Photo by Chris Naffziger
Much ado has been made in St. Louis history books about the importance of the 1848 revolutions in Germany, which lead to the immigration of thousands of refugees fleeing the repression that followed throughout Europe. While certainly there is some truth to that historic series of events precipitating the growth of the German-American community in St. Louis, the reality is much more complicated. In fact, the three most prominent German-American brewer families in St. Louis, the Busches, Lemps, and Griesediecks, arrived at different dates, without any direct influence of the events of 1848.
The major historical events of the 100 years before the revolutions of 1848 lie in many places. In America, the Revolutionary War had allowed for the establishment of a democracy in America, fomenting the French Revolution only a few years later. The absolute monarchs of Europe tried their best, despite a general dislike for the recently deposed King Louis XVI, to stop the French people’s attempt at establishing democracy in Europe. The kings and emperors of Europe failed miserably, but the tumult of the French Revolution created a new problem: Napoleon.
The disorganized and fragmented principalities that would one day form the modern state of Germany remained part of the moribund Holy Roman Empire, turning 1,000 years old just as Napoleon rose to power. The Austrian Habsburg-dominated empire was defeated in battle repeatedly, leading the abolition of the Empire in 1806. Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine out of the former German territories outside of the Kingdom of Prussia and Austrian Habsburg holdings. But the Confederation was nothing but a satellite state of the French Empire, and thousands of Germans were drafted into the invasion of Russia. In fact, the parents of the Lemp and Busch brewery families of St. Louis certainly would have remembered French armies marching through their hometowns in Hesse. The Griesediecks came from the nearby German territory of Westphalia, which would also bear the brunt of French invasions.
With the final defeat of Napoleon by British and Prussian forces at Waterloo in 1815, Europe was left to clean up the mess. A newly dominant Prussia, riding the momentum of their military victories against Napoleon, began to hungrily consume the formerly independent but small principalities of northern Germany. For families researching their ancestors, the rapid expansion of Prussia after the Napoleonic Wars can be confusing, as places of birth can be listed as “Germany,” “Prussia,” or some other small state consumed by the former. Prussia was not interested in reforming its government, and the revolutions in Prussia began in Berlin in 1848. Meeting in Frankfurt, the newly formed Parliament attempted to establish a parliamentary monarchy.
It failed, and indeed thousands of Germans who fled to St. Louis at this time are certainly examples of people fleeing the reactionary oppression of the Prussian king. But those revolutions do not explain the arrival of Adam Lemp in America in 1836 or 1838, long before 1848. His choice of St. Louis and Missouri most likely lies in the publication of Gottfried Duden’s 1829 travel book, Report of a Journey to the Western States of North America and a Multi-Year Sojourn in the Years 1824 through 1827. This book glowingly recommends the Missouri River Valley as perfect for German settlement, ostensibly due to its similarity to the Rhine River Valley, adjacent to Hesse, from where Lemp hailed. In the coming weeks, more about the life of Adam Lemp will be explored here at St. Louis Magazine. While Lemp, as will be seen, had his own personal problems, Duden’s book is a very strong candidate for encouraging him to come to the Gateway City.
Likewise, Adolphus Busch left Kastel, Hesse in 1857, a town not terribly far from the Lemps’ or Griesediecks’ hometowns. There is no evidence that Busch was fleeing any oppression in Hesse, which was still stubbornly maintaining its independence even as large portions of central Germany were absorbed by Prussia. Indeed, the Busch family in the decades before and after Prussia’s creation of the German Empire seem to have maintained strong ties with the imperial family, the Hohenzollerns. Adolphus Busch purchased a painting of Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of Prussia and then the German Empire. His family hobnobbed with the imperial family as well, so much so that during the outbreak of World War I, the Busches were unfairly accused of being German sympathizers. Had the Busches forgiven the Prussians for earlier oppression? Certainly, that is possible, but it seems unlikely.
A look at the treatise Louis Lemp wrote when he was a young brewing student
Similarly, the immigration of the Roman Catholic Griesedieck family does not arise out of the revolutions of 1848. Arriving in St. Louis in the years right after the American Civil War, the family quickly rose to prominence as brewers, just as their ancestors had in Germany. Judging from the home ownership of the Griesediecks illustrated in Compton and Dry’s 1875 Pictorial St. Louis, they became quite prosperous in less than a decade. There is the strong possibility that the first stirrings of the Lutheran-dominated Prussia’s Kulturkampf of 1871 may have encouraged the Griesediecks to leave Westphalia, which had been annexed by Prussia after the defeat of Napoleon. Also, Lutheran Prussia had defeated Roman Catholic Austria in 1865, so perhaps the religious climate had darkened in the wake of that conflict.
Consequently, just the family stories of Lemps, Busches, and Griesediecks demonstrate that German immigration to St. Louis should not be painted with a broad brush. The Revolution of 1848 is just one of many possible explanations. Certainly, all of the families had grown weary of the constant, centuries-long warfare between France and the Prussian and Austrian-dominated east. Sitting right in between the two sides, Hesse and Westphalia had been constantly invaded, decimated and annexed countless times in just the two centuries before German unification in 1871. The promise of a new country, thousands of miles wide, and thousands of miles from the turmoil of Europe was certainly an opportunity they could not ignore.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at naffziger@gmail.com.
