Carlsbad Decrees

(1819)

   Measures agreed at an August 1819 conference of ministers from Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Württemberg, Hanover, Baden, Mecklenburg, Saxe- Weimar- Eisenach, and electoral Hesse that took place at Carlsbad (German spelling: Karlsbad; Czech spelling: Karlovy Vary). The meeting at the Bohemian spa was summoned at the behest of Austria’s foreign minister Klemens Prince von Metternich to discuss measures to be taken by the German Confederation against nationalist and liberal organizations and opinion leaders in Germany. The assassination of the dramatist August Kotzebue by a radical student offered an opportunity to persuade the governments of many German states to approve to harsh methods of repression. Uniform censorship of periodical publications, the dissolution of student clubs, liberal and nationalist Burschenschaften , and a central commission to investigate radical activities were agreed in Carlsbad and a few weeks later by the representatives of the German states at Frankfurt. The Carlsbad Decrees became synonymous with the suppression of freedom of speech and an anti-liberal policy of the German states.

   FURTHER READING:

    Blackbourn, David. A History of Germany, 1780-1918. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003;

    Jarausch, Konrad H. Students, Society and Politics in Imperial Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.

   GUENTHER KRONENBITTER