Liberty pole
A tree of liberty was one of the characters that symbolized the freedom including in the French Revolution.
The name goes back to an elm tree in Boston. On this tree two straw dolls were suspended in August 1765 in protest against the Stamp Act. Under this tree the tax collector had to swear later never to sell stamps. The elm was then christened "Tree of Liberty " (Eng. " Tree of Liberty " ) and was recognition symbol of the " Sons of Liberty ". 1775 was made by order of the authorities.
In the following years, and in some European countries in Fashion, trees - mostly pines and firs - to plant as a symbol of freedom or to build and decorate with ribbons and flags. Supposedly, the Marquis de La Fayette have brought this custom to France. So erected about the Jacobins in 1790 in Paris the first " l' arbre de la liberté " crowned him with the liberty cap and danced around him, where they sang revolutionary songs. Rasch was this dance around the tree of liberty to the festivals of the Revolution. In most cases, a tree was to set up, much like a maypole, decorated with blue, white and red ribbons and dancing around. Happy you took it also poplars, because in those French words meaning " peuplier " the word " peuple " (People ) resonates. In 1792, as will be confessed in 60,000 places in the Republic of trees of liberty as a sign of victory.
In Germany, trees of liberty were spontaneously placed about by the Jacobin clubs in the Rhine-Hessian cities and towns that belonged to the short-lived Republic of Mainz, and allegedly also by students from Tübingen. As a commitment to the ideals of the revolution putting up freedom trees in the German principalities, however, was severely punished. Conversely, the establishment of liberty trees in the new department of the conquered by the French left bank of the Rhine was partially officially arranged, as in Napoleonic vassal states such as the Kingdom of Westphalia. Those were solemn acts of state, in which the new rulers at least outwardly demanded a commitment to the new state.
After the custom had come again out of fashion already during the French domination in the Palatinate, 1832 trees of liberty were re- erected as a sign of protest against social and economic injustices around the Hambach Festival in many places. Soon was the prohibition by the Bavarian government and the call for elimination of the symbols of protest. Also during the February Revolution of 1848 in France Freedom trees were replanted, but eliminated by a government decree in 1850.
The Protection of German Forests had the tradition of the trees of liberty revived when she planted a " liberty Linde" on 30 April 1990 in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin. Linde is symbolically point to the peaceful and democratic reunification of Germany runny.