On the Barricades of Berlin: An Account of the 1848 Revolution

362 Pages·2020·7.369 MB·English

by  August Brass

Everyhistoricalaccountofthisrevolutionisanarrativethatwillreveal
somehowthepoliticalpositionofthehistorianwhooffersit.Thewayinwhich
Weilandchallengesthedominantliberalnarrativeisastonishinglywell
documentedandconvincing.Hisanalysissuccessfullydeconstructsthe
“progressive”self-imageoftheGermanliberalbourgeoisiethatthoughtit
wouldprofitfromarevolutionthatsucceededin'48primarilyduetothe
sacrificesmadebycourageousmenandwomenoftheworkingclass.
...[T]hestyleandthetoneofthebookareinspiring,andIhopethatthe
inspirationthatmovedthethreeauthors,AugustBrass,PeterLight,and
AndreasWeiland,canmotivatethereadertothinkinadeeperandharderway
aboutthepresentnecessitytoquestionastatusquothat,assuch,features
manyelementsthatshouldcauseatleastasmuchresistanceasthesituationin
1848happenedtocauseinBerlin.Ifweremainonlookerstoday,notunlikeso
manysaturatedGermansin‘48,wouldthisnotbeconducivetothe
disintegrationofthesocialfabricandtheecologicaldevastationoftheplanet?
Thisquestionisposedimplicitlyinthebook.
Dr.MagdiYoussef
ProfessorofComparativeLiteratureandCultureStudies
UniversityofBonn
IhavereadTheBarricadesofBerlinwithgreatattention,especiallyaswesee
again,today,barricadesinFrance:formedbystuffprovidedbyconsumer
society–burningcartires,smashedthingstakenfromexpensivestoresatthe
Champs-Élyséesandbrokenby“left-wing”and“right-wing”folks,byworkers,
theunemployed,andstudents,allangrywiththeneoliberalestablishment.
BoththeeyewitnessreportbyAugustBrass,anactivistintheMarch
Revolutionof1848thatshookBerlin,PrussiaandGermany,andthethoughtful,
elaboratecommentaryonitbyAndreasWeilandarewellworthreading.
PavelBranko
filmcriticandauthorofAgainsttheCurrent,
andIntheMorningIwakeup,surprisedatnotbeingdead

