هل من سبيل لعودة العقل؟

Quote: Social background of the deputies Contemporary depiction of the parliamentarians entering the Paulskirche The social make-up of the total of 809 or 812 (replacements included) members of the Frankfurt National Assembly (see list on German wikipedia) was very homogeneous throughout the session. The parliament mostly represented the educated bourgeoisie (Middle Class). 95 % of deputies had the abitur, more than three quarters had been to university, half of which had studied jurisprudence.[1] A considerable number of deputies were members of a Corps or a Burschenschaft. In terms of profession, upper-level civil servants formed the majority: this group included a total of 436 deputies, including 49 university lecturers or professors, 110 judges or prosecutors, and 115 high administrative clerks and district administrators (Landräte).[2] Due to their oppositional views, many of them had already been in conflict with their princes for several years, including professors such as Jacob Grimm, Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, Georg Gottfried Gervinus and Wilhelm Eduard Albrecht (all counted among the Göttingen Seven, and politicians such as Welcker and Itzstein who had been champions of constitutional rights for two decades. Among the professors, besides lawyers, experts in German Studies and historians were especially common, due to the fact that under the sway of restoration politics, academic meetings in such disciplines, eg. the Germanisten-Tage of 1846 and 1847, were often the only occasions were national themes could be dsicussed freely. Apart fron those mentioned above, the academic Ernst Moritz Arndt, Johann Gustav Droysen, Carl Jaup, Friedrich Theodor Vischer and Georg Waitz are especially notable. Because of this composition, the National Assembly was later often dismissively dubbed the Professorenparlament ("Professors' parliament") and ridiculed with verses such as „Dreimal 100 Advokaten – Vaterland, du bist verraten; dreimal 100 Professoren – Vaterland, du bist verloren!“[3] ("Three times 100 advocates - Fatherland, you are betrayed; three times 100 professors - Fatherland, you are doomed". 149 deputies were self-employed bourgeois professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, journalists or clergymen, including well-known politicians such as Alexander von Soiron, Johann Jacoby, Karl Mathy, Johann Gustav Heckscher, Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler and Wilhelm Murschel. The economically active Middle Class was represented by only about 60 deputies, including many publishers, including Bassermann and Georg Friedrich Kolb, but also businessmen, industrialists and bankers, such as Hermann Henrich Meier, Ernst Merck, Hermann von Beckerath, Gustav Mevissen and Carl Mez. Tradesmen and representatives of agriculture were very poorly represented - the latter were mostly represented by big landowners from east of the Elbe, accompanied by only three farmers. Craftsmen like Robert Blum or Wilhelm Wolff were associated almost exclusively with the radical democratic Left, as they knew the social problems of the underprivileged classes from personal observations. A few of them, e.g.. Wolff, already saw themselves as explicit socialists. A further striking aspect is the large number of well-known writers among the deputies, including Anastasius Grün, Johann Ludwig Uhland, Heinrich Laube and Victor Scheffel. On 18 May 1848, circa 330 deputies assembled in the Kaisersaal and walked solemnly to the Paulskirche to hold the first session of the German national assembly, under its chairman (by seniority) Friedrich Lang. Heinrich von Gagern, one of the best-known liberals throughout Germany, was elected president of the parliament.