Karl Ludwig Sand

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Karl Ludwig Sand
Karl Ludwig Sand
Born5 October 1795
Wunsiedel, Upper Franconia, then Prussia
Died20 May 1820(1820-05-20) (aged 24)
Mannheim
NationalityGerman
OccupationUniversity theology student

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 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.

Biography

Karl Ludwig Sand was born to Gottfried Christoph Sand and his wife Dorothea Johanna Wilhelmina Schöpf (1766–1826), on 5 October 1795. His siblings were George, Fritz, Caroline and Julia.

Education

Students marching towards the Wartburg, of which Sand was one.

In 1804 he attended the Lateinschule (Latin school) in

Montgelas's Reforms, Sand followed his teacher to the Neues Gymnasium (New Grammar School) in Regensburg, completing his studies in September 1814. In November 1814 Sand matriculated at the University of Tübingen
.

In 1815, Sand volunteered under Major von Falkenhausen, participating in the

Wartburg festival, in which Kotzebue's History of the German Empires was one of the books ceremoniously burned
.

Murder of August von Kotzebue

Illustration of Sand's attack on Kotzebue.

Sand already contemplated the murder of August von Kotzebue in a diary entry of 5 May 1818. He called him a "traitor to the nation" and a "deceiver of the people" and characterized him as an enemy of the Burschenschaft.

On the morning of 23 March 1819 Sand, using the pseudonym Henry, visited Kotzebue in his Mannheim house. Refused entry to the house and told to return in the afternoon, Sand returned just before five o'clock. Having exchanged just a few words with Kotzebue, Sand produced a dagger and, with the words "Here, you traitor to the fatherland!", stabbed him repeatedly in the chest. Surprised by Kotzebue's four-year-old son witnessing the event from the nursery, Sand lost his wits and stabbed himself. Leaving the house, he handed a servant a piece of writing he had prepared ("Death to August von Kotzebue"), and stabbed himself again in the street. His suicide attempt failed, and he was taken to hospital.

Aftermath

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.

The execution of Karl Ludwig Sand.
His grave in Mannheim

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.[1]

Alexandre Dumas, père wrote about Sand's life and published excerpts from his journals and letters in Karl Ludwig Sand,[2] part of Famous Crimes.[3] 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).[4]
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.

Writings

  • Gründung einer allgemeinen freien Burschenschaft, 1817
  • Teutsche Jugend an die teutsche Menge, zum 18. October 1818
  • Todesstoß dem August von Kotzebue, 1818/19, published posthumously.

References

  1. ^ Full text of Carlsbad Decrees
  2. ^ Karl Ludwig Sand by Alexandre Dumas, père
  3. ^ Celebrated Crimes, Alexandre Dumas, père
  4. ^ Terras, Victor, Handbook of Russian literature By Victor Terras page 96

Further reading

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