Karl Ludwig Sand

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Karl Ludwig Sand (Wunsiedel, then in Prussia, October 5, 1795 - Mannheim, May 20, 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.

Sand was born the youngest of eight children, of whom three died young. From 1804 he attended the Lateinschule (Latin school) in Wunsiedel, where he was an ungifted but diligent pupil. In 1810 he moved on to the grammar school (Gymnasium) in Hof, living with the school's rector, Georg Heinrich Saalfrank, a friend of Sand's Enlightened Protestant family. Following the closure of the Hof Gymnasium on the institution of 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 Tũbingen. He then moved to the University of Erlangen, where his involvement with various Burschenschaften intensified. From 1817 he studied at the University of Jena, attending the lectures of Jakob Friedrich Fries, Heinrich Luden and Lorenz Oken and joining further Burschenschaften.

Sand already contemplated the murder of August von Kotzebue in a diary entry of May 5, 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 March 23, 1819 Sand, using a false name, 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.

The Mannheim Hofgericht (court of law) sentenced Sand to death on May 5, 1820. He was executed by beheading.

Contents 1 Writings 2 The Story of Karl Ludwig Sand 3 Bibliography 4 References

[edit] 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 pothumously.

[edit] The Story of Karl Ludwig Sand

Sand was beheaded by Franz Whilhelm Widmann who was the executing official presiding in 1820. The events of Sand's life are narrated in a story by Alexandre Dumas called Karl Ludwig Sand. Prior to writing his story, Dumas visited Widmann's son in Mannheim in 1838 to gather information about Sand's character. An excerpt of their visit is shown below from Dumas' book. The spelling of Widmann in the story is Widemann.

Excerpt from Karl Ludwig Sand by Alexandre Dumas (Dumas also wrote The Count of Monte Cristo):

Toward the end of September, 1838, we were at Mannheim, where I had stayed three days in order to collect all the details I could find about the life and death of Karl-Ludwig Sand.

But at the end of these three days, in spite of my active investigations, these details still remained extremely incomplete, either because I applied in the wrong quarters, or because, being a foreigner, I inspired same distrust in those to whom I applied. I was leaving Mannheim, therefore, somewhat disappointed, and after having visited the little Protestant cemetery where Sand and Kotzebue are buried at twenty paces from each other, I had ordered my driver to take the road to Heidelberg, when, after going a few yards, he, who knew the object of my inquiries, stopped of himself and asked me whether I should not like to see the place where Sand was executed. At the same time he pointed to a little mound situated in the middle of a meadow and a few steps from a brook. I assented eagerly, and although the driver remained on the highroad with my travelling companions, I soon recognised the spot indicated, by means of some relics of cypress branches, immortelles, and forget-me-nots scattered upon the earth. It will readily be understood that this sight, instead of diminishing my desire for information, increased it. I was feeling, then, more than ever dissatisfied at going away, knowing so little, when I saw a man of some five-and-forty to fifty years old, who was walking a little distance from the place where I myself was, and who, guessing the cause that drew me thither, was looking at me with curiosity. I determined to make a last effort, and going up to him, I said, "Oh, sir, I am a stranger; I am travelling to collect all the rich and poetic traditions of your Germany. By the way in which you look at me, I guess that you know which of them attracts me to this meadow. Could you give me any information about the life and death of Sand?"

....

Mr. G--- did not once depart from the ready kindness that he had shown. In the most obliging manner, patient over the minutest trifles, and remembering most happily, he went over every circumstance, putting himself at my disposal like a professional guide. At last, when every particular about Sand had been sucked dry, I began to ask him about the manner in which executions were performed. "As to that," said he, "I can offer you an introduction to someone at Heidelberg who can give you all the information you can wish for upon the subject."

I accepted gratefully, and as I was taking leave of Mr. G----, after thanking him a thousand times, he handed me the offered letter. It bore this superscription: "To Herr-doctor Widemann, No. III High Street, Heidelberg."

