Karl Ludwig Sand and The Murder of August von Kotzebue: Radical Redemption in an Early Nineteenth Century Assassination Lennard Pater 4160959 ...
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Karl Ludwig Sand and The Murder
of August von Kotzebue:
Radical Redemption in an Early
Nineteenth Century Assassination
Lennard Pater
4160959
Course Terrorism as Radical
Redemption (GKMV18004)
Prof. dr. B. de Graaf
20 – 1 – 2019
2298 Words
11.1: Introduction
On the 22th of March 1819 the German theology student Karl Ludwig Sand
travelled to Mannheim in order to assassinate the conservative writer August
von Kotzebue, who was staying in that city at the time.1 This assassination,
described by the historian Golo Mann as ‘einen politischen Mord’2, is most
commonly known for its far-reaching political consequences, i.e. because it
gave rise to Metternich’s decision of implementing the Carlsbad Decrees,
which severely limited the freedom of speech and academic liberty in
Germany.3 The murder was for Metternich a pretext, according to Rüdiger
Safranski, ‘um mit den Karlsbader Beschlüssen gegen die sogenannten
demagogischen Umtriebe einzuschreiten’4, which implied considerably
curtailing the freedom of the press and academic freedom.
However, Karl Ludwig Sand’s deed has, as we shall see, many features of a
terrorist attack and is therefore not only interesting for its political
ramifications. Especially because Sand has left us diaries and letters which
shed light on the motives behind the assassination and these documents –
already used in abundance by the French writer Alexandre Dumas père in
his description of Sand’s life and Kotzebue’s murder5 – provide an interesting
insight into the mind of someone who committed a terrorist act. That insight
has its bearing upon the radical redemption approach to terrorist actions.
This essay consequently aims at understanding whether Sand’s action can
be explained by means of a radical redemption narrative.
The research question it tries to answer is accordingly: to what extent can
the notion of redemption shed light on Karl Ludwig Sand’s murdering August
von Kotzebue in 1819? In order to answer this question, we will look into the
available documents on Karl Ludwig Sand and into secondary literature with
regard to his deed. Moreover, we will use Dan McAdams’ book The
Redemptive Self6 so as to grasp the notion of redemption. Of particular
importance here is McAdams’ distinction between six languages of
redemption.7 The essay applies the distinction between these six languages
to the story of Karl Ludwig Sand, as we can reconstruct it from the sources,
and tries to demonstrate that the violent act committed by Sand was indeed
an act of redemption, showing the explanatory power of a radical redemption
narrative in trying to understand acts of terrorism.
1 Adam Zamoyski, Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty
1789 – 1848 (London: William Collins, 2015), 208 – 209.
2 Golo Mann, Deutsche Geschichte des 19. Und 20. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main: S.
Fischer Verlag, 1958), 126.
3 Zamoyski, Phantom Terror, 223.
4 Rüdiger Safranski, Goethe: Kunstwerk des Lebens (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer
Taschenbuch, 2015), 590.
5 Alexandre Dumas, “Karl-Ludwig Sand,” in Celebrated Crimes,
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2745, 19 – 1 – 2019.
6 Dan McAdams, The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006).
7 Ibidem, 42.
2Before we are able to do so, we have to take into consideration that this act
was committed before the 1880s, which is considered by David C. Rapoport
the beginning of modern terrorism.8 However, Sand’s deed has an important
similarity with first wave terrorism in that it is an assassination of someone
in order to achieve a political target.9 Sand’s act is a form of ‘Propaganda by
the Deed’10 before that term was coined. The first wave was about
‘assassinating prominent political figures’11, which is what Sand did: he
assassinated a prominent public figure, whom he saw as a political danger.
Moreover, we will in his case perceive martyrdom, which Rapoport sees as
characteristic of the assassinations of the first wave.12 Finally, Sand’s deed
includes important elements from the other waves on the basis of which one
can be justified in calling the act terrorism: the element of political violence
for national self-determination (second wave) and for religion (fourth wave).13
1.2: Karl Ludwig Sand: Background and Early Life
But let us now first move to Karl Ludwig Sand himself. Sand was born in
1795 in the city of Wonsiedel as ‘the youngest son of Godfrey Christopher
Sand, first president and councillor of justice to the King of Prussia’14. The
first years of his life were troubled by disease, mainly as a result of the
smallpox he contracted whilst still being a baby.15 However, he conquered
disease and, despite the intellectual setbacks he encountered as a result of
several of his illnesses16, succeeded in becoming a bright individual, who left
the gymnasium of Regensburg in 1814 with praise: “Karl Ludwig Sand
gehört unter die an Gaben des Geistes und Vorzügen des Gemühtes vor
vielen ausgezeichneten Jünglinge.”17 Apart from the formidable qualities
discerned by the gymnasium’s rector, Sand possessed a religious nature.
