Hecker uprising
The main action of the uprising consisted of an armed civilian militia under the leadership of Friedrich Hecker moving from Konstanz on the Swiss border in the direction of Karlsruhe, the ducal capital, with the intention of joining with another armed group under the leadership of revolutionary poet Georg Herwegh there to topple the government.
The uprising is named after its leader, the 37-year-old lawyer from Mannheim, Friedrich Hecker, who in 1848 was already the spokesman for the liberal-democratic opposition in the Second Chamber of the Baden Parliament.
Neither managed to be elected to the Fünfzigerausschuss, a committee of fifty chosen to bridge the period until the formation of a proper national parliament and their political ideas were not greeted positively.
The capital of the Lake Constance District was regarded as particularly receptive to liberal ideas and Hecker expected to find many supporters in the city and surrounding countryside.
With 40 charter members, the goal of the club was "to form an armed, but free corps" and shortly thereafter became a nationally-established liberal Workers Association.
Since March 5, 1848, there had been a permanent Citizens' Committee, convened at a public meeting, which was to represent the political citizenship at the pre-parliamentary assemblies in Offenburg.
Together with Franz Sigel, Gustav Struve, and Theodor Mogling, who had arrived earlier, he planned the next steps: Four columns were to march and meet up in Karlsruhe, one of Constance, two on different routes of Donaueschingen, and a fourth over upper Black Forest, from St. Blasien and Waldshut.
They hoped for a snowball effect: the columns were supposed to gain more and more people en route so that the state should eventually collapse like a house of cards.
Although he was speaking to a republican-minded majority, neither the Citizens' Committee, nor the People's Assembly, or the militia immediately wanted to join his Revolution.
Shortly thereafter the myth arose that Hecker, from the balcony of City Hall that evening and before an enthusiastic crowd, had declared the Republic.
However, none of the three reporting newspapers, not even the leftist Seeblätter, mention such an event, and an actual proclamation almost certainly would have found expression in the local press.
On the same evening that Hecker had encountered such strong opposition at the People's Assembly, Franz Sigel had assigned his militia to take part in the revolution.
With Hecker, Sigel and Mogling they moved at around eight o'clock from the city - the number of curious spectators was probably significantly greater than that of the participants.
However, as they moved northwest, through Allensbach, Radolfzell, Stockach and Engen, volunteers from the isolated villages joined, so that the train grew slowly.
There were participants from Dettighofen, Stockach, Singen on Hohentwiel, Emmingen ab Egg, Liptingen, Immendingen, Freiburg, Möhringen, Grimmelshofen, Geisingen, Falkau, Gurtweil, Tiengen, and Utzenfeld.
On April 14 military units of the German Confederation, under the command of General Friedrich von Gagern set themselves on the heels of Hecker's column.
On the 16th, Hecker had to turn south towards Stühlingen and Bonndorf without having reached Donaueschingen, in order to avoid a clash with the Confederation troops.
In Freiburg im Breisgau, although they had been informed of the defeat of the uprising, a public meeting on April 23 decided to take up arms against the approximately 3,000 soldiers who had arrived.
Only Franz Sigel, the former military, participated in the May Uprisings and the Constitution Campaigns of 1849 and in the June 1849 was named Minister of War in the short-lived Republic of Baden, which ended with the capture of Rastatt by Prussian troops on July 23, 1849.