I turned to Mr. G---- once more.

"Is he, by chance, a relation of the man who executed Sand? "I asked.

"He is his son, and was standing by when the head fell.".

"What is his calling, then?"

"The same as that of his father, whom he succeeded."

"But you call him 'doctor'?"

"Certainly; with us, executioners have that title."

"But, then, doctors of what?"

"Of surgery."

"Really?" said I. "With us it is just the contrary; surgeons are called executioners."

"You will find him, moreover," added Mr. G----, "a very distinguished young man, who, although he was very young at that time, has retained a vivid recollection of that event. As for his poor father, I think he would as willingly have cut off his own right hand as have executed Sand; but if he had refused, someone else would have been found. So he had to do what he was ordered to do, and he did his best."

I thanked Mr. G----, fully resolving to make use of his letter, and we left for Heidelberg, where we arrived at eleven in the evening.

My first visit next day was to Dr. Widemann. It was not without some emotion, which, moreover, I saw reflected upon, the faces of my travelling companions, that I rang at the door of the last judge, as the Germans call him. An old woman opened the door to us, and ushered us into a pretty little study, on the left of a passage and at the foot of a staircase, where we waited while Mr. Widemann finished dressing. This little room was full of curiosities, madrepores, shells, stuffed birds, and dried plants; a double- barrelled gun, a powder-flask, and a game-bag showed that Mr. Widemann was a hunter.

After a moment we heard his footstep, and the door opened. Mr. Widemann was a very handsome young man, of thirty or thirty-two, with black whiskers entirely surrounding his manly and expressive face; his morning dress showed a certain rural elegance. He seemed at first not only embarrassed but pained by our visit. The aimless curiosity of which he seemed to be the object was indeed odd. I hastened to give him Mr. G----'s letter and to tell him what reason brought me. Then he gradually recovered himself, and at last showed himself no less hospitable and obliging towards us than he to whom we owed the introduction had been, the day before.

Mr. Widemann then gathered together all his remembrances; he, too, had retained a vivid recollection of Sand, and he told us among other things that his father, at the risk of bringing himself into ill odour, had asked leave to have a new scaffold made at his own expense, so that no other criminal might be executed upon the altar of the martyr's death. Permission had been given, and Mr. Widemann had used the wood of the scaffold for the doors and windows of a little country house standing in a vineyard. Then for three or four years this cottage became a shrine for pilgrims; but after a time, little by little, the crowd grew less, and at the present day, when some of those who wiped the blood from the scaffold with their handkerchiefs have became public functionaries, receiving salaries from Government, only foreigners ask, now and again, to see these strange relics.

Mr. Widemann gave me a guide; for, after hearing everything, I wanted to see everything. The house stands half a league away from Heidelberg, on the left of the road to Karlsruhe, and half-way up the mountain-side. It is perhaps the only monument of the kind that exists in the world.

Our readers will judge better from this anecdote than from anything more we could say, what sort of man he was who left such a memory in the hearts of his gaoler and his executioner.

End-------

Reference: Karl Ludwig Sand, Alexandre Dumas Pere, Objective Systems, 2006 ^[1]