Alexandre Dumas describes him as ‘always religious, even in his childish
pleasures’18 and this finds expression in his decision to study theology in
Tubingen and later in his life in Erlangen and in Jena.19
8 David C. Rapoport, “The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism,” in Attacking terrorism.
Elements of a Grand Strategy, edited by A.K. Cronin and J.M. Ludes (Washington D.C.:
Georgetown University Press, 2004), 47.
9 Ibidem, 50.
10 Ibidem.
11 Ibidem, 54.
12 Ibidem.
13 Ibidem, 53 and 61.
14 Dumas, “Karl-Ludwig Sand”, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2745/2745-
pdf.pdf?session_id=854e1c7420bf63bfbfa0bd24d730a33656213418, Page v.
15 Ibidem, Page v and vi.
16 Ibidem, Page ii.
17 Robert Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, dargestellt durch seine Tagebücher und Briefe von
einigen seiner Freunde (Altenburg: Hahn, 1821), https://reader.digitale-
sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb10066471.html?pageNo=43, 25.
18 Dumas, “Karl-Ludwig Sand”, Page viii.
19 Ibidem, Page xxii
3Odd as it may seem, his religious nature is also revealed in Sand’s decision
in 1815 to abandon the study of theology for the time being in order to fight
Napoleon, who had just returned from Elba.20 Sand thought it his religious
duty to resist Napoleon, which for him meant serving the cause of Germany
and the cause of God. He wrote his parents: “Immer will ich Gott vor Augen
und im Herzen haben, um mit Heiterkeit alle Mühen und Gefahren des
Heiligen Krieges bestehen zu können.”21 The war was for him sacred, namely
the fulfilling of the divine will. It is clear that for Sand, as his diaries reveal
and as Dumas highlights, life needed a divine purpose, i.e. a higher goal for
which to strive: “Das Leben ohne einen höhern Zweck ist öde und leer.”22 He
found this in theology, but equally in fulfilling political goals he thought of as
sacred, including resisting Napoleon.
Such a higher purpose, however, is as well present in Sand’s continuous
attempt to purify himself. His diaries served the purpose of contributing to
this process of self-purification. George S. Williamson notes that ‘Sand used
his diary as a means of self-examination and self-recrimination’23. This self-
examination was necessary in order to achieve the purification he desired.
He writes in his diary when the end of 1816 is nigh: “Wenn es mir im Taumel
des Lebens einmal gelingt, auf mich zu schauen und in mein Innres zu
dringen, so muß ich fühlen, wie schlecht ich bin und wie schwach; aber ich
bin selbst dazu zu unaufmerksam.”24 But his repeated insistence on his
sinful nature and the need for improvement show that he did see the evil
within himself and was motivated by the ‘great longing in the human heart
for righteousness, for the blameless life, the life that is properly guided’25.
This desire for purity was a feature of the so-called ‘Burschenschaften’ in
Germany at the time. These Burschenschaften were ‘fraternities dedicated to
the moral and spiritual reform of the German university and, ultimately, the
German nation’26. Sand had joined such a community when he went to
university. Golo Mann claims that these communities and their members,
although devoid of proper taste, were not necessarily dangerous: “Harmlos
waren doch im Grunde diese Knaben, harmlos, gut und allenfalls
geschmackslos; man hätte sie unbehelligt lassen können.”27 The individual
Karl Ludwig Sand was, according to Mann, an exception: he was,
unfortunately, ‘eine Bursche von krankhafter Natur’28.
20 Dumas, Karl-Ludwig Sand, xiii.
21 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 30.
22 Ibidem, 46.
23 George S. Williamson, “What Killed August von Kotzebue? The Temptations of Virtue and
the Political Theology of German Nationalism, 1789–1819,” in The Journal of Modern History,
Vol. 72, No.4 (2000), 922.
24 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 71.
