Hecker uprising (1848)
헤커 봉기 (1848)
Part of Baden Revolution (1848–1849)
The armed rising launched in Baden in April 1848 by Friedrich Hecker and Gustav Struve to found a German republic. On 12 April they called on the people of the Lake Constance district and the Black Forest to assemble in arms, but where they had expected 70,000 men only a few thousand came, and on 20 April they were defeated by government troops at the Scheideck near Kandern. It was the first high point of the Baden revolution.
In depth
It was triggered by the defeat of the republican motion in the Pre-Parliament and the arrest of an editor friend of Hecker's on 8 April. German Wikipedia puts Hecker's column at about 1,200 men. The government commander, General Friedrich von Gagern, was killed in the fight. Georg Herwegh's "German Democratic Legion", coming from France, was defeated at Dossenbach a week later. Hecker went into exile via Switzerland to America, and the "Heckerlied" and his broad feathered hat became symbols of middle-class political activism.