German patriot, organized everywhere _Turnvereine_, or gymnastic
clubs, as a tangible form of expressing this demand. Among the
students of the universities liberal patriotic clubs called
_Burschenschaften_ were organized, idealistic in their aims and
impractical in their propaganda, where "every man with his bonnet on
his head, a pot of beer in his hand, a pipe or seegar in his mouth,
and a song upon his lips, never doubting but that he and his
companions are training themselves to be the regenerators of Europe,"
vowed "the liberation of Germany." Alas for the enthusiasms of youth!
In 1817 the _Burschenschaften_ held a mass reunion at the Wartburg.
Their boyish antics were greatly exaggerated in the conservative
papers and the governments increased their vigilance. In 1819
Kotzebue, a reactionary publicist, was assassinated by a member of the
Jena _Burschenschaft_, and the retaliation of the government was
prompt and thoroughly Prussian--gagging of the press and of speech,
dissolution of all liberal organizations, espionage, the hounding of
all suspects. There seemed to remain only flight to liberal democratic
America. But the suppression of the clubs did not entirely put out
the fires of constitutional desires. These smoldered until the storms
of '48 fanned them into a fitful blaze. For a brief hour the German
Democrat had the feudal lords cowed. Frederick William, the "romantic"
Hohenzollern, promised a constitution to the threatening mob in
Berlin; the King of Saxony and the Grand Duke of Bavaria fled their
capitals; revolts occurred in Silesia, Posen, Hesse-Cassel, and
Nassau. Then struck the first great hour of modern Prussia, as, with
her heartless and disciplined soldiery, she restored one by one the
frightened dukes and princes to their prerogatives and repressed
relentlessly and with Junker rigor every liberal concession that had
crept into laws and institutions. Strangled liberalism could no longer
breathe in Germany, and thousands of her revolutionists fled to