Johann Georg August Wirth

Johann Georg August Wirth (20 November 1798 – 26 July 1848) was a German lawyer, writer and politician during the Vormärz period that preceded the German revolutions of 1848–1849.
Life
Born in Hof, Bavaria, Wirth was married to . The marriage gave birth to the journalist Max Wirth and the co-founder of the Frankfurter Friedensverein . The writer was a great-nephew of Wirth.
Wirth first attended his hometown's grammar school as a classmate of Karl Ludwig Sand and in 1811 moved to the in Bayreuth. After graduating from high school, he studied law at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität. In December 1817 Wirth was, together with other Corps-Renoncen, co-founder and committee member of the Erlanger Burschenschaft (Arminia). Wirth left the fraternity at the beginning of January 1818, became senior of the Corps Franconia and remained a student of the Corps throughout his life. Then he practiced in Schwarzenbach an der Saale and from 1823 in the Bayreuth chancellery of Gottlieb Keim. He was denied a legal career because he could not pay the doctoral fees. At the beginning of 1831, he had the magazine Kosmopolit printed in Bayreuth at his own expense, in which he criticized the "setbacks of the Bavarian government" and demanded freedom of the press. In the same year he moved to Munich and took over the editorial office of the government-loyal magazine by Johann Friedrich Cotta. Soon after he changed his political direction and founded the . It quickly became famous among the people and notorious among the princes, because Wirth used it, among other things, as a platform for the first fight for freedom of the press; so he called out to the ruling nobility: "The free press is the defence of the peoples against the tyranny of the rulers". He was increasingly harassed by persecutions, but took advantage of the gaps in censorship and always voted for the strengthening of civil rights. Then he went to the Circle of the Rhine. Political censorship also prevented his work there. In March 1832 his newspaper was banned by the then Federal Convention. Wirth became a member of the board of the 1832 founded .
At the end of May 1832 Wirth organized the Hambacher Fest together with his comrade-in-arms . After a speech before many thousands of people, in which he called for the formation of a "Union of the Patriots" and beyond "the united Free States of Germany" had already let "the confederate republican Europe" live high, Wirth was remanded in custody and taken to Zweibrücken.
In prison he wrote a pamphlet with his political ideas entitled: Die politische Reform Deutschlands.. In June 1833 he was tried by a jury in the spectacular trial in Landau and was acquitted - Wirth had defended himself in an eight-hour speech and declared the princes high traitors. But in November 1833, the Zuchtpolizeigericht Zweibrücken sentenced him to the maximum sentence of two years in prison for insulting domestic and foreign authorities. He was imprisoned in Kaiserslautern. In the prison there he wrote the Fragmente zur Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit. After his release in December 1835 he was taken to Passau to serve a sentence there. However, he managed to escape. At the end of December 1836 he came to France and in 1839 to Kreuzlingen in Thurgau (Switzerland). There he edited the articles published by the Konstanz publisher Ignaz Vanotti (1798-1870) and the Geschichte der Deutschen. In 1847 he moved to Karlsruhe. In the Prussian principalities he was elected to the Frankfurt Parliament, but died shortly thereafter in Frankfurt on 26 July 1848 at age 49 and was buried in the Frankfurt Main Cemetery. Robert Blum gave the eulogy.
Memorial
The city of Hof erected a monument to the 150th anniversary of Wirth's death in 1998, which honours the person of Wirth by making his work as a fighter for freedom of the press its content. It was created by the sculptor Andreas Theurer and has the shape of a wave-shaped newspaper page lying on the ground. The surface consists of black and white cobblestones whose structure is reminiscent of a typeface. The pixel writing establishes a reference to the present and shows the title "Deutsche Tribüne" as a detail. The "D" of "Deutsch" is missing so that Wirth's struggle for German unity is not associated with dull nationalism. Before the inauguration, the then Federal President Roman Herzog remarked: "This will double the number of republican monuments in Germany".
In 2012, the monument was removed from its original location in the city centre and a second, smaller version was erected near the Freiheitshalle.
Honours
The in Kulmbach, an institution for journalist training, has been awarding the Johann Georg August Wirth Prize since 2009. A Johann-Georg-August-Wirth-Realschule exists in Hof.
