeeze the insulating bitumen out of their track bed (©AP)

A swimming dock on Lake Constance leads to dry land (©AP)

A whirlwind over Lake Constance is an extremely rare phenomenon (©AP)

Swimmers in Romania next to a World War II shipwreck in what remains of the Danube River (©AP)

The dry bed of the Haslacher Dorfbach in Freiburg (©Kathrin Blum/BZ)

Freiburg's Park on the Lake (©Kathrin Blum/BZ)

How similar the landscapes look: New York's Central Park (©AP)

It follows a horror scenario for the Americas.

      

(©NYT)

Will the 2026 El Niño affect Europe's climate?

**

Peter Günther

Last Friday at the memorial service for Professor Peter Günther, Red Baron said goodbye to a friend.

A simple memorial service at the Protestant church in Merzhause (©GvS)

Peter was a member of the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft (FMG) and the Museumsgesellschaft. I held Peter in high regard as a kind, empathetic, and people-oriented person.

We had just arrived in Madison.
Peter is flanked by his charming wife Ulrike and Red Baron.

I learned about his expertise as an Americanist back in 2009 when we visited our sister city, Madison, with the FMG.

His lecture, “Puritan Heritage and Political Religion,” which he gave at the FMG’s regular Stammtisch in October 2010, remains just as relevant today. I was excited, so my comment followed promptly.

I will miss Peter. RIP

**

Schicksalspegel Kaub

Today, Red Baron read an article in the NYT about a water plan for America's once mighty Colorado River.

"Across the region, two decades of drought have reduced winter snowpack, which creates the majority of the river's flow. At the same time, warming temperatures caused by climate change have increased water losses from evaporation."

The now-reduced water flow has forced Federal Authorities to regulate the amount of water neighboring states may draw from the river in the future, which has major impacts on agriculture and industries in regions touched by the Colorado.

That resources become limited is a dramatic turning point for the US, where continuous growth still is a leitmotif.

Here in Europe, the ongoing heat wave and lack of rain have caused several rivers to show historically low water levels.

The Dreisam through Freiburg (©BZ)

The lack of water immediately catches your eye when you look at Freiburg's river, the Dreisam. Yesterday, at the measuring station upstream in Ebnet, the water level was 17 cm, while the average water level for the Dreisam at this point is 52 cm.

The Dreisam has disappeared completely a few kilometers downstream (©SWR)

No water to spare! Even Freiburg's tourist attraction: the Bächle are currently dry.

The situation is more dramatic for the Rhine River. In “normal” years, 285 million metric tons of cargo pass through Europe’s busiest inland waterway. The prolonged drought is causing the Rhine's water level to drop steadily. The proud and much-praised river is now nothing more than a trickle.

The critical situation at Kaub (©Die Zeit)

The levels near the historical site of Kaub are critical for Rhine shipping. Yesterday the key gauge at the Kaub measuring station reached an all-time low of 24 cm, i.e., below the lowest level of 25 cm recorded in October 2018. The forecast from the Federal Institute of Hydrology for August 13 is 9 cm!

©Wikipedia

Marion Halft took this historical photo of the low water level at Kaub in 2018. It was just under 30 cm on October 20, dropping to 25 cm on October 22. Pfalzgrafenstein Castle, a former toll station, is visible in the background.

For comparison: The so-called Equivalent Water Level (EWL), where shipping around Kaub is unlimited, is 77 cm, while the average water level in the place over the year is 208 cm.

 

©SWR

Mind you, while 24 cm is today's officially measured water level, the navigation channel at Kaub, appropriately named "Wilder Gefähr (Wild Ferrying)", is much deeper. 

Still, at an EWL of 77 cm, the Gefähr is only 190 cm deep in some places. This means that at the actual water level of 24 cm, cargo ships presently have only 137 cm of water depth and therefore can be loaded only 20 to 30%.

According to the Rhineland-Palatinate Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK), "Below a water level of 40 cm (i.e. 153 cm depth) at Kaub, inland navigation is not feasible." As ships can only operate with significantly reduced cargo volumes, transport costs are driven up.

©Financial Times

The IHK should not forget about international shipping of goods between Basel, Switzerland, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The water level at the Kaub measuring station becomes Europe's Schicksalspegel.


Red Baron is a history freak. So he relates Kaub to Field Marshal Forward, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's crossing of the Rhine River on New Year's Day 1814 in the pursuit of Napoleon.

While people were celebrating New Year's Eve across Europe, preparations began near Kaub for one of the largest military river crossings of that era (Read more).

Russian engineers of the First Silesian Army built a pontoon bridge in the cold and fog, and in secret, because the French were to find out as late as possible where Blücher intended to cross the Rhine on his way to Waterloo. Pfalzgrafenstein Castle served as an important base and bridgehead.

Over the next five days, an entire army crossed the Rhine, comprising about 50,000 soldiers, around 15,000 horses, and 182 artillery pieces.

It was a logistical feat.

©T-Online

In case the Rhine runs dry, future river cruises will be handled by a substitute bus service.

**

Dortu Documents

Red Baron was tempted to name this blog the Dortu Files. Indeed, it would be wrong, for what I present here are a few selected documents shown in an exhibition at the Freiburg Stadtarchiv (city archives). The occasion is the 200th birthday of revolutionary Maximilian Dortu, born in Potsdam on June 29, 1826. I wrote a detailed blog about Dortu in 2012.

Archive Director Dr. Florian Hoffmann had compiled many previously unpublished documents about and related to Maximilian.

