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The German Cartoon and the Revolution of 1848

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

W. A. Coupe
W. A. Coupe
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Extract

The year 1848 witnessed the first great outburst of German political caricature in modern times. In imitation of more illustrious French and English examples, a host of satirical journals sprang up, most of which sought to spice their collections of anecdotes, topical poems and witticisms with at least one full-page cartoon of political content. The treatment of political topics varied considerably from journal to journal, but generally speaking the tendency is to “play it for the laughs”, and it is not so much to the satirical journal as to the satirical print, which in its frequent anonymity and its lack of editorial restrictions enjoyed a freedom undreamed of by more sophisticated publications, that we must look for really uninhibited political comment. Numerically, these prints far exceeded anything the previous centuries had brought forth and in their numbers and in the opinions they express they provide the historian with valuable insights into the climate of public opinion in the “Year of Revolutions”. Individually, however, referring as they often do to otherwise forgotten events and personalities — who are mostly not named but simply represented — these prints can present the historian with almost insuperable problems of interpretation. Presumably for this reason, they have never, so far as I am aware, been subjected to detailed examination and evaluation. Veit Valentin, one of the few men who would have been fully equal to the task, did promise to give an account of them in the third volume of his Geschichte der deutschen Revolution von 1848/9, but so far as I have been able to ascertain, this promised third volume never appeared, and such information about the cartoons of 1848 as is available is largely restricted to the honourable mentions recorded in general histories of caricature and the two short studies produced by the prolific, but somewhat erratic, Eduard Fuchs, 1848 in der Karikatur (Berlin, n.d. [1898]), and Ein vormärzliches Tanzidyll, Lola Montez in der Karikatur (Munich, n.d. [1904]).

Type
Political Cartooning: Mexico and Germany
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , January 1967 , pp. 137 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1967

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References

1 For a detailed account of Luther's activity as a pictorial polemicist see Grisar, H. and Heege, F., Luthers Kampfbilder, 3 vols. (Freiburg, 1921–3)Google Scholar. For a general account of the sixteenth century in Germany see Schottenloher, K., Flugblatt und Zeitung (Berlin, 1922)Google Scholar.

2 I know of no satisfactory history of the political print in Europe: for nationally based accounts see Blum, A., L'estampe satirique en France pendant les guerres de religion (Paris, 1916)Google Scholar, and La caricature politique en France sous la deuxieme ripublique (Paris, 1918)Google Scholar; Veth, C. A., Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Caricatuur (Leyden,1921)Google Scholar and van Kuyk, J., Oude politieke Spotprenten (‘s-Gravenhage, 1940)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; George, D. M., English political caricature, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar.

3 For a brief account see my article ‘Political and Religious Cartoons of the Thirty Years’ War’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXV (1962), pp. 65–86Google Scholar. A fuller account will appear in my forthcoming book on The illustrated Broadsheet in Germany in the seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (Baden-Baden, 1966)Google Scholar.

4 A number of characteristic sheets are rep. by Wäscher, H., Das deutsche illustrierte Flugblatt, I (Dresden, 1955)Google Scholar.

5 Cf. remarks of the Russian and Austrian ambassadors quoted by Valentin, V., Geschichte der deutschen Revolution von 1848/9, I (Berlin, 1930), p. 136Google Scholar.

6 Ein vormärzliches Tanzidyll, pt. ii.

7 Ibid., p. 96.

8 Die Karikatur der europäischen Völker von 1848 bis zur Neuzeit (Berlin, 1903)Google Scholar, p. 20. Fuchs has some difficulty in making up his mind, however, and in the study of Lola Montez he regards them as ‘Massenartikel’ (p. 103).

9 SBM (Staatsbiliothek der Stiftung preussischer Kulturbesitz, Marburg/Lahn) Yb 15900. Copy rep. Fuchs, Tanzidyll, fig. 45.

10 SBM Yb 15893. Copy rep. Fuchs, Tanzidyll, fig. 38. The Lichtfreunde “friends of light” were a non-conformist, Protestant sect of the time.

11 Rep. Wäscher, op. cit., XL, 36.

12 SBB (Staatsbibliothek, Bamberg) C. 1. 31., published by J. Blau, Leipzig. Another version, published by B. J. Hirsch of Berlin, rep. Fuchs, Tanzidyll, fig. 41.

13 SBB C. 1.37.

14 The only two exceptions known to me are: Wie einer immer daneben tritt (SBM Yb 15524, rep. H. Blum, Die deutsche Revolution 1848/49, p. 59, “How someone always puts his feet wrong”) where Frederick William appears as a great bear-like creature armed with champagne bottle and glass who tries in vain to tread in the foot-steps of Frederick the Great, and another titleless cartoon (rep. Blum, op. cit., p. 198) where he runs after revolutionary marchers in order to put himself at their head.

15 SBM Yb 16867. Another version with the background of houses sketched in rep. Blum, op. cit., opp. p. 202. The incident with the shell in the pillar of the fountain is recorded by Stahr, A., Die preussische Revolution (Oldenburg, 1850), I, p. 100Google Scholar.

16 SBM Yb 17295. Copy rep. H. Wäscher, op. cit., II, 41. The speech is recorded in Wolff's Berliner Revolutionschronik and translated in Legge, J. G.'s anthology Rhyme and Revolution in Germany (London, 1918), p. 333Google Scholar.

