Friedrich Ludwig Weidig

Friedrich Ludwig Weidig (* February 15, 1791 in Oberkleen, † February 23, 1837 in Darmstadt ) was a German Protestant theologian, educator, journalist and pioneer turn. He worked primarily as a teacher in Butzbach, briefly as a parish priest in Upper Gleen. In the area of present-day Hesse and the adjacent Middle Rhine, he was one of the principal protagonists of the pre-March period and pioneer in the revolution of 1848.

Life

Friedrich Ludwig Weidig was born in the village Oberkleen in Hüttenberger country northwest of the Wetterau, son of a forester. His mother 's maiden name was Liebknecht. About Cleeberg he came in 1803 to the nearby landgräflich Hessian Butzbach, where he went to school. During his theological studies at the Ludoviciana in Giessen, he was a member of the Frankish country team. In 1812 he was vice-principal at the Butzbacher boys' school.

Following the example of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Weidig led his students through gymnastic and military exercises, and founded ( 1814 ) a gymnasium on the Schrenzer, a north-eastern foothills of the Taunus. By later historians and biographers, he was therefore dubbed as " Hessian father of gymnastics ".

Since 1818 Weidig was monitored by the authorities because of political activities in the classroom, in the sermons and private. Weidig belonged to the Liberal Democrats, who sought a united Germany as a democratic nation state. Therefore, he traveled to southwest Germany in 1832 and helped in the preparations of the Hambach Festival, where he but due to the official monitoring was unable to attend.

1833 Weidig was arrested for the first time; nevertheless, he published in 1834 illegally four issues of "Chandelier and lighting for Hessen ( Hesse, or self-defense ) ." In the same year he met for the first time together with Georg Büchner. Weidig worked one put forward by Buchner manuscript to the first print version of the " Hessian Courier " around. Also, the distribution of illegal pamphlet were organized largely by Weidig and his students. ( The original of Büchner is lost and he later distanced himself from Weidigs changes. )

Since April 5, 1834 Weidig was suspended from duty. He was a pastor, demoted in a small village called Upper Gleen, which now belongs to Kirtorf in the Vogelsberg. Was betrayed as the project of the " Hessian Courier " in the summer of 1834, Büchner fled to Strasbourg, during Weidig refused to emigrate with his family to Switzerland. Caused a sensation in his sermon in Upper Gleen on 7 September 1834 in which he proclaimed the Christ of the poor, " because of the injustice and hypocrisy of the powerful of his time fighting " - a theology of liberation avant la lettre.

Soon after, Frederick Weidig was arrested again, set in the Monastery Barracks Friedberg and laid in June 1835 to the gaol to Darmstadt, where he died on February 23, 1837 probably committed suicide after two years of investigating magistrates (especially to Konrad Georgi, the was known as an alcoholic ) tortured and had been physically abused. The letters had written from prison to his wife, the sick and desperate man, were held back for many years after his death " from the State Police reasons." The grave stone on which his friends had noted that he was a freedom fighter, was walled up by order of the government.

Friedrich Ludwig Weidig is the namesake of Weidigschule, a high school in Butzbach, and the Weidigsporthalle in Oberkleen. The Hessian Gymnastics Federation gives the Friedrich -Ludwig- Weidig tag on people who have rendered outstanding services through many years of service to gymnastics in Hesse.