Title

Arrest of Clemens August von Droste-Vishering, Archbishop of Cologne, 1837

Description

Interfaith marriage of Protestants and Catholics was an ongoing issue for the Protestant Prussian administration and the largely Catholic Rhinelanders. The Catholic Church demanded children of these marriage be educated according to Catholic tradition, while the Protestant Prussian government demanded that the children adopt the religion of their fathers. Erzbischof Clemens August Droste zu Vischering openly opposed the Prussian demand in 1837 and was made to renounce his office. Huge uproar ensued, with tumults in Cologne and plenty of letters written throughout the region, especially from Koblenz which increasingly turned into a hotbed for Political Catholicism. Its locals disliked both the rising families of traders and civil servants and the 'Alt-Preußische', the Protestant soldiers and superiors. This was the case not only because of their religion, but also because of their behaviour and demeanour, which was, supposedly, cold, calculating, and imperious while the lively Rhinelanders were the direct opposite. Most considered that their political leaning coincided more with Habsburg Austria than Protestant Prussia. The Catholic writer and scholar Joseph Görres, for example, fled Koblenz and took up a professorship in Munich shortly afterwards which he held until his death in 1848.

The first anonymous note was pinned to the Koblenzer Gymnasium as a protest against the Archbishop's imprisonment. It closed with the signature ‘Der nachdenkende Rheinländer’ (the thinking Rhinelander). The second note was pinned to the gate of the Catholic St. Kastor church claiming 'unsere heilige Kirche ist in Gefahr' ('our holy church is in danger') and rallying for its defence. These may allude to the fact that the Catholic Rhinelanders saw themselves - at times without foundation - as second-class citizens in comparison to the Protestant Prussian officials, an idea that fueled, among other things, oppositional thinking that fed into the growing democratic and revolutionary ferment of the region.

Contributor

Isabelle Riepe

Date

1837

Subject

people

popular protest

practices

religion

Spatial Coverage

Koblenz, Germany

Temporal Coverage

Vormärz

Bibliographic Citation

LHK 403, 10503 p.303, 307

Jürgen Herres, ‚Das preußische Koblenz’, in Geschichte der Stadt Koblenz Bd. 2 Von der Französischen Stadt bis zur Gegenwart, Ingrid Bátori, Dieter Kerber und Hans Josef Schmitt (eds.), (Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss Verlag, 1993), pp. 49-118

Jürgen Herres, 'Politscher Katholizismus im Rheinland 1848/9' Politische Strömungen und Gruppierungen am Rhein 1848/49
Vorträge, gehalten auf dem Symposium anläßlich des 150. Jahrestages der Revolution von 1848/49 im Rheinland am 9. November 1998 im Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1999) pp.39-70

Heinz-Günther Borck, Andrea Grosche, Dieter Kerber und Michael Koelges (Begleitpublikation zur Ausstellung des Bundesarchivs in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Landeshauptarchiv und dem Stadtarchiv in Koblenz), „... ein freies Volk zu sein!“ - Die Revolution von 1848/49, (Koblenz: Verlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, 1998)