Karl Schapper

Karl Christian Friedrich Hermann Schapper ( born December 30, 1812 in Weinbach, † April 28, 1870 in London) was one of the most important German labor leaders of the pre-March period.

Life

Schapper was born on December 30, 1812, the son of the pastor Carl Conrad Christian Schapper and Charlotte housewife (born Cesar ) in Weinbach. After the completion of elementary school, he attended 1828-1831, the " Duke of Nassau, the grammar school " in Weilburg, to begin following a forestry studies in Giessen, he because of his membership in the Giessen fraternity, he was in 1831 a member of the old fraternity Germania casting become, as well as participation in the Frankfurt guard storm and the subsequent, only briefly interrupted flight did not end into exile. Schapper died on April 28, 1870 of a lung tuberculosis.

Political activity

Karl Schapper operated early political and immediately joined after beginning his studies in Giessen fraternity. This distinguished himself by demands for national unity and a comprehensive democratization of Germany and was involved with the participation in the Frankfurt Schapper guard tower. Like many of his colleagues, Schapper was arrested after the attack on the Frankfurt Parliament. With the help of individual prison guards his first escape from the detention center and in January 1834 succeeded after three months in prison, the journey into exile in Switzerland, where he was imprisoned for his part in Giuseppe Mazzini's armed attack on Savoy again for six months. After his release Schapper worked as a forester in the Berne and was involved in the Young Germany, a German Workers' Association. Because of this political influence Schapper was initially finally expelled from the canton of Bern and in 1836 from the whole of Switzerland. To Schapper Friends in exile was the Vormärzpolitiker Georg fine.

Came in the same year his expulsion from Switzerland Schapper the French boys Germany and the League of the Righteous in Paris and quickly advanced as an intellectual thinker. His increasingly radical demands meant that he was expelled after a brief imprisonment in 1840 from France and moved to London. Here he founded in the same year, among other clubs, the English section of the League of the Just, which quickly took over the leadership of the entire Federal with members as Wilhelm Weitling, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In addition, Schapper Chairman of the Communist Correspondence Committee and organized the 1848 correction and the pressure of the Communist Manifesto.

Like most of his colleagues returned Karl Schapper with the beginning of the revolutionary unrest in 1848 to Germany. Here he took over (alternate) along with Joseph Maximilian Moll ( Chairman), first head of the Cologne Workers' Association and was a member of the Cologne vigilantes. In the wake of the September riots, he was briefly detained in 1848, but then set free again. In response, left Schapper Cologne and engaged before he just months later first imprisoned for his massive criticism of the report drawn up by the Frankfurt National Assembly Constitution in Wiesbaden for eight months, acquitted in a trial for treason and later still expelled from Germany in the Nassau Democratic movement was (see Idsteiner Democratic Congress ).

Schapper showed massively disappointed by the failure of the revolution and withdrew again to London. Here he hired himself almost penniless as a language teacher and fell out due to differing views with Karl Marx. At his own request he was in July 1862 a British citizen. After a reconciliation in 1856 Schapper worked at the London Workers' Educational Association and was elected on the proposal of Karl Marx on 25 April 1865 in the General Council of the International Working Men's Association.