Revolutionaries shot under martial law in 1849 (unknown author)

The most shocking document on display lists 25 revolutionaries who were executed by firing squad in 1849.

 

The list is headed by Joh. Ludw. Maxi. Dortu from Potsdam, who was shot at the Alter Wiehrefriedhof on July 31, 1849. The two others executed there by firing squad: Friedrich Neff from Rimmingen* on August 9 and Gebhard Kromer, a soldier from Bombach, on August 2, figure on the list.

*Rümmingen

Other known persons of the 1848/49 Revolution are listed too: In Rastatt, following the surrender of the federal fortress to the Prussian invading army, both Regimental Commander Ernst von Biedenfeld and the last governor of the fortress, Gustav Tiedemann, were summarily executed by a firing squad on August 9, resp on August 11, 1849.

Cityscape, circa 1860, by Gottlieb Theodor Hase

Now located in my fully built-up Wiehre neighborhood, the "Old" Wiehre Cemetery was far outside the city in 1849.

I shall continue to show and comment on more displayed documents.

Dortu had already become a "democrat" while still a student, serving as spokesperson for the Association of Radical Democrats in Potsdam. Following the barricade fighting in Berlin in March 1848 (Read the full story in German), Dortu sharply attacked Prince Wilhelm - the future German Emperor Wilhelm I  -accusing him of ordering the troops on March 18–19 to use grapeshot. Because of his derogatory nickname, the "Kartätschenprinz (Cardush Prince)," Dortu was sentenced in June 1848 to 15 months of imprisonment in a fortress. 

He evaded his sentence by fleeing to Brussels. Still, since he did not have a passport and the local police there took notice of his inflammatory speeches, the Belgian authorities deported him to France.

          

He eventually turned up in Paris and stayed at a hôtel meublé on 69 Rue St. Jacques in the Latin Quarter.

Plan of Paris before Georges-Eugène Haussmann milled the Boulevard Saint-Michel through the Latin Quarter in 1860. The Rue St. Jacques runs parallel to the future Boulemich to the east, and number 69 is at the height of the Rue des Ecoles.

Dortu rarely appeared in public; instead, he devoted himself to military-scientific studies to prepare for the expected uprising in Germany.

In May 1849, Dortu finally traveled to Baden to support the revolution there. Gustav Struve recommended him to Johann Philipp Becker, who was building up the Badische Volkswehr (People's Defense Force in Baden), "Dortu is a man of exceptional character, as bold as a lion in battle, impassioned and enthusiastic at the podium, and filled with the noblest patriotism of any age."

Young Maximilian

Becker, a determined democrat, called for swift military action against the approaching counterrevolution, and appointed Dortu as an aide-de-camp in the General Command of the Volkswehr. 

Order of the Day by the General Command of the People's Defense Force to the Mannschaft.

The Commander-in-Chief of the People's Defense Force, Joh. Ph. Becker's order aimed to better organize Baden's Defense Force and contains a warning: Let the reactionaries take note that an executionary army - one that watches over and protects, and stands up for freedom with property and blood - has already been established.

On June 17, Becker entrusted Dortu with organizing the People's Defense Force in the Gernsbach administrative district. There, young Maximilian's impetuosity became evident when he interpreted Becker's daily order of May 27 strictly.

Dortu rode up on horseback with his men in front of the Weisenbach church

On June 24, members of the Volkswehr under the command of Dortu arrested Pastor Franz Xaver Weingärtner and other Weisenbach citizens suspected of counterrevolutionary activities. In fact, the revolutionary government had suspended Weingärtner from office on June 21, because the pastor had made it clear that he was an opponent of the Baden Revolution.

 Nevertheless, Dortu's too harsh crackdown led to his removal from office and punitive transfer to the defensive frontline along the Murg River near Rastatt.

Why does Dortu's fate still move people - especially in Freiburg - to this day?

 
In general, an early death freezes a person's life in time. The myth of an early death dates back to antiquity. The favorites of the gods lead short, glorious lives instead of long, meaningless ones.

 
Young Dortu, who still had his whole life ahead of him, chose to stand by his convictions - and paid for it with his life. His last words: "I die for freedom. Brothers, aim well." still echo every July 31 at the commemoration reunion at the Old Wiehre Cemetery. 

Dortu's lasting impact stems from the combination of his personality, youth, political convictions, and sacrifice. He developed into the quintessential symbol of the failed revolutionary movement of 1848/49.

 
So the obituaries of some of his great contemporaries read:

Wilhelm Liebknecht: "In my life, I have never met anyone else who came as close to the ideal of the young hero as Max Dortu."

 
Amalia Struve, the icon of the Baden Revolution: "In my eyes, Dortu is the martyr who can be regarded as the representative of the enthusiastic German youth. He possessed the full force of that conviction and enthusiasm found in the noblest segment of German youth. Ready for any task - even the most seemingly ordinary - when it came to serving the fatherland, cheerful and undaunted in the face of any danger - he exemplified, perhaps more than anyone else, what deep conviction, combined with youthful energy, is capable of."

 
His former boss, Johann Philipp Becker: "Dortu was a man of the most fortunate dispositions. He combined the critical acuity characteristic of his North German compatriots with that warm enthusiasm for all that is great, beautiful, and good - which is the nobility and magic of youth. He displayed pride in his reflections, power in his voice, and grace in his entire demeanor. Toward his friends, he showed the same devotion and self-sacrifice with which he was committed to his political convictions."
**