Friedrich Ludwig Weidig
Encyclopedia
Friedrich Ludwig Weidig (15 February 1791 - 23 February 1837) was a German Protestant theologian, pastor, activist, teacher and journalist. Initially working as a teacher in Butzbach
, he then spent a short time as a pastor in Ober-Gleen, a district of Kirtorf
. In what is now Hesse
and the Middle Rhine
, he was one of the main figures of the Vormärz
and a pioneer of the 1848 Revolution
.
, northwest of Wetterau
.
The son of a chief forester and his wife, her maiden name being Liebknecht
. He went to Butzbach
in 1803 to go to school. During his theological studies in the Ludoviciana in Gießen he was a member of the 'fränkischen Landsmannschaft'. In 1812 he became headmaster at the boys' school in Butzbach. Following Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
's example, Weidig taught his pupils drill and physical exercise and in 1814 founded a parade ground on the Schrenzer, a north-eastern foothill of the Taunus
- later historians and biographers thus called him the "father of Hessian drill".
From 1818 Weidig was monitored by the authorities for his political activities in teaching, preaching and in private - he was one of the liberal democrats who aspired to establish Germany as a unified democratic nation state. In 1832 he thus travelled to south-west Germany and helped in the preparations for the Hambach Festival.
In 1833 Weidig was arrested for the first time, but in 1834 he still published four illegal issues of "Leuchter und Beleuchter für Hessen (oder der Hessen Notwehr)". The same year saw his first meeting with Georg Büchner
, with whom he worked on a manuscript that Weidig then published against Büchner's wishes as Hessischen Landboten. Weidig and his students also organised the printing and distribution of illegal pamphlets.
On 5 April 1834 Weidig was suspended from his teaching post and demoted to a small village called Ober-Gleen, now in Kirtorf
, im Vogelsberg
. When the "Hessischen Landboten" project was betrayed in summer 1834, Büchner fled to Straßburg
but Weidig refused to emigrate to Switzerland with his family. Soon afterwards he was arrested in the Klosterkaserne barracks in Friedberg
and in June 1835 put into house arrest in Darmstadt
, where on 23 February 1837 he committed suicide after two years' questioning and physical abuse by state investigators, including Konrad Georgi, a known alcoholic. Ill and desperate, he had written letters to his wife from prison, which were retained by his questioners "for state-political reasons" for many years after his death. His friends noted on his gravestone that he was a freedom fighter, but this was bricked up by the authorities.
Butzbach
Butzbach is a town in the Wetteraukreis district in Hesse, Germany. It is located approx. 16 km south of Gießen and 35 km north of Frankfurt am Main....
, he then spent a short time as a pastor in Ober-Gleen, a district of Kirtorf
Kirtorf
Kirtorf is a town in the northern Vogelsbergkreis in Hesse, Germany. Through the town runs the Deutsche Märchenstraße, or German Fairytale Road, a touristic route joining many of the places commonly associated with the Brothers Grimm's tales.-Geography:...
. In what is now Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
and the Middle Rhine
Middle Rhine
Between Bingen and Bonn, Germany, the Rhine River flows as the Middle Rhine through the Rhine Gorge, a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift in the region, leaving the river at about its original level, and the surrounding lands raised...
, he was one of the main figures of the Vormärz
Vormärz
' is the time period leading up to the failed March 1848 revolution in the German Confederation. Also known as the Age of Metternich, it was a period of Austrian and Prussian police states and vast censorship in response to calls for liberalism...
and a pioneer of the 1848 Revolution
Revolutions of 1848 in the German states
The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, also called the March Revolution – part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many countries of Europe – were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire...
.
Biography
Weidig was born in the Oberkleen district, LanggönsLanggöns
Langgöns is a municipality in the district of Gießen, in Hesse, Germany. It is situated 10 km south of Gießen....
, northwest of Wetterau
Wetterau
The Wetterau is a fertile undulating tract, watered by the Wetter, a tributary of the Nidda River, in the western German state of Hesse, between the hilly province Oberhessen and the north-western Taunus mountains....
.
The son of a chief forester and his wife, her maiden name being Liebknecht
Wilhelm Liebknecht
Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht was a German social democrat and a principal founder of the SPD. His political career was a pioneering project combining Marxist revolutionary theory with practical, legal political activity...
. He went to Butzbach
Butzbach
Butzbach is a town in the Wetteraukreis district in Hesse, Germany. It is located approx. 16 km south of Gießen and 35 km north of Frankfurt am Main....
in 1803 to go to school. During his theological studies in the Ludoviciana in Gießen he was a member of the 'fränkischen Landsmannschaft'. In 1812 he became headmaster at the boys' school in Butzbach. Following Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was a German gymnastics educator and nationalist. He is commonly known as Turnvater Jahn, roughly meaning "father of gymnastics" Jahn.- Life :...
's example, Weidig taught his pupils drill and physical exercise and in 1814 founded a parade ground on the Schrenzer, a north-eastern foothill of the Taunus
Taunus
The Taunus is a low mountain range in Hesse, Germany that composes part of the Rhenish Slate Mountains. It is bounded by the river valleys of Rhine, Main and Lahn. On the opposite side of the Rhine, the mountains are continued by the Hunsrück...
- later historians and biographers thus called him the "father of Hessian drill".
From 1818 Weidig was monitored by the authorities for his political activities in teaching, preaching and in private - he was one of the liberal democrats who aspired to establish Germany as a unified democratic nation state. In 1832 he thus travelled to south-west Germany and helped in the preparations for the Hambach Festival.
