Der Freiheit eine Gasse

Georg Herwegh, the poet of freedom, named one of his poems from 1841 An Alley for Freedom. This alley is said to have been opened by Arnold von Winkelried to his fellow Confederates at the Battle of Sempach in 1386. He grabbed a bundle of lances from the Habsburg knights and threw himself into the breach, impaling himself. Read more in German.

The motto served my friend Andreas Meckel as the title of a scenic representation of the revolutionary events in Freiburg at Easter 1848.

Organizer Heinz Siebold and author Andreas Meckel are in good spirits

Members of the Initiative for the Commemoration of the Baden Revolution organized the spectacle in the Freiburg Regional Administrative Council courtyard on Easter Monday.

  

Mayor Ulrich von Kirchbach greeted the audience

Heinz Siebold introduced the participants as there were:

The Biedermeier Group Offenburg

The Hecker Group from Offenburg

The Hecker Singers from Schopfheim

And the Dramatis Personae:

Carl von Rotteck junior (Peter Haug Lamersdorf), lawyer and son of the famous professor of constitutional law Karl von Rotteck.

Georg von Langsdorff (Olaf Creutzburg), Cand. Dent. and later known as the Minster General.

Carl Mez (Wigand Alpers), a sewing thread manufacturer and early social benefactor.

Emma Herwegh (Cornelia Schmidt), the wife of poet Georg Herwegh and an ardent freedom fighter.

Battle near Kandern.
Note the democratic colors: Black-Gold-Red!

On their way from Constance to Karlsruhe, Friedrich Hecker's irregulars were crushed by government troops near Kandern on Maundy Thursday. The news also reaches Freiburg, where 1500 armed revolutionaries, threatened with the enclosure of the city by soldiers of the German Confederation, are waiting for their relief by Hecker's men. Read more in German.

Note the correct colors: Black-Red-Gold.

In Freiburg, Carl von Rotteck, Georg von Langsdorff, and Carl Mez discuss the situation. Is the news of Hecker's military defeat fake news? Isn't an advance guard under Hecker's adjutant Franz Sigel and Gustav Struve standing in Horben to march on Freiburg? Or will the city be stormed beforehand by the Grand Duke's troops under the leadership of War Minister Hoffmann?

Emancipated Emma shows one of her attributes.

Emma Herwegh bursts into the scene, alternating between hope and despair, and announces that the Democratic Union of Germans living in political exile in Paris, led by her husband, has reached Strasbourg. The armed men want to come to aid the revolutionaries on the other side of the Rhine. An offer to which the German irregulars only half-heartedly agree since the crossing of the Rhine is misunderstood as a French intervention.

Heavy fighting at Freiburg's Schwabentor.
Note the colors: Red-Gold-Black!

It comes as feared. Struve's vanguard is defeated before Freiburg near Günterstal, and the federal troops take the city. Further attempts in 1849 to establish a democratic republic in Baden also ended in bloodshed. Read more in German.

And yet the sacrifices were not in vain. Many popular demands of the time, such as freedom of the press, universal suffrage, independent courts, education for all, and a democratic army, were reflected in the texts of the Weimar Constitution and are part of today's Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Olaf Creutzberg's talent as a revolutionary singer is legendary. Ultimately, we sang along to the famous lied: Die Gedanken sind frei (Thoughts are Free).

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