From Revolutionary to Mayor. The Eventful Life of Georg Friedrich Abel 1828-1902
Deutsches Auswandererhaus Bremerhaven, edition DAH, 2018.
Prize: 6,50 €
The “Cabinet brochure 02” refers to a special exhibition presented by the German Emigration Center from March 20, 2017, to January 2020: “From Revolutionary to Mayor. The Eventful Life of Georg Friedrich Abel 1828 – 1902.”
Crop failures and mass poverty, feudalism and the fragmentation of states, oppression and injustice: unrest begins to brew in Germany during the 1840s. The protest against the existing system and the liberal demands for “Unity and Justice and Freedom” culminate in the German Revolution of 1848. After its military suppression in 1849, hundreds of activists are arrested, and their leaders are executed by firing squad. However, Georg Friedrich Abel, born in 1828 in Gernsbach in the Grand Duchy of Baden, manages to escape. Through various routes, the former architecture student and supporter of the radical democrat Carl Schurz reaches the USA. The cabinet exhibition tells the story of the exciting life of an insurgent, marked by highs and lows, during and after the German Revolution of 1848/49 through photographs, documents, and personal memorabilia.