ON THE
ON THE
BARRICADES
BARRICADES
OF BERLIN
OF BERLIN
August Heinrich Brass
1818-1876
ON THE
ON THE
BARRICADES
BARRICADES
OF BERLIN
OF BERLIN
An Account of the1848 Revolution
August Brass
Translated and edited by
Andreas Weiland with Peter Light
Montréal/Chicago/London
Copyright © 20(cid:19)1 Black Rose Books
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Black Rose Books No. TT404
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: On the barricades of Berlin : an account of the 1848 revolution / August Brass ;
translated by Andreas Weiland ; foreword by Peter Light.
Other titles: Berlin’s Barrikaden. English
Names: Brass, August, 1818-1876, author. | Weiland, Andreas, 1944- translator. | Light, Peter,
1943- writer of foreword.
Description: Translation of: Berlin’s Barrikaden, Ihre Entstehung, ihre Verteidigung und ihre
Folgen.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2019008099X | Canadiana (ebook) 20190082437 | ISBN
9781551647081 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781551647104 (softcover) | ISBN 9781551647128
(PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Brass, August, 1818-1876. | LCSH: Berlin (Germany)—History—
Revolution, 1848-1849. | LCSH: Berlin (Germany)—History—Revolution, 1848-
1849—Personal narratives.
Classification: LCC DD876 .B7313 2019 | DDC 943/.155074—dc23
C.P.35788 Succ. Léo-Pariseau
Montréal, QC, H2X 0A4
Canada
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CONTENTS
(cid:34)(cid:68)(cid:76)(cid:79)(cid:80)(cid:88)(cid:77)(cid:70)(cid:69)(cid:72)(cid:70)(cid:78)(cid:70)(cid:79)(cid:85)(cid:84) ............................................(cid:1) 6(cid:1)
(cid:39)(cid:80)(cid:83)(cid:70)(cid:88)(cid:80)(cid:83)(cid:69) by Peter Light ........................................(cid:1) 7(cid:1)
(cid:42)(cid:79)(cid:85)(cid:83)(cid:80)(cid:69)(cid:86)(cid:68)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:79) by Andreas Weiland .................................(cid:1) 9
The Barricades of Berlin by August Brass
Preface .................................................29
Part I: Start of 1848 to March 11: Thunderclouds on the Horizon.... 32
Part II: March 12-17: The Course is Set........................ 52
Part III: Friday, March 17: The Turning Point ...................76
Interlude: A Personal Moment of Memory and Emotion ...........81
Part IV: Afternoon, March 18: To the Barricades!................. 83
Part V: Evening, March 18th: The Second Phase of the Fighting ....108
Part VI: Night, March 18-19: The Third Phase of the Fighting .....111
Part VII: Morning, March 19: The Red Dawn of Freedom......... 116
Part VIII: March 19: Peace! Peace! ...........................120
Part IX: Morning, March 20: Liberation of the Polish Prisoners . . . . . 127
Part X: March 21: The King Rides the Streets................... 131
Part XI: March 22: The Funeral .............................134
Part XII: March 22: Closing Words of Wisdom and Inspiration..... 139
(cid:53)(cid:73)(cid:70)(cid:1)(cid:46)(cid:66)(cid:83)(cid:68)(cid:73)(cid:1)(cid:51)(cid:70)(cid:87)(cid:80)(cid:77)(cid:86)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:79)(cid:27)(cid:1)(cid:34)(cid:1)(cid:35)(cid:80)(cid:85)(cid:68)(cid:73)(cid:70)(cid:69)(cid:1)(cid:51)(cid:70)(cid:87)(cid:80)(cid:77)(cid:86)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:79)(cid:32) by Andreas Weiland ....(cid:1) 143(cid:1)
(cid:38)(cid:81)(cid:74)(cid:77)(cid:80)(cid:72)(cid:86)(cid:70) by Andreas Weiland ..................................(cid:1) 332(cid:1)
(cid:45)(cid:66)(cid:84)(cid:85)(cid:1)(cid:56)(cid:80)(cid:83)(cid:69)(cid:84) by Peter Light(cid:1).....................................(cid:1) 344(cid:1)
(cid:34)(cid:86)(cid:72)(cid:86)(cid:84)(cid:85)(cid:1)(cid:41)(cid:70)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:83)(cid:74)(cid:68)(cid:73)(cid:1)(cid:35)(cid:83)(cid:66)(cid:84)(cid:84)...........................(cid:15)(cid:15)............(cid:1) 352
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT(cid:52)
I wish to thank my old classmate and life-long friend Angelo (Fred) Evelyn
for introducing me to the translator of this book, Andreas Weiland; and, of
course, Andreas himself, from the bottom of my heart, who has persevered
with this work through many delays and tribulations, and who has done such
a wonderful job of revealing what had been hidden from me and my family
lineage of nineteen living Brass descendants, bringing to life so well this voice
from another time and place.
(cid:14)(cid:1)Peter Light
6
FOREW(cid:48)(cid:51)(cid:37)
(cid:67)(cid:90)(cid:1)(cid:50)(cid:39)(cid:54)(cid:39)(cid:52)(cid:2)(cid:46)(cid:43)(cid:41)(cid:42)(cid:54)
I first heard of August Brass while growing up in Vancouver, Canada, in the
1940s and 50s. I later learned that he died in 1876 at the age of fifty-eight
when his daughter Gertrude—my father’s mother—was but nine years old.
This notwithstanding, my father, born in Berlin, Germany in 1903, remembers
his mother saying, “Ach, Gunter, you are so much like your Grandpa Brass.”
From my father I had learned that this great-grandfather of mine, August
Heinrich Brass, had “fought behind the barricades” during the “failed” 1848
German Revolution; had held off the King’s army for two days; was forced
to flee to Switzerland; was pardoned by the Kaiser, Otto von Bismarck,
who became his “personal friend(cid:28)” had founded a daily newspaper which he
put at the service of the Kaiser’s government; and then, disillusioned with the
Kaiser’s policies, resigned and started his own, independent newspaper.
I subsequently verified that all this information was a more or less accurate
oral transmission in accord with the historical record.
I first discovered, with growing wonder and excitement as I began to
explore my genealogy in 1999, that there actually was a historical record. I
learned that Brass was a well-known literary figure of his time; that he was also
a personal friend of Karl Marx; that he hadn’t just fought behind the barricades,
but had led part of the fight; that he and a fellow revolutionary have had a
monument erected in their honor—in 1999, in Alexanderplatz (Alexander
Square)—for fighting the soldiers under the command of general Johann Karl
von Möllendorff to a stand-still there; and that—wonder of wonders—he had
actually written a book about it entitled “Berlin’s Barrikaden, Ihre Entstehung,
ihre Vertheidigung und ihre Folgen. Eine Geschichte der Märzrevolution.”
I learned later from a scholar of German history—my translator and editor,
Andreas Weiland—that this book is most likely the earliest extensive first-
person account of the March Revolution known to exist—completed and to
the publisher just twelve days after one hundred and eighty-three dead “fighters
of the people” were put into the ground.
Increasingly gripped by the manuscript as it emerged in English for the
first time, and as the vivid story I was reading unfolded and built to its climax,
there was no greater moment for me than when my own personal history, my
family lore, the written word before me, and visual imagery came together and
7