In 1998, the volume Die Rechte des deutschen Volkes. Eine Verteidigungsrede vor den assise zu Landau (1833) by Wirth was published in the series Bibliothek Europäischer Freiheitsbewegungen in the German Federal Archives.
Work
Entwurf eines Strafgesetzbuches. Ein Beytrag zur Erörterung der Frage: "ob der Entwurf des Strafgesetzbuches für Baiern vom J. 1822 dem zur Zeit möglichen Grade von Vollständigkeit u. Gerechtigkeit entspreche?“. Bayreuth 1825 Numerised
Censurfreye Brochüren als Entschädigung für die Abonnenten des Inlandes. Erste Lieferung. München 1831 Numerised
Johann Georg August Wirth (edit.): , 1831–1832. Reprint K. G. Saur, Munich 2007
Review: perlentaucher.de, in Perlentaucher, with redirection to Die Zeit
Die politische Reform Deutschlands. Noch ein dringendes Wort an die deutschen Volksfreunde. Strasburg 1832 Digitalisat
Das Nationalfest der Deutschen zu Hambach. 2 volumes. Christmann, Neustadt 1832. Das Nationalfest der Deutschen zu Hambach. Issue 1, issue 2)
Das Recht des deutschen Volkes und die Beschlüsse des Frankfurter Bundestages vom 28. Juni 1832. o. O. and o. J. Numerised
Fragmente zur Culturgeschichte. Erster Theil. J. J. Tascher, Kaiserslautern 1835 Numerised
Fragmente zur Culturgeschichte. Zweiter Theil. J. J. Tascher, Kaiserslautern 1836 Numerised
Die politisch-reformatorische Richtung der Deutschen im XVI. und XIX. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte. Verlag der Deutschen Volkshalle, Belle-Vue 1841 Numerised
Denkwürdigkeiten aus meinem Leben. Erstes Bändchen. Literarisches Institut, Emmishofen bei Konstanz 1844 Numerised
Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten. Von der Auflösung des Reiches bis auf unsere Tage. Vol. 1. Kunstverlag, Karlsruhe 1847 Numerised
Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten. 2 vol. 2. durchausverbesserte aufl. Hoffmannsche Verlags-Buchhandlung, Karlsruhe 1846 Numerised
Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten. 3 vol. 2. durchausverbesserte aufl. Hoffmannsche Verlags-Buchhandlung, Karlsruhe 1846 Numerised
Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten. 4 vol. 2. durchausverbesserte aufl. Hoffmannsche Verlags-Buchhandlung, Karlsruhe 1846 Numerised
Ein Wort an die deutsche Nation. Kunstverlag, Karlsruhe 1848 Numerised
J. G. A. Wirth’s Letztes Wort an die deutsche Nation. Mit Randglossen von M. Wirth. Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main 1849 Numerised
Further reading
Elisabeth Hüls: Johann Georg August Wirth (1798–1848), ein politisches Leben im Vormärz. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, .
: Johann Georg August Wirth: Vorkämpfer für Einheit, Recht und Freiheit. Beltz, Weinheim 1997, . – Eine aktualisierte Taschenbuchausgabe ist im August 2011 im Verlag Wellhöfer erschienen;
(11 authors): Johann Georg August Wirth (1798–1848): Ein Revolutionär aus Hof. Seine Person – seine Zeit – seine Wirkungen. , Hof 1999, .
(edit.): Kämpfer für Freiheit und Demokratie: J. G. A. Wirth. Reihe: Pirmin Spieß (edit.): Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Pfalz, 12. Stiftung zur Förderung der pfälzischen Geschichtsforschung, Neustadt an der Weinstraße 2010,
Review: Rastatter Freiheitsbote. Editor. Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte, Außenstelle des Bundesarchivs, Online (PDF; 816 kB)
Helge Dvorak: Biographisches Lexikon der Deutschen Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politiker. Teilband 6: T–Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2005 .
Notes
References
External links
Wikisource
Johann August Wirth auf dem Hambacher Fest (Mai 1832)
19th-century German writers
19th-century German journalists
19th-century German male writers
German opinion journalists
Members of the Frankfurt Parliament
Corps students
1798 births
1848 deaths
People from Hof, Bavaria