In 1833 Weidig was arrested for the first time, but in 1834 he still published four illegal issues of "Leuchter und Beleuchter für Hessen (oder der Hessen Notwehr)". The same year saw his first meeting with Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
Karl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...
, with whom he worked on a manuscript that Weidig then published against Büchner's wishes as Hessischen Landboten. Weidig and his students also organised the printing and distribution of illegal pamphlets.
On 5 April 1834 Weidig was suspended from his teaching post and demoted to a small village called Ober-Gleen, now in Kirtorf
Kirtorf
Kirtorf is a town in the northern Vogelsbergkreis in Hesse, Germany. Through the town runs the Deutsche Märchenstraße, or German Fairytale Road, a touristic route joining many of the places commonly associated with the Brothers Grimm's tales.-Geography:...
, im Vogelsberg
Vogelsberg
Vogelsberg is a municipality in the Sömmerda district of Thuringia, Germany....
. When the "Hessischen Landboten" project was betrayed in summer 1834, Büchner fled to Straßburg
Strasburg
-Places:*Strasbourg, a city in Alsace *Straßburg, Austria, in Carinthia*Strasburg, Germany, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania*the former name of Brodnica, became Polish after World War I*Strassburg, the German name for Aiud, Alba...
but Weidig refused to emigrate to Switzerland with his family. Soon afterwards he was arrested in the Klosterkaserne barracks in Friedberg
Friedberg, Hesse
Friedberg is a town and the capital of the Wetteraukreis district, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 26 kilometers north of Frankfurt am Main.-Division of the town:The town consists of 7 districts:* Bruchenbrücken...
and in June 1835 put into house arrest in Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, where on 23 February 1837 he committed suicide after two years' questioning and physical abuse by state investigators, including Konrad Georgi, a known alcoholic. Ill and desperate, he had written letters to his wife from prison, which were retained by his questioners "for state-political reasons" for many years after his death. His friends noted on his gravestone that he was a freedom fighter, but this was bricked up by the authorities.
Namesakes
The Weidigschule gymnasium-school in Butzbach is named after him, as is the Weidigsporthalle in Oberkleen.Sources
- Ernst Weber: Ein antiabsolutistisches Programm in Versen. Friedrich Ludwig Weidigs Liederbüchlein aller Teutschen (1815). - In: Georg Büchner Jahrbuch 8(1990–94) [1995], S. 126-209 Harald Braun: Das turnerische und politische Wirken von Alexander Friedrich Ludwig Weidig 1791-1837. Diss.sport.wiss.Köln, Ahrensburg 1977
[2., erg. u. durch eine Dokumentation erw. Aufl. u.d.T.: Das politische und turnerische Wirken von Friedrich Ludwig Weidig. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der revolutionären Bestrebungen im deutschen Vormärz. St. Augustin 1983 (Schriften der Deutschen Sporthochschule Köln 11)] Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, 1791-1837: neue Beiträge zur 200. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages. hrsg. vom Magistrat der Stadt Butzbach […] in Verbindung mit dem Butzbacher Geschichtsverein; [Red.: Dieter Wolf und Annette Reiter. Beiträge: Hans-Joachim Müller u.a.]. Butzbach 1991
[enthält Bibliographie des Schrifttums 1918- 1990 (S. 136-180)] - Bodo Heil: Weidigs Nachleben. (Zum 150. Todestag Dr. Friedrich Ludwig Weidigs). In: Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter 35 (1986), S. 73-126 Thomas Michael Mayer: Büchner und Weidig - Frühkommunismus und revolutionäre Demokratie. Zur Textverteilung des Hessischen Landboten. In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Ed.): Georg Büchner I/II. München, 1979 (Text + Kritik. Sonderband), S. 16-298
[in der 2., verbesserten und um ein Register vermehrten Auflage 1982, S. 16-298 u. 463] Thomas Michael Mayer u.a. (Bearb.): Georg Büchner. Leben, Werk, Zeit. Eine Ausstellung zum 150. Jahrestag des "Hessischen Landboten". Katalog. Unter Mitwirkung von Bettina Bischoff u.a. bearb. von Thomas Michael Mayer, Marburg 1985
[2. wesentlich verbesserte u. vermehrte Aufl. 1986; 3.Aufl. 1987] Karl Mihm: ÄÄAlex. Friedrich Ludwig Weidig. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des vormärzlichen Liberalismus. In: Archiv für Hessische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Neue Folge 15 (1928), S. 348-384 u. 574-608
[auch selbständig erschienen: Darmstadt 1929] Friedrich Wilhelm SchulzFriedrich Wilhelm SchulzFriedrich Wilhelm Schulz was a German officer and radical-democratic publisher in Hesse...
: Der Tod des Pfarrers Dr. Friedrich Ludwig Weidig. Ein aktenmäßiger und urkundlich belegter Beitrag zur Beurteilung des geheimen Strafprozesses und der politischen Zustände Deutschlands. Literarisches Comptoir. Zürich und Winterthur 1843
[Erste Dokumentation der mörderischen Umstände, unter denen Weidig gefangen gehalten und verhört wurde. Die Schrift löste eine breite Debatte aus.] Arthur Wyß: Weidig, Friedrich Ludwig. In: Allgemeine Deutsche BiographieAllgemeine Deutsche BiographieAllgemeine Deutsche Biographie is one of the most important and most comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language....
(ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, S. 450–453.