IN JULY 1834

Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, 2023

intervention in the basement

Georg Büchner's political pamphlet The Hessian Courier (Der Hessische Landbote), first published in 1834, is imbued with the ideals of the French Revolution, and is still fresh and relevant today. 

The pamphlet is famous for its opening slogan: «Peace to the huts! War on the palaces!», and is considered the first great manifesto of the social revolution. 

It was printed and published following editorial revision by the Butzbach pastor Friedrich Ludwig Weidig. The first copies of the pamphlet were secretly distributed in the Grand Duchy of Hesse on the eve of 31 July 1834.

German authorities reacted violently to the release of the pamphlet. A warrant was issued for Büchner's arrest, but he managed to escape across the French border to Strasbourg in 1835. Weidig was arrested along with other opposition figures. He was first detained in Friedberg and then in Darmstadt. He was tortured there and died in 1837 in circumstances that have never been fully explained.

​​Georg Büchner (Goddelau, 1813 – Zürich, 1837), student of medicine and natural sciences, conspirator, fugitive, and acclaimed political writer, held that freedom without the overthrow of feudalism and without social revolution is fictitious.

Therefore: Peace to the huts! War on the palaces!

“Go to Darmstadt and see for yourself the good times these lords have on your money, and tell your starving wives and children that others are being well fed on their bread; tell them of the beautiful clothes dyed in their sweat, and of the decorative ribbons cut from the calluses on their hands; tell them of the stately houses erected from the bones of the people; and then creep back into your smoky huts and bend yourselves over stone-laden fields so that one day your children can go there too and see one heir to a reigning prince and his wife trying to give advice to another heir to another reigning prince; so that they can see through the open glass doors the tablecloth from  which these lords eat, and smell the lamps which illuminate their rooms with the fat of the peasants.”

Credits and links

Devised by: selma banich

Photo: Áron Lődi (In July 1834, 2023)

Production: OOUR, 2023

I would like to express my gratitude to Áron Lődi, Alia Hamdan, Maissa Maatouk, Moe Thet Han, Madalina Zaharia, and Stefani J. Alvarez, and the community of fellows at Akademie Schloss Solitude.

Cover photo: Áron Lődi (In July 1834, 2023)

+ Áron Lődi

+ Akademie Schloss Solitude