Hecker, Friedrich b. September 28, 1810; Eichtersheim, Baden d. March 24, 1881; Summerfield, Illinois
Lawyer and politician who had been a member of the second chamber of the Diet in Baden during the liberal reform years preceding 1848, Hecker’s popularity already then was highly symbolically charged, and when he became the leading figure of the opposition movement in the late 1840s, his popularity rose even further.
The “Demands of the People in Baden” propagated at the September 1847 rally of radical dissenters in Offenburg, bears his imprint. The revolutions in France and in Berlin in February and March 1848 convinced Hecker that the time was ripe for a military strike. The military commander of the forces he had gathered was August Willich. Outnumbered and ill trained, they broke and ran during the first engagement at Kandern (Baden) in April. Hecker and others fled to Switzerland, where contacts with the American consul not only resulted in a Fourth of July celebration by the refugees, but also led to Hecker’s emigration to the United States, where he raised funds for the revolutionists now in exile. Returning to Europe for the constitution campaign of 1849, Hecker arrived in Straβburg just after the fortress of Rastatt had surrendered and the war was over. With the new wave of refugees, Hecker sailed again for North America, eventually settling in Summerfield near Belleville, Illinois.In contrast to most of the Forty- Eighter “Latin farmers,” Hecker was modestly successful, raising animals and even growing grapes for wine. In the 1856 presidential campaign he supported John Fremont, and in 1860 Abraham Lincoln, but Hecker never attained the rhetorical power in English that had contributed so much to his popularity in German. His legend continued to precede him, and when he joined Franz Sigel’s 3rd Missouri Infantry Volunteers as a private in 1861, many people went to see the old revolutionist on guard duty. Soon he received a colonel’s commission for an Illinois regiment, the 24th, which he left after quarreling with his officers, and then the “2nd Hecker,” the 82nd Illinois Infantry.
This regiment Hecker commanded with mixed success until 1864, when he resigned.In the late 1860s and 1870s, Hecker continued to work on his farm. He also wrote a column for the Belleviller Zeitung (Belleville Newspaper) and on occasion appeared as a public speaker. In 1873 he toured the newly united Germany. His public appearances and addresses met with considerable anticipation. However, he soon disappointed the nationalist circles, because he applauded unification, but lamented the lack of republican rights and freedoms in imperial Germany (notably in his Fourth of July oration in Stuttgart). After his return to Illinois, Hecker continued to publish political essays, but his health started failing in the mid-1870s. Many of the surviving Forty- Eighters met at his grave in 1881, and obituaries praised him lavishly, adding to the Hecker cult and legend that persisted into the twentieth century.
Wolfgang Hochbruck
See also American Civil War, German Participants in; Chicago; 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment; Forty- Eighters; Sigel, Franz; Travel Literature, German-U.S.; Willich, August (von)
References and Further Reading
Frei, Alfred G., ed. Friedrich Hecker in den USA. Konstanz: Stadler, 1993.
Freitag, Sabine. Friedrich Hecker: Biographie eines Republikaners. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998.