page_title: Karl Ludwig Sand
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Karl Ludwig Sand / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Hinrichtung von Karl Ludwig Sand am 20. Mai 1820. Kolorierter Kupferstich, vermutlich von J. M. Volz, gedruckt in Nürnberg bei A. P. Eisen um 1820.
context_page_description: Karl Ludwig Sand was a German university student and member of a liberal Burschenschaft. He was executed in 1820 for the murder of the conservative dramatist August von Kotzebue the previous year in Mannheim. As a result of his execution, Sand became a martyr in the eyes of many German nationalists seeking the creation of a united German national state.
context_section_description: The Mannheim Hofgericht (court of law) sentenced Sand to death on 5 May 1820. He was beheaded by Franz Wilhelm Widmann, who was the official executioner at the time.
  Sand's murder of Kotzebue was a catalyst for government restrictions on liberal and German nationalist thought. On 20 September 1819 Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich called a meeting of representatives from across the German Confederation to create the Carlsbad Decrees which outlawed the Burschenschaften and put limits on freedom of the press and the rights of members of such organizations, banning them from public office, teaching or studying at universities.
  Alexandre Dumas, père wrote about Sand's life and published excerpts from his journals and letters in Karl Ludwig Sand, part of Celebrated Crimes. Prior to writing his story, Dumas visited Widmann's son in Mannheim in 1838 to gather information about Sand's character. Alexander Pushkin also memorialized Sand in his poem about assassins entitled "Kinzhal" (The Dagger). In Germany three films have been made concerning the events of Karl Sand's life: Karl Sand in 1964, Sand in 1971, and Die Unbedingten in 2009.
caption: The execution of Karl Ludwig Sand.
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