[edit] Bibliography

• Friedrich Wilhelm Carové: Ueber die Ermordung Kotzebue’s. Eisenach 1819
• Authentischer Bericht über die Ermordung des Kaiserlich-Russischen Staatsraths Herrn August von Kotzebue; nebst vielen interessanten Notizen über ihn und über Carl Sand, den Meuchelmörder. Mannheim 1819 (Nachdruck Berlin 1999, hg. v. Antonia Meiners)
• Die wichtigsten Lebensmomente Karl Ludwig Sand’s aus Wunsiedel. Nürnberg 1819
• Nachtrag zu den wichtigsten Lebensmomenten Karl Ludwig Sand’s aus Wunsiedel mit der vollständigen Erzählung seiner Hinrichtung am 20. Mai 1820. Nürnberg 1820
• Ausführliche Darstellung von Karl Ludwig Sand’s letzten Tagen und Augenblicken. Stuttgart 1820
• Charles-Louis Sand. Mémoires avec le récit des circonstances qui ont accompagné l’assassinat d’Auguste de Kotzebue, et une justification des universités d’Allemagne. Trad. de l’anglais, Paris 1819
• [Karl Levin] von Hohnhorst (Hrsg.): Vollständige Uebersicht der gegen Carl Ludwig Sand wegen Meuchelmordes verübt an dem K[aiserlich]. Russischen Staatsrath v. Kotzebue geführten Untersuchung. Aus den Originalakten ausgezogen, geordnet und hrsg., 2 Abthn., Stuttgart, Tübingen 1820
• Carl Courtin: Carl Ludwig Sand’s letzte Lebenstage und Hinrichtung. Geschichtlich dargestellt. Franckenthal 1821
• [Robert Wesselhöft]: Carl Ludwig Sand. Dargestellt durch seine Tagebücher und Briefe von einigen seiner Freunde. Altenburg 1821
• Noch acht Beitraege zur Geschichte August von Kotzebues und C. L. Sands. Aus öffentlichen Nachrichten zusammengestellt. Mühlhausen 1821
• Friedrich Cramer (Hrsg.): Acten-Auszüge aus dem Untersuchungs-Process über Carl Ludwig Sand; nebst anderen Materialien zur Beurtheilung desselben und August von Kotzebue. Altenburg, Leipzig 1821
• Sand [Zu Kotzebues und Sands Tat], o. J., [um 1820], Sammelband (ohne Titelblatt, vielleicht „Actenmäßige Untersuchung ... des Falles Sand“ 1820/21, Flugschriften), darin: 1. Die Bildung des Zeitgeistes, 2. August von Kotzebue nach der Geschichte seiner Schrift „Bahrst mit der eisernen Stirne“, 3. August von Kotzebues Autorenverhältnisse, 4. Kotzebues politisch-literarische Bulletins 1818, 5. Sand’s That nach dem Acten-Inhalt, 6. Sand’s Zustand nach der That, 7. Actenmäßige Notizen über Sand’s Person und frühere Lebensgeschichte, 8. Sand’s Gesinnungen über und gegen August von Kotzebue, 9. Sandische Aufsätze: Todesstoß und das Todesurteil über Kotzebue, 10. Sands Verhältnisse zu Andern, zur Burschenschaft, zu einem lit. Verein, zum Turnwesen u. dgl., 11. Sand über sich selbst, seine Grundansichten, seine That, nebst Urtheilen Anderer über ihn, 12. Gerichtliche Vertheidigung für Sand. Urtheilsgründe als Bericht
• C. T. Riedel: Galerie der Verbrecher, Bd. 3: Sand, Louvel, Grandission, Ponterie, Damiens, Low, Angiolino, Sondershausen. Nordhausen 1822
• C[arl]. E[rnst]. Jarcke: Carl Ludwig Sand und sein an dem kaiserlich-russischen Staatsrath v. Kotzebue verübter Mord. Eine psychologisch-criminalistische Erörterung aus der Geschichte unserer Zeit. Neue, aus ungedruckten Quellen vermehrte Bearbeitung. Berlin 1831
• Friedrich Münch: Follen, Sand und Löning. Neues Licht in altes Dunkel. Aus den Erinnerungen von Friedrich Münch. In: Die Gartenlaube. 20/44/1872, S. 722–725
