OBITUARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13454, 3 June 1907, Page 5

OBITUARY.

i FAMOUS GERMAN REVOLT Z TIONISTS. 50 iy By Telegraph— Association Copyright 18 -.-- :. ■ ''■'•.''-. "■ ■-■■':■;■ ' (Received Jan© 2. 5.10 p.m.) .- London, June I.' Karl Blind, a notable leader in the ' German revolutions of 18-17 and 1849, died yesterday at his residence at Hampstead.,

Karl Blind was born in 1826 at Mannheim, in Germany, and became a journalist. Active among students/working men, gymnastic associations, and, the army, as a leader of Democratic circles, he was in 1846 arid 1847 tried and imprisoned in Baden and Bavaria on charges of high treason, but acquitted.; In 1848, at Karlsruhe, he took a leading part in the preparations for a national rising. Arrested while endeavouring to expand th* movement .into one t for: a German Commonwealth, he was freed by the success of the revolution. During the Provisional Parliament at Frankfort he insisted, at mass meetings, on the abolition of the Princely Diet, and the election of a provisional revolutionary executive. Wounded in , a street riot, he was proscribed after participating in the ; republican rising led by Hecker. , From Alsace he agitated for a new levy. Falsely . accused ,of being im|plicated in the Paris insurrection of June, he was imprisoned at , Strassburg, and transported :in chains to Switzerland the Mayor of St. Louis generously preventing his surrender to the Baden 0 authority, which had been planned by the .French police. During the first Schleswig-Hol-stein war, he, with Gustav von Struve, led m September, 1848, the second republican revolution in the Black Forest. At the storming of Staufen he fought on the barricade, and was among the last who left the town. Being made a prisoner, through the treachery of some militiamen, he was t court-martialled, his life being saved by the secret sympathy of two of the privates who were : members of the Court. Sentenced, after State trial lasting ten days, to eight years' imprisonment m the spring of 1849, he was being secretly transported to the fortress of Mainz, when he was liberated by the people arid soldiers breaking open the' prison at Bruchsal. Heading the same day a hastilyformed number of free corps, he endeavoured, with Struve, to take Rastatt, and then entered the capital of Baden. He was a firm opponent of Brentano, the chief of the new Government, whom he accused of being in occult connection with the ejected dynauty—a fact afterwards proved when Brentano was declared a " traitor" by the Constituent Assembly. With Dr. Frederick Shutz he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Paris, accredited to Louis Napoleon, the then President of; the ; Republic. There, in; violation of the Jaw ; of nations, he was arrested as being implicated in Ledru-Rollin's rising for -the protection of the Roman Republic, and threatened with being surrendered to the Prussian courts-martial if he continued to uphold his diplomatic quality. He refused to yield, and after several months of imprisonment was banished from France. After this, he lived in Belgium, with his wife, who has. made many sacrifices for the popular cause, and also undergone imprisonment. New prosecutions induced him to go with his family to England, whence he carried on' a ; Democratic and National German Propaganda. After an am- " nesty in 1862, the House of Deputies at -l Stuttgart gave him a banquet. tHe was the speaker of the London Germans at Garibaldi's entry. ■, He promoted: the Schleswig-Holstein movement - in connection with leaders of the Schleswig Diet, whose confidential communications; ■he transmitted to the English Foreign Office; and he was at the head of the London Committee during the, war of 1863-64. s At Berlin, his stepson met with a tragic death in the attempt on the life of Prince Bismarck on May 7, 1866. For many years Karl Blind operated with Mazzini, Garibaldi, and other European leaders, and supported the cause of Hungary, Poland, the American Union, and the American Republic, for which thanks were expressed to him by President Lincoln and President Juarez. ; During the.war of 187071, he supported his country's cause. In England he had been a member of Execu- ; tive Committees on Transvaal, Egyptian, and other affairs. ; Many political writings and essays on ; history, mythology, and Germanic literature, published in England, Germany, America, Italy, and Spain, proceeded from his pen.