Carl Schurz

Carl Schurz (March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionist, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army general in the American Civil War. His wife Margaretta Schurz was instrumental in establishing the kindergarten system in the U.S.

Early life

Schurz was born in Liblar (now Erftstadt), the son of a school teacher. He studied at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne, and then entered the University of Bonn, where he became a revolutionary, partly through his friendship with Gottfried Kinkel, then a professor. He assisted Kinkel in editing the Bonner Zeitung, and was active in the Revolution of 1848; but when Rastatt surrendered he escaped to Zürich. In 1850 he returned secretly to Germany, rescued Kinkel from prison at Spandau and helped him to escape to Scotland. Schurz went to Paris, but the police forced him to leave France on the eve of the coup d'état, and until August 1852 he lived in London, making his living by teaching German. He married in July 1852 and moved to America, living for a time in Philadelphia. Schurz is probably the best-known of the Forty-Eighters, the German emigrants who moved to the USA after the revolutions.

Related Topics:
Erftstadt - Jesuit - Cologne - University of Bonn - Gottfried Kinkel - Revolution of 1848 - Rastatt - Zürich - 1850 - Spandau - Scotland - Paris - Coup d'état - 1852 - London - German - Philadelphia - Forty-Eighters - Emigrant

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