Self-Sacrifice for Germany: Early Forms of German Martyrdom in the Context of the French Revolution

Normally we locate the first theories and public actions of modern terrorism and martyrdom in the social revolutionary and anarchistic milieu of Western and Eastern Europe in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848–49. According to this interpretation, the “secular modern,” which became a reality with the “demystification of the world” (Max Weber) brought about by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, was responsible for these debates and their practical social application.

This paper will modify the common scholarly consensus in two respects. First, it will show that there were discourses of martyrdom as early as the French Revolution of 1789 that already left practical results. Second, it should make clear that religion and the holy played an important role in this phenomenon and that the French Revolution inspired a regular renaissance in the thought and actions of martyrdom, especially in Germany. The assassination of the Jena theological student Carl Ludwig Sand on March 23, 1819, the result of religiously accentuated debates around the Giessen lecturer Karl Follen, was one of the most prominent examples of early martyrdom in the sense of a religiously motivated sacrifice for the German fatherland. Finally, this paper will also examine the public impact of Sand’s execution and ask whether and to what extent early forms of a modern response to martyrdom were discernible.The modernization of martyrdom can most clearly be described through the triangular relationship among discourse, event, and reception. The fact that religion held great significance in this relationship should also sharpen our understanding of modernization.