• Julius Busch: Karl Ludwig Sand. Nach einem am 7. April 1902 im Altertumsverein gehaltenen Vortrag. In: Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter. 20/1–3/1919, S. 3–11
• Karl Alexander von Müller: Karl Ludwig Sand. München 1923, 2. Aufl. 1925
• Max Doblinger: Tagebucheintragungen des Erzherzogs Johann, des späteren Reichsverwesers, über Karl Ludwig Sand und die Karlsbader Beschlüsse. In: Herman Haupt (Hrsg.): Quellen und Darstellungen zur Geschichte der Burschenschaft und der deutschen Einheitsbewegung. Bd. 8, Heidelberg 1925, 2. Aufl. 1966, S. 151–153
• Heinrich von Stein, Reinhard Buchwald: Karl Ludwig Sand Scherer 1947
• Ernst Cyriaci: Die Coburger Familie von Sand 1275–1940. Coburg 1941 [überarbeitet und verbessert 1970 ff., Manuskript im Stadtarchiv Coburg]
• Peter Brückner: „Bewahre uns Gott in Deutschland vor irgendeiner Revolution!“ Die Ermordung des Staatsrats von Kotzebue durch den Studenten Sand. Berlin 1975, 2. Aufl. 1978 (Wagenbachs Taschenbücherei, Bd. 6). ISBN 3803120063
• Ernst Wilhelm Wreden: Karl Ludwig Sand – „Mörder aus Vaterlandsliebe“. Eine biographische Skizze. In: Horst Bernhardi, Ernst Wilhelm Wreden (Hrsg.): Jahresgabe der Gesellschaft für burschenschaftliche Geschichtsforschung 1975. o. O. 1975, S. 5–7
• Ernst Abbühl: Karl Ludwig Sand. Sein Bild in der historischen Forschung und in der Literatur. Eine vergleichende Analyse. Diss. phil. masch., Bern 1978
• Günther Heydemann: Carl Ludwig Sand. Die Tat als Attentat. Hof 1985 (Oberfränkische Köpfe, [Bd. 3]). ISBN 3921615666
• Günther Heydemann: Der Attentäter Carl Ludwig Sand. 20 Briefe und Dokumente aus den Erlanger und Jenaer Studienjahren. In: Christian Hünemörder (Hrsg.): Darstellungen und Quellen zur Geschichte der deutschen Einheitsbewegung im neunzehnten und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Bd. 12, Heidelberg 1986, S. 7–77
• Renate Lotz: Bildnis und Erinnerung – Carl Sand. Ausstellung 3. April–31. Oktober 1985. Fichtelgebirgsmuseum Wunsiedel, Wunsiedel 1985 (Begleitheft zu Ausstellungen des Fichtelgebirgsmuseums, Heft 2)
• Hagen Schulze: Sand, Kotzebue und das Blut des Verräters. In: Alexander Demandt (Hrsg.): Das Attentat in der Geschichte. Köln 1996, S. 215–233
• Harald Neumann: Carl Ludwig Sand. Theologiestudent und Attentäter. Wissenschaft & Praxis, Berlin 1997. ISBN 3896730258
• Klaus Beyersdorf: Der Burschenschafter und Kotzebue-Attentäter Karl Ludwig Sand 1795–1820. Ein Mitglied der alten Coburger Familie von Sand. In: Coburger Geschichtsblätter. 6/3/1998, S. 87–90
• Antonia Meiners (Hrsg.): Authentischer Bericht über die Ermordung des Kaiserlich-Russischen Staatsraths Herrn August von Kotzebue. Berliner Handpresse, Berlin 1999. Nachdr. der Ausg. Mannheim 1819
• Sabine Bayerl (Hrsg.): Authentischer Bericht über die Ermordung des Kaiserlich-Russischen Staatsraths Herrn August von Kotzebue. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2005. Beigefügt: Acten-Auszüge aus dem Untersuchungs-Process über Carl Ludwig Sand. Nachdr. der 2. Aufl. Mannheim 1819 sowie Altenburg 1821. ISBN 3-8253-2005-7
• Karl Ludwig Sand, Alexandre Dumas Pere, Objective Systems, 2006

[edit] References

1. ^ Karl Ludwig Sand, Alexandre Dumas Pere, Objective Systems, 2006