25 Roger Scruton, The Face of God: Gifford Lectures 2010 (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 38.
26 Williamson, “What Killed August von Kotzebue?”, 915.
27 Mann, Deutsche Geschichte, 126.
28 Ibidem.
4That is Golo Mann’s diagnosis of Sand, but the sources indicate that Sand
was more a profoundly religious person, who, after surviving Waterloo in
181529, struggled with existence and longed for a better life or a higher
purpose. One of his diaries from 1816 contains for instance this passage:
“Ich hatte heute inniges Sehnen wieder nach dem Scheiden aus dieser Welt,
und dem Eintritt in eine höhere.”30 He longed for something higher than
earthly existence, especially since this would give him the desired purity of
soul. A purity he hoped to achieve through Christ. He prayed to God that
Christ would take possession of his soul and give him the clarity he desired
for self-examination and improvement: “O gieb, O Vater! Daß dein Sohn,
Jesus Christus, in mir seine Wohnung nehme; gieb, daß ich oft das
Geräusche der Welt verlasse, und in die Stille zu mir und zur recht
begeisterten und scharfen Betrachtung meines Innern gelangen könne.”31
This desire for Christ’s presence and his longing for purity were combined
with a quest for significance32. Williamson concludes that ‘Sand was engaged
in an intense personal struggle to recognize what can be described as his
vocation’33. This struggle intensified after one tragic incident in Sand’s life.
His closest friend Dittmar drowned in 1817, in the presence of Sand.
Apparently Sand could not prevent this from happening: he was unable to
swim.34 Sand considered this to be a trial he received from God to test and
ultimately strengthen his faith: “Kurz nachdem […] einige Festigkeit in meine
christliche Gesinnung gekommen war, schickte mir Gott diese merkwürdige
Prüfung, um mich erst recht zu starken und führe so erst ein rechtes Licht
in mich hinein.”35
And the tragic drowning of Dittmar did indeed intensify Sand’s religious
commitments. He writes in December 1818: “Gott, wie ich mich sehne nach
dir, nach nichts, als vor dir geistig zu erscheinen.”36 These religious desires,
however, are in Sand’s diaries and letters often intertwined with political
desires. He writes e.g. in a letter: “Nur zwei Gedanken stehen fest als Pfeiler
in mir da […] – der Gedanke an Gott und der an’s Deutsche Vaterland.”37 His
diaries show that the love for Christ and the love for one’s fatherland are for
Sand inseparable.38 We here see the desire for German self-determination
(second wave) and for achieving religious goals (fourth wave) united.
29 Dumas, Karl-Ludwig Sand, xiii.
30 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 78.
31 Ibidem, 90.
32 Arie W. Kruglanski et al., “Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers’ motivations and the quest
for personal significance,” in Political Psychology, Vol.30, No.3 (June 2009), 332 – 357.
33 Williamson, “What Killed August von Kotzebue?”, 934.
34 Dumas, “Karl-Ludwig Sand”, Page xix – xxi.
35 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 110.
36 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 174.
37 Ibidem, 160.
38 Ibidem, 159.
5Most poignantly expressed, however, is this equation between serving Christ
and serving Germany in one of his prayers to God, where he asks God
whether he might be a German Christ: “Gott, lasse mich an deiner Erlösung
des Menschengeschlechtes durch Jesum Christum festhalten, lasse mich
sein ein Deutscher Christ.”39 We find remarks of a similar nature in a diary
from 1817: “Durch ihn [das heißt Jesus Christus] fühle ich mich besonders
recht frei gemacht, und die Freiheit habe ich als das höchste Gut der
Menschheit, der Völker und meines Vaterlandes kennen gelernt, und will
daran recht festhalten.”40 Karl Ludwig Sand’s serving the cause of Christ
entailed serving the cause of the freedom of Germany.
1.3: Sand, Redemption, and the Murder of Kotzebue
However, and this brings us to Sand’s desire for redemption, the violent deed
he committed in 1819, viz. the murder of Kotzebue, reveals his longing not
merely to be a German Christ in the sense of being a German who believes in
Christ’s redemption, but also his longing to be someone who redeems the
German people and redeems himself by means of a violent act. Sand, in his
own view, sacrificed himself for Germany by murdering Kotzebue, as Christ
sacrificed himself for humanity by dying on the cross. Williamson writes:
“Only Kotzebue stood between Sand the student and Sand the messiah.”41
Sand was also, similar to Christ, acting on behalf of humanity, as is revealed
when he expresses his wish to kill Kotzebue: “Soll es etwas werden mit
unserm Streben, soll die Sache der Menschheit aufkommen, in unserm
Vaterlande […], so muß der Schlechte, der Verräther und Verführer der
Jugend A.v.K., nieder.”42
Sand had come to the conviction that the higher purpose he had sought for
consisted in murdering Kotzebue. That deed would bring him perfection:
“Wenn ich das Gute, was ich in meinem Gemüthe, mit meiner Überzeugung
erfaßt habe, mit freier Entscheidung meines schaffenden Willens erstrebe,
bin ich vollendet.”43 And such a deed, expressing the power of his will, for
him entails redemption: “Nie werden wir Gott schauen, bis wir durch eigne
Kraft unser Seele läutern.”44 These are almost the last words to be found in
his diaries and they refer to the act he was going to commit.
