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The firstWartburg Festival (German:Wartburgfest) was a convention of about 500ProtestantGerman students, held on 18 October 1817 at theWartburg castle nearEisenach inThuringia. The former refuge of reformerMartin Luther was considered anational symbol and the assembly a protest against reactionary politics andKleinstaaterei.
After the German "Wars of Liberation" againstNapoleon and theFrench occupation, many people were bitter about dreams of German national unity shattered after the 1815Congress of Vienna. Democratic reforms were stalled, and governments had cracked down on press freedom and rights of association.
On 12 June 1815 several corporated students at theUniversity of Jena founded theUrburschenschaft organization in order to encourage German unity at the university. Many of them had participated as voluntary soldiers on the fields against Napoleon,e.g. in theLützow Free Corps, the black-red-gold colour scheme of which was adopted for theFlag of Germany. The German students demonstrated for a national state and a liberalconstitution condemning the "reactionary" forces in the newly recreated states of theGerman Confederation. At least, a constitution for the German state ofSaxe-Weimar-Eisenach including articles on freedom of speech, press and assembly was amended by Grand DukeKarl August in 1816.
On the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing of hisninety-five theses on 31 October 1517 and to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the bloodyBattle of Nations atLeipzig, theBurschenschaft student fraternities from the Jena andHalle universities agreed to organize a "national festival" at the Wartburg. The castle was chosen as a meeting place as it had been a refuge for Luther after he had been banned and was declaredvogelfrei by EmperorCharles V in 1521. Inasmuch as he had translated the Bible there and thus set a standard for theGerman language, it became a symbol ofGerman nationalism. Hundreds of students fromBerlin,Breslau,Erlangen,Gießen,Göttingen,Greifswald,Heidelberg,Kiel,Königsberg,Leipzig,Marburg,Rostock undTübingen joined the festivities. Jena professors such asDietrich Georg von Kieser,Lorenz Oken,Heinrich Luden, andJakob Friedrich Fries were also among the participants.
At the meeting in the Wartburg knights' hall, speeches were held about Martin Luther as a freedom fighter and the way to national unity. Followed by the Christian hymnNow Thank We All Our God as sung by the victoriousPrussian troops after the 1757Battle of Leuthen and a final blessing, the convention resembled a Protestant church service. The men eventually gathered for a festive meal and gave several toasts to the fallen of the Liberation Wars,Scharnhorst,Schill andKörner.
Invitations toAustrian universities had been blocked by the government of State ChancellorMetternich; the event itself was also used as a justification for further suppression of liberal forces, such as theCarlsbad Decrees of 1819. In 1832, theHambacher Fest was held in similar manner. A second festival at the Wartburg was held during theRevolutions of 1848 in the German states.
After the end of the official festivities and referring to Martin Luther's burning of the papal bullExsurge domine in 1520, followers of "Turnvater"Friedrich Ludwig Jahn arranged a book burning with the burning of mocked books symbolizing a number of reactionary literary works, and symbols of Napoleon's foreign rule like a corporal's cane.[1] This act was used in 1933 as a justification for the Nazibook burnings.
The symbolically burnt books comprised:
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