Hambach Festival

The tradition & historical record

The Hambacher Festival was a German national democratic festival celebrated from 27 May to 30 May 1832 at Hambach Castle, near Neustadt an der Weinstraße, in present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The event was disguised as a nonpolitical county fair. It was one of the main public demonstrations in support of German unity, freedom and democracy during the Vormärz era. ¹

At the time of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, Hambach Castle with the historic Palatinate region on the west bank of the Rhine was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. It had however been occupied by French Revolutionary troops during the War of the First Coalition in 1794 and incorporated into the French First Republic in 1801. After Napoleon's defeat, the new Bavarian authorities maintained some constitutional rights, but the local population nevertheless suffered from high taxes and increasing censorship. National and liberal ideas were strongly advocated by student fraternities (Burschenschaften), the first of which, the Urburschenschaft, was founded in Jena, Thuringia in 1815 and had adopted the Black-Red-Gold colours of the Lützow Free Corps forces, who had fought against the Napoleonic troops. A corresponding flag was already carried along the procession to the Wartburg Festival in 1817. Suppressed by the 1819 Carlsbad Decrees, the German democratic movement gained new momentum by the French July Revolution of 1830 as well as by the November Uprising in Russian Congress Poland, sparking unrests in Saxony, Hanover, Hesse, Brunswick and even in the Prussian capital Berlin. The insurgents witnessed the implementation of the French constitutional July Monarchy and the Belgian Revolution, but also the suppression of the Polish National Government of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski by Russian troops. About 10,000 emigrants fled Poland in the so-called Great Emigration to France via the German states; they were well received especially in Saxony, Baden and Bavaria, where several pro-Polish patronage associations (Polenvereine) arose. ¹

The formerly French Palatinate had been a last resort for liberal authors and intellectuals, who now had to face the reactionary Bavarian policies. In January 1832 a number of journalists established a democratic association for freedom of the press and speech, which was almost immediately banned by the state government. In turn, the initiators called for a "fair" at Hambach Castle, as any demonstrations were prohibited. About 20,000-30,000 people came, from all ranks of society—workmen, women, students and members of parliament, as well as from France and Poland. A delegation of 17 to 20 Polish emigrants took part in the procession from the Neustadt market place uphill to the castle ruin. This pro-Polish support expressed in Hambach was the climax of German liberals' enthusiasm for Poland. Gustave Koerner, who was present, described in his memoirs one highlight of the festival in this manner: ¹

From various platforms eloquent speeches were made by Doctor Siebenpfeiffer, Wirth, Scharpff, Henry Brueggemann, and others, representing the sad condition of Germany, its insignificance in the council of European nations, its depression in trade and commerce, all owing to the want of national union, the division into thirty-eight States, large and small, with their different laws, different weights and measures, different currencies, and most of all to the custom-house lines surrounding every State. The orators complained of the pressure which Austria and Prussia exercised over the German Diet at Frankfort, compelling even liberal-minded princes to the adoption of unconstitutional and illegal measures. ¹

The gathering had no immediate results, but is considered a milestone in German history because it was the first time that a republican movement had made its mark in the country. It was criticized as a missed opportunity, including by Heinrich Heine. The next year, about 50 insurgents tried to start a democratic revolution by charging the Frankfurt guard house (Frankfurter Wachensturm), which ultimately failed. Instead the Hambach events prompted the legalist German Federal Convention to issue its order of 28 June 1832 which again tightened the Carlsbad Decrees and completely suppressed freedom of speech. On the anniversary date in 1833, Bavarian military controlled the area and dispersed all attempts to hold another gathering. Many intellectuals retired to a non-political Biedermeier life in the following years. The Festival also confirmed the establishment of the combination of black, red and gold as a symbol of a democratic movement for a united Germany. The colours were later used by democratic revolutionaries in the Revolutions of 1848 as a symbol of German unity, but it was not achieved until 1871 and, even then, to Otto von Bismarck's specifications. After World War I, Black-Red-Gold were adopted by the Weimar Republic as the national colours of Germany and are used on the modern German flag. Hambach Castle became an icon of the German democratic movement. A possession of Prince Maximilian II of Bavaria from 1842, it was rebuilt in a Gothic Revival style from 1844 and is today the site of a historical exhibition. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Hambach Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Hambach Festival is 1832 German festival, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 6 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²