Wartburg festival
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The first Wartburg festival (German: Wartburgfest) on October 18, 1817 was an important event in German history that took place at the Wartburg castle at Eisenach.
After the war of liberation against France and Napoleon, many people were bitter about dreams of German unity shattered after the Congress of Vienna. Democratic reforms were stalled, and governments had cracked down on press freedom and rights of association. In 1815 the students of Jena founded the youth organization Teutonia in order to demonstrate about Germany unity at the university. Many of them had also taken part as voluntary soldiers (Lützow Free Corps) on the fields against Napoleon.
The German students demonstrated for a national state and a liberal Constitution and condemned reactionary forces in the newly recreated Germany states. On the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing of his theses and in memory of the fighting of the Battle of Nations at Leipzig, the student groups organized a festival at the Wartburg castle in Eisenach. A refuge stop for Martin Luther, the castle served as a symbol of German nationalism.
A key event was a book-burning of reactionary literary works and symbols of Napoleon like a corporal's cane. This act was later used as a justification for the Nazi book burnings.
The event itself was used as a justification for further suppression of liberal forces, later organized at the Karlsbad Conference.
[edit] Some works burned during the bookburning
- Jean Pierre Frédéric Ancillon: Ueber Souverainitaet etc.
- F. v. Cölln: Vertraute Briefe. Freymüthige Blätter
- August Friedrich Wilhelm Crome: Deutschlands Crisis und Rettung im April und May 1813.
- Dabelow: Der 13e Artikel der deutschen Bundesacte
- Karl Ludwig von Haller: Restauration der Staatswissenschaft
- August von Kotzebue: Geschichte des deutschen Reichs
- Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten: Rede gesprochen am Napoleonstage 1800, Geschichte meines fünfzigsten Lebensjahres, and Vaterländische Lieder
- Carl Albert Christoph Heinrich von Kamptz: Codex der Gensd'armerie
- W. Reinhard: Die Bundesacte über Ob, Wann und Wie? deutscher Landstände
- Schmalz: Berichtigung einer Stelle in der Bredow-Venturinischen Chronik; und die beyden darauf
- Saul Ascher: Germanomanie
- Zacharias Werner: Martin Luther oder die Weihe der Kraft, Die Söhne des Thals
- K. v. Wangenheim: Die Idee der Staatsverfassung
- The Napoleonic Code
- Justus Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariae: Über den Code Napoleon
- Carl Leberecht Immermann: Ein Wort zur Beherzigung, 1814, (gegen die Burschenschaft zu Halle)
