Revolutions of 1848 in The German States - Prussia

Prussia

In March 1848, crowds of people gathered in Berlin to present their demands in an "address to the king". King Frederick William IV, taken by surprise, yielded verbally to all the demonstrators' demands, including parliamentary elections, a constitution, and freedom of the press. He promised that "Prussia was to be merged forthwith into Germany."

On March 13, after warning against manifestations by the prefect of the police, a charge by the army on people returning from a meeting in the Tiergarten left one person dead and made many injured. On March 18, a large demonstration occurred and two shots fired led a quickly spreading fear that force was to be used by the 20,000 soldiers to end the demonstrations. Barricades were erected, fighting started, and blood flowed until troops were ordered 13 hours later to retreat, leaving hundreds dead. Afterwards, Frederick William attempted to reassure the public that the reorganization of his government would proceed. The king also approved arming the citizens. On March 21, he paraded through the streets of Berlin to the Friedrichshain cemetery where the civil victims were buried, accompanied by some ministers and generals, all wearing the revolutionary tricolor of black, red, and gold. The Polish prisoners were liberated and paraded through the city under acclaim of the people. The Polish people had been incarcerated for planning a rebellion in their part of the country under occupation of the Prussians. The 254 combatants, killed in action during the riots, were laid out on catafalques on the Gendarmenmarkt and were brought, accompanied by 40,000 people, to their burial place at Friedrichshain.

A Constituent National Assembly was elected and gathered in the St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt am Main on May 18, 1848. Officially called the all-German National Assembly the assembly was composed of deputies democratically elected from various German states in late April and early May 1848. The assembly was composed of 122 deputies who were government officials, 95 were judges, 81 were lawyers, 103 were teachers, 17 were manufacturers and wholesale dealers, 15 were physicians and 40 were landowners. A majority of the Assembly were liberals It became known as the 'professors' parliament' and indeed most of its members were academics. There was one working class member who had the added disadvantage of being Polish and like his colleagues from the Tyrol was never taken seriously by the other members. "Learn to speak German!" was the call of Turnvater Jahn.

Starting on May 18, 1848, the Frankfurt Assembly set about trying to find ways to unite the various German states into a single nation and to write a constitution. However, the Assembly proved to be unable to make any resolute decisions and degenerated into a mere debating club.

On May 22, 1848, another elected assembly sat for the first time in Berlin. Elected under the law of electoral law of April 8, 1848, which allowed for universal suffrage and a two-stage voting system. Most of the deputies elected to the Berlin Assembly, called the Prussian National Assembly, were members of the bourgeoisie or liberal bureaucracy. They set about the task of writing a constitution "by agreement with the Crown." King Frederick William IV of Prussia unilaterally imposed a monarchist Constitution on Prussia as a way to undercut the democratic forces. This Constitution took effect on December 5, 1848. Also on December 5, 1848, the Berlin Assembly was dissolved and replaced with the bicameral legislature allowed under the monarchist Constitution. This legislature was composed of a Herrenhaus and a Landtag which are described above. Otto von Bismarck was elected to the very first Landtag elected under the new monarchical constitution.