Carlsbad Decrees

The Carlsbad Decrees (German: Karlsbader Beschlüsse) were a set of reactionary restrictions introduced in the states of the German Confederation by resolution of its parliamentary body (the Bundesversammlung) on 20 September 1819 after a conference held in the spa town of Carlsbad, Austrian Empire. They banned nationalist fraternities ("Burschenschaften"), removed liberal university professors, and expanded the censorship of the press. They were aimed at quelling a growing sentiment for German unification and were passed during ongoing Hep-Hep riots which ended within a month after the resolution was passed.

The meeting of the states' representatives was called by the Austrian Minister of State Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich after the liberal Burschenschaft student Karl Ludwig Sand murdered the conservative writer August von Kotzebue on 23 March 1819, and an attempt had been made by apothecary Karl Löning on the life of Nassau president Karl von Ibell on 1 July 1819. In the course of the European Restoration, Metternich feared liberal and national tendencies at German universities which might conduct revolutionary activities threatening the monarchistic order. At this time, the two outrages cited were a welcome pretext to take action.

The Carlsbad Decrees had consequences not only for the rights of the member states but also for the independent academic jurisdiction that had been partially in existence for centuries. An important instrument for the application of the decrees for these and other purposes was the Mainz Central Investigation Commission (Mainzer Zentraluntersuchungskommission).

An essential attribute of the decrees was that the reactionary German Confederation understood liberal and nationalistic ideas as sedition and persecuted those spreading these ideas as demagogues. This persecution of demagogues, Demagogenverfolgung, was especially vigorous in Prussia.

After the Hambach Festival in 1832, the persecution was renewed for the last time. Only after the March Revolution of 1848 were the Carlsbad Decrees abrogated by the German Bundestag, on 2 April 1848.

The decrees effectively dissolved the Burschenschaft student associations and the student sports organizations and also provided for university inspectors and press censors. Reformers in many local governments were forced out, and by 1820 all significant liberal and nationalistic German reform movements had come to an end. The decrees were organized into three sections.

1. A special representative of the ruler of each state shall be appointed for each university, with appropriate instructions and extended powers, and shall reside in the place where the university is situated. This office may devolve upon the existing curator or upon any other individual whom the government may deem qualified. The function of this agent shall be to see to the strictest enforcement of existing laws and disciplinary regulations; to observe carefully the spirit which is shown by the instructors in the university in their public lectures and regular courses, and, without directly interfering in scientific matters or in the methods of teaching, to give a salutary direction to the instruction, having in view the future attitude of the students. Lastly, he shall devote unceasing attention to everything that may promote morality, good order, and outward propriety among the students.

2. The confederated governments mutually pledge themselves to remove from the universities or other public educational institutions all teachers who, by obvious deviation from their duty, or by exceeding the limits of their functions, or by the abuse of their legitimate influence over the youthful minds, or by propagating harmful doctrines hostile to public order or subversive of existing governmental institutions, shall have unmistakably proved their unfitness for the important office entrusted to them.