A German Revolution

In the first half of the 19th century there was a revolt in the central state of Hesse, led by Georg Büchner (Gregor Hansen), the well-known German writer, and a fellow rebel, Pastor Weidig (Franz Wittich). