Johann Georg August Wirth (20 November 1798 – 26 July 1848''Das große Pfalzbuch'', Pfälzische Verlagsanstalt, Neustadt an der Weinstraße 1976, p. 591.) was a German lawyer, writer and politician during the Vormärz period that preceded the German revolutions of 1848–1849.

Life

Born in

Hof, Bavaria Hof () is a town on the banks of the Saale in the northeastern corner of the Germany, German state of Bavaria, in the Franconian region, at the Czech Republic, Czech border and the forested Fichtelgebirge and Frankenwald upland regions. The town h ...

, Wirth was married to . The marriage gave birth to the journalist

Max Wirth Max Wirth ( Breslau, 27 January 1822 — Vienna, 18 July 1900) was a German journalist and economist. Life Max Wirth is the son of Johann Georg August Wirth, a Bavarian writer and organizer of the Hambach Festival The Hambacher Festi ...

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 Karl Ludwig Sand (Wunsiedel, Upper Franconia (then in Prussia), 5 October 1795 – Mannheim, 20 May 1820) was a German university student and member of a liberal Burschenschaft (student association). He was executed in 1820 for the murder of the ...

and in 1811 moved to the in

Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...

.Karl Müssel: ''Bayreuth in acht Jahrhunderten. Geschichte der Stadt.'' Gondrom, Bayreuth 1993, , . 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).The emerged from the Arminia in 1833. 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 Schwarzenbach an der Saale is a town in the district of Hof, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the river Saale, 11 km south of Hof. Within the town is the Gedenkstätte Langer Gang, a memorial to the Nazi victims of the Helmbrechts ...

and from 1823 in the Bayreuth chancellery of

Gottlieb Keim Gottlieb Keim (10 March 1783 – 29 August 1868) was a member of the Frankfurt Parliament. Life Born in Kulmbach, during his law studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Keim became a member of the , from which he left because of diffe ...

. 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 The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...

. 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 A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a hard cover or binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a ...

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 Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...

. In the prison there he wrote the ''Fragmente zur Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit''. After his release in December 1835 he was taken to

Passau Passau (; bar, label=Central Bavarian, Båssa) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany, also known as the Dreiflüssestadt ("City of Three Rivers") as the river Danube is joined by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north. Passau's popu ...

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 Kreuzlingen is a municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen in the canton of Thurgau in north-eastern Switzerland. It is the seat of the district and is the second-largest city of the canton, after Frauenfeld, with a population of about 22,000. ...

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 Robert Blum (10 November 1807 – 9 November 1848) was a German democratic politician, publicist, poet, publisher, revolutionist and member of the National Assembly of 1848. In his fight for a strong, unified Germany he opposed ethnocentrism ...

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 Andreas ( el, Ἀνδρέας) is a name usually given to males in Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Armenia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Finland, Flanders, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The ...

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 Kulmbach () is the capital of the district of Kulmbach in Bavaria in Germany. The town is famous for Plassenburg Castle, which houses the largest tin soldier museum in the world, and for its sausages, or ''Bratwürste''. Geography Location Ku ...

, 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.Homepage der Johann-Georg-August-Wirth-Realschule
retrieved on 23 November 2019. 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 The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv (BArch) (german: Bundesarchiv) are the National Archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952. They are subordinated to the Federal Commissioner for Culture and t ...

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 182
Numerised
* ''Censurfreye Brochüren als Entschädigung für die Abonnenten des Inlandes''. Erste Lieferung. München 183

* Johann Georg August Wirth (edit.): '', 1831–1832.'' Reprint K. G. Saur, Munich 2007 ** Review

in Perlentaucher, with redirection to ''

Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The ...

'' * ''Die politische Reform Deutschlands. Noch ein dringendes Wort an die deutschen Volksfreunde''. Strasburg 183
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 183
Numerised
* ''Fragmente zur Culturgeschichte. Zweiter Theil''. J. J. Tascher, Kaiserslautern 183
Numerised
* ''Die politisch-reformatorische Richtung der Deutschen im XVI. und XIX. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte''. Verlag der Deutschen Volkshalle, Belle-Vue 184
Numerised
* ''Denkwürdigkeiten aus meinem Leben''. Erstes Bändchen. Literarisches Institut, Emmishofen bei Konstanz 184

* ''Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten. Von der Auflösung des Reiches bis auf unsere Tage''. Vol. 1. Kunstverlag, Karlsruhe 184
Numerised
* ''Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten''. 2 vol. 2. durchausverbesserte aufl. Hoffmannsche Verlags-Buchhandlung, Karlsruhe 184
Numerised
* ''Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten''. 3 vol. 2. durchausverbesserte aufl. Hoffmannsche Verlags-Buchhandlung, Karlsruhe 184
Numerised
* ''Die Geschichte der deutschen Staaten''. 4 vol. 2. durchausverbesserte aufl. Hoffmannsche Verlags-Buchhandlung, Karlsruhe 184
Numerised
* ''Ein Wort an die deutsche Nation''. Kunstverlag, Karlsruhe 184
Numerised
* ''J. G. A. Wirth’s Letztes Wort an die deutsche Nation. Mit Randglossen von M. Wirth''. Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main 184
Numerised

Notes

References

External links

Wikisource

Johann August Wirth auf dem Hambacher Fest (Mai 1832)
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wirth, Johann Georg August 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