Lorenz Brentano

Baden and Palatinate revolutionaries (1848–1849) Liberalism and republicanism Germany Germany 1813–1891 ○ Natural causes

Lawyer who headed the Baden revolutionary government of 1849 and became a US congressman in exile

Born in Mannheim in 1813, he studied law at Heidelberg and Freiburg. He entered the Baden lower chamber in 1845 and in 1848 sat in the Pre-Parliament and the Frankfurt Parliament. Elected mayor of Mannheim early in 1849, he was not recognised by the government. On 13 May 1849 the Offenburg assembly elected him president of a new governing body, and after the grand duke fled he led the provisional government. Wanting a constitutional monarchy under the Frankfurt Constitution rather than a republic, he clashed with the radicals, and on 28 June, with the Prussians advancing, he resigned and fled to Switzerland. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia. In the United States he became editor of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung in Chicago and served as a Republican congressman from 1877 to 1879. He died in Chicago in 1891.

Also known as: Lorenzo Brentano

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