1849: Georg Böhning
Add comment August 17th, 2020 Headsman
On this date in 1849, Georg Böhning was shot at Rastatt for his involvement in the failed 1848 revolutions.
This lesser hero of those dramatic times was 61 at his death, years that carried him across the entire age of revolution dating back to the senescence of Europe’s ancien regimes.
By trade a watchmaker (and later in life, a printer of radical tracts) he got his first taste of soldiering volunteering for an international division fighting in the Greek War of Independence.
When revolutions broke out in 1848, Böhning took the lead of a Wiesbaden citizens’ militia and for his trouble had to flee to Switzerland when the insurrection was defeated. He ventured one more bite at the apple, however, by gathering a legion of German exiles in support of the May 1849 Dresden rising — unfortunately arriving right in time to endure the victorious Prussian counterattack and surrender the Rastatt fortress. A court martial declared his death thereafter, a fate shared by 18 other revolutionists.
On this day..
- 1785: Elizabeth Taylor, hanged for burglary - 2019
- 1950: The Hill 303 massacre - 2018
- 1471: Giovanna Monduro, Piedmont witch - 2017
- 1827: Three Spanish pirates in Richmond, states' rights cause - 2016
- 1915: Leo Frank lynched - 2015
- 1877: Leon Vitalis, inamorato - 2014
- 1929: James Horace Alderman, Prohibition rum-runner - 2013
- 1942: Irene Nemirovsky, Catholic Jewish writer - 2012
- 1510: Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, tax collectors - 2011
- 1951: Antonio Riva and Ruichi Yamaguchi - 2010
- 1909: Madanlal Dhingra, Indian revolutionary - 2009
- 1571: Marco Antonio Bragadin, flayed Venetian - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Germany,History,Power,Prussia,Revolutionaries,Shot,Treason
Tags: 1840s, 1849, august 17, georg boehning, rastatt fortress, revolutions of 1848
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