| Preliminary
- remarks on the book essay proposals: 6 people need to make appointments;
if you want a recommendation for graduate school from me, it's good
to do a little more on your essay.
Guiding Questions
- Why didn't the Frankfurt parliamentarians achieve their goals? (What
were their goals?)
- Schulze p. 23=Max Weber: "an event is only historically relevant when
it cannot be extracted mentally from its causal sequence, without the
consequences necessarily changing."
Discussion: The Frankfurt Parliament and the issue
of Austria
- Reasons for:
- Reasons against:
Slide show: The Symbolism of Clothing (see below)
- Fredrich Wilhelm IV on March 20, 1848 in guard uniform among people
- George W. Bush on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003
in pilot suit
- Baden revolutionaries in floppy hats and pants--anti-bourgeois counter-culture
- Berlin "citizens" manning the barricades in top hats and
frock coats
- Frankfurt parliamentary delegates sewing the patchwork quilt of Germany
Timeline
- May 18, 1848-March 28, 1849: parliament convenes in Frankfurt, drafts
Reich Constitution
- Oct. 6-31: 3rd uprising in Vienna, put down by Windischgratz
- Nov. 9: Robert Blum executed
Source: Karl Marx in the New Rhine News, Nov. 22, 1848
"The Assembly
at Frankfurt"
Cologne, November 22. The resolution of the Berlin Assembly regarding
the refusal to pay taxes has been declared unlawful and void by the Frankfurt
Parliament. …
German Parliament! Whoever spoke of a German Parliament after the grave
events in Berlin and Vienna. After the death of Robert Blum no one gave
another thought to the life of the noble Gagern. … The professors who
"made history" for their own amusement had to allow the shelling of Vienna,
the murder of Robert Blum and the barbarity of Windischgrätz! The
gentlemen who were so greatly concerned about the cultural history of
Germany left the practical application of culture in the hands of a Jellachich
and his Croats! While the professors were evolving the theory of history,
history ran its stormy course without bothering about the professorial
history.
The resolution passed the day before yesterday has destroyed the Frankfurt
Parliament. The resolution has driven it into the arms of the traitor
Brandenburg. The Parliament at Frankfurt is guilty of high treason, it
must be brought to trial. If a whole people rises to protest against an
arbitrary act of a king, and if this protest is made in an entirely legal
way -- by refusing to pay taxes -- and an assembly of professors declares
-- without being at all competent to do so -- that the refusal to pay
taxes, this revolt of the whole people, is unlawful, then this assembly
places itself outside the law, it commits high treason. It is the duty
of all members of the Frankfurt Assembly who voted against this resolution
to resign from this "deceased Federal Diet". It is the duty of all democrats
to elect these resigned "Prussians" to the German National Assembly at
Berlin in place of the "Germans" who have left. The National Assembly
in Berlin is not a "fragment", it is a complete entity, for it constitutes
a quorum. But the Brandenburg Assembly at Frankfurt will become a "fragment",
for the inevitable resignation of the 150 deputies will surely be followed
by many others who do not wish to set up a Federal Diet at Frankfurt.
The Frankfurt Parliament! It fears a red republic and decrees a red monarchy.
We do not want a red monarchy, we do not want the crimson crown of Austria
to extend its sway over Prussia, and we therefore declare that the German
Parliament is guilty of high treason. Nay, we do it too much honor; we
impute to it a political importance which it has long since lost. The
severest judgment has already been passed upon it -- disregard of its
rulings and total oblivion.
|