August Von Kotzebue - Assassination

Assassination

In a weekly journal (Literarisches Wochenblatt) which he published in Weimar, he scoffed at the pretensions of those Germans who demanded free institutions, and soon became detested by nationalist liberals. One of them, Karl Ludwig Sand, a theology student, plotted to kill him. On 18 March 1819, soon after Kotzebue had moved with his family to Mannheim, Sand attacked Kotzebue at his house. According to Alexandre Dumas, père, when one of Kotzebue's children appeared and started to cry, Sand became overwrought and stabbed himself.

Sand was arrested and carefully nursed back to health. At his trial, he protested that Kotzebue was an enemy of the German people, but he was convicted of the murder and executed later that year.

The assassination of Kotzebue provided Prince Metternich with arguments to convince the Confederation to enact the Carlsbad Decrees, imposing greater restrictions on universities and the press.

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