Wartburg Festival
The first Wartburg festival (German: Wartburgfest) on 18 October 1817 was an important event in German history that took place at the Wartburg Castle near 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 on the fields against Napoleon, e.g. in the Lützow Free Corps with its black-red-gold colour scheme that was adopted as the Flag of Germany. The German students demonstrated for a national state and a liberal Constitution and condemned reactionary forces in the newly recreated German states.
On the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing of his theses and the fourth anniversary of the bloody Battle of Nations at Leipzig, the student groups organized a festival at the Wartburg. This castle had been a refuge for Martin Luther. As he translated the bible there and thus set a standard for the German language, it became 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 used in 1933 as a justification for the Nazi book burnings.
The event itself was also used as a justification for further suppression of liberal forces, like the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819.
A second festival was held during the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
Some works burned during the book burning
- 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)