6 - “War wohl je ein Mensch so frech” (“Lied vom Bürgermeister Tschech”)

Summary

THE POLITICAL SONG “War wohl je ein Mensch so frech” (Did a Man Ever Show Such Cheek), otherwise known as “Lied vom Bürgermeister Tschech” (The Mayor Tschech Song), deals with Ludwig Tschech's attempt to assassinate King Frederick William IV of Prussia in July 1844. This song, of unknown origin, was first circulated by streetballad singers. In the years prior to the 1848 Revolution it was considered to be subversive, its distribution being a chargeable offense during the Berlin Communist Trial of 1847. Decades later, in the social democratic workers movement after 1880, it was revived as a satire of the monarchy, and it remained in circulation until the 1920s. After falling into obscurity, “War wohl je ein Mensch so frech” received renewed interest among Liedermacher and folk musicians in the 1970s as a representative song of the Vormärz and 1848 democratic tradition.

A diary entry of Karl August Varnhagen von Ense confirms that the song emerged as a street ballad shortly after the failed assassination attempt on the Prussian king and his wife on July 26, 1844. In the eyes of the censors the song was politically inappropriate, as evident from the fact that in Germany no publications—or even broadsides—of the Tschech song from its period of origin have ever come to light. Rather it was first published in Switzerland in 1845 in a satirical dramolet written by the leading Württemberg democrat Johannes Scherr (1817–86).

The would-be assassin Ludwig Tschech (1789–1844) was the mayor of the small town of Storkow near Berlin for ten years, until he resigned from his post in 1842 after years of in-fighting. Tschech's request to the Prussian authorities to give him another suitable job in the civil service was in vain—even a personal application to the king was turned down. In 1844 he resolved to make a public statement of his dissatisfaction by killing the monarch. On July 26, 1844, in front of the Berlin City Palace gate, he fired two shots at the royal couple, but missed entirely. Tschech was sentenced to death and executed on December 14. While the authorities tried to keep the motives behind Tschech's action secret as far as possible, his name spread like wildfire throughout the land.