We find in this story of Sand several elements of a redemptive narrative:
there is ‘a sense of personal destiny’45 and Sand had incorporated a belief
system ‘rooted in a religious tradition, which serves to guide him […] for the
rest of the story’46. More importantly, Sand’s life story is about overcoming
39 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 147.
40 Ibidem, 144.
41 Williamson, “What Killed August von Kotzebue?”, 938.
42 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 174.
43 Ibidem, 175.
44 Ibidem,
45 McAdams, The Redemptive Self, 8.
46 Ibidem.
6suffering: his sickness in early life and the tragic death of Dittmar. McAdams
asserts that ‘redemptive narratives are not simply happy stories. Rather,
they are stories of suffering and negativity that turn positive in the end.
Without the negative emotions, there can be no redemption in the story’47.
These negative emotions in Sand’s case are those of the suffering of the
German people and of himself. They are transformed in the act of terrorism,
albeit not in McAdams’ positive way: the redemption consists here in an act
of violence.
That redemption takes in Sand’s case the form of two languages of
redemption. There is atonement48: Sand expresses the desire to purify
himself. And there is the desire to emancipate49 the fatherland by removing a
traitor from its midst.50 In a letter from 1819 Sand writes of the ‘Erneuerung
des Deutschen Vaterlandes’51. There is hence both atonement and
emancipation to be found in Sand’s story of redemption, culminating in the
murder of Kotzebue. He wanted to become a German messiah and to redeem
himself: to redeem his own soul through killing Kotzebue and then, by
means of his suicide attempt, which failed52, to become the one who had
sacrificed himself for Germany’s redemption.
1.4: Conclusion
This leads to our conclusion, which answers the research question: to what
extent can the notion of redemption shed light on Karl Ludwig Sand’s
murdering August von Kotzebue in 1819? We have seen that Sand’s deed
was an example of a terrorist act aimed at redemption: the redemption of the
German people and the redemption of Sand, especially his delivery from sin,
i.e. his achievement of the purity and perfection for which he longed. In his
life story many of the elements of a redemptive narrative are seen: how the
negative became, at least in his own perception, ‘positive’; the sense of a
personal destiny; the presence of atonement and emancipation; and the
desire to sacrifice oneself for Germany as Christ had sacrificed himself for
the human species. August von Kotzebue had to die so as to ensure that
Sand would achieve the redemption he wanted: for Germany and himself.
47 McAdams, The Redemptive Self, 44.
48 Ibidem, 42.
49 Ibidem.
50 Wesselhoeft, Carl Ludwig Sand, 174.
51 Ibidem, 181.
52 Dumas, Karl-Ludwig Sand,
7Bibliography
Dumas, Alexandre. “Karl-Ludwig Sand,” in Celebrated Crimes, edition from
1910, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2745, 19 – 1 – 2019.
Kruglanski Arie W., Chen, Xiaoyan, Dechesne, Mark, Fishman, Shira, and
Orchek, Edward. “Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers’ Motivations and the
Quest for Personal Significance,” in Political Psychology, Vol.30, No.3 (June
2009), 332 – 357.
Mann, Golo. Deutsche Geschichte des 19. Und 20. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt
am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1958.
McAdams, Dan. The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
Nicolai, Carl. Authentischer Bericht über die Ermordung des Kaiserlich-
Russischen Staatsraths Herrn August von Kotzebue : nebst vielen
interessanten Notizen über ihn und über Carl Sand, den Meuchelmörder.
Mannheim: Nicolai, 1819.
Rapoport, David C. “The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism,” in Attacking
terrorism. Elements of a Grand Strategy, edited by A.K. Cronin and J.M.
Ludes (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004), 47.
Safranski, Rüdiger. Goethe: Kunstwerk des Lebens. Frankfurt am Main:
Fischer Taschenbuch, 2015.
Scruton, Roger. The Face of God: The Gifford Lectures 2010. London:
Bloomsbury, 2012.
Wesselhoeft, Robert. Carl Ludwig Sand, dargestellt durch seine Tagebücher
und Briefe von einigen seiner Freunde (Altenburg: Hahn, 1821),
https://reader.digitale-
sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb10066471.html?pageNo=43.
Williamson, George S. “What Killed August von Kotzebue? The Temptations
of Virtue and the Political Theology of German Nationalism, 1789–1819,” in
The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 72, No.4 (2000), 922.
Zamoyski, Adam. Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the
Repression of Liberty 1789 – 1848. London: William Collins, 2015. Pages 208
– 209.
8You can also read