17 SBBC. 1.406.

18 Hieher gehört Preussens schuftiger König (This is where Prussia's scoundrel king belongs), SBB C. 1. 409.

19 I take it that the note referred to is the one drafted by Camphausen towards the end of January 1849, expressing Prussian agreement with the ‘little German’ policy of von Gagern, a note described by Ward, A. W., Germany 1815–90, I (Cambridge, 1916), p. 486Google Scholar as the ‘logical antecedent of Prussia's headship’.

20 F. Schiller, Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, Werke, XII, i ( = Deut. Nat. Literatur, vol. 129) (Stuttgart and Berlin, n.d.), p. 370.

21 In the sense in which the Freudians use the word; see further Freud, S., Jokes and their relation to the unconscious, English translation (London, 1960), p. 200Google Scholar.

22 Auferstehung der Presse und Begräbniss der Censur published by B. J. Hirsch (SBM Yb 17072); Grosses Leichenbegdngniss der ermordeten Pressfreiheit (GNMN [Germanisches National-Museum, Nürnberg] 20713/1320). Cf. in this context the funeral of the German Federation rep. by Wäscher, op. cit., II, 59 and the funeral of the truce of Malmö quoted below.

23 Laube, H., Das erste deutsche Parlament (Leipzig, 1849), II, p. 95 ffGoogle Scholar.

24 Rep. Wäscher, op. cit., II, 49.

25 Wie der Fürst Schnatteratowski seine politische Toilette zwischen dem rechten und dem linken Spiegel macht (British Museum, Print Room, Foreign History 1848)Google Scholar. Lichnowsky is usually regarded as a member of the extreme right. I take it that this particular cartoon was inspired by some incident which I have been unable to trace.

28 Der Parlamentskutscher (The parliamentary coachman); GNMN 12541/1318. Oddly enough, both the Jordans spoke in the 78th session, both were interrupted and in both cases von Soiron had to call the house to order. Fortunately for our purposes, Wilhelm Jordan (Berlin) was bearded, Sylvester (Marburg) was not, and it is to him that the cartoon refers. See Wigard, , Stenographischer Bericht der deutschen constituierenden Nationalversammlung zu Frankfurt am Main, 9 vols. (Leipzig, 1848–50)Google Scholar, III, p. 2063 ff.

27 Wigard, op. cit., VI, p. 4758. Karl Heinrich Jürgens, the member for Braunschweig and editor of Flugblatter aus der deutschen Nationalversammlung, was a notorious parliamentary intriguer and backbiter. While the ‘no confidence pasties’ are generally understandable in the context, I am unable to explain the reference to Lahr. I have not succeeded in tracing a deputy of that name, nor does the town of Lahr seem to have been represented, although the fact that it lies in Baden, the most revolutionary minded of the German states, is suggestive.

28 GNMN 14079/80/1316; SBB C. 1. 353/9.

29 GNMN 14086/7/1316.

30 RMM (Reiss-Museum, Mannheim), F 38.

31 Rep. Klassiker der Kunst, XVTI, ed. Ponten, J. (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1911), pp. 124–131Google Scholar. Death wears the style of dress favoured by Hecker.

32 Op. cit., n, p. 18. Cf. the remarks of A. Stahr, op. cit., p. 212 on the growth of the ‘street literature’ industry in the Prussian capital. The most important publishers of cartoons were: R. Baist of Rodelheim, E. Baensch of Magdeburg, J. Blau of Leipzig, Druck und Verlag der Expedition der Carrikaturen in Mannheim, B. J. Hirsch of Berlin, C. Knatz of Frankfurt, J. E. Mittenzwey of Frankfurt, W. B. Naumberg of Leipzig, J. Rieck of Frankfurt, J. Rocca of Berlin, J. B. Simon of Frankfurt, S. Stern of Offenbach and Werner and Co. of Mainz.

33 Gombrich, E. H., Meditations on a Hobby Horse (London, 1963), p. 131Google Scholar.

34 The full German title is Die Thaten und Meinungen des Herrn Piepmeyer, Abgeordneten zur konstituierenden Nationalversammlung zu Frankfurt am Main.

35 GNMN 15639/1318. Rep. H. Blum, op. cit., p. 329. The identification of the professors is that of Fuchs, Karikatur der europäischen Völker, p. 74.

36 SBBC. 1.206.

37 SBB C. 1. 207. The incident which inspired the cartoon is recorded by Wigard, op. cit., VI, p. 4452.

38 Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Kunstbibliothek.

39 Parlament der Zukunft, published by E. G. May, RMM F 48 b; and Ministerium des souverainen Volks, published by B. J. Hirsch, SBM Yb 18139.

40 Feierliche Beerdigung eines Siebenmonat-Kindes, published by S. Stern of Offenbach, SBB C. 1. 336. Rep. Blum, op. cit., opp. p. 309.

41 GNMN 15782/1318.

42 Titleless, RMM F 33 b.

43 RMMF19a.

44 Titleless, GNMN-/1318.

45 Drawn by E. Sch(alck) and published by R. Baist in Rodelheim. RMM F 19.

46 Wie der deutsche Michel Alles wieder von sich gibt (How German Michael throws it all up again). Drawn by E. Sch(alck), no imprint. GNMN 15773/1318.

47 Kladderadatsch, No. 44 (28th October, 1849), p. 176.

48 Kladderadatsch in der Sylvesternacht, No. 52 (23rd December, 1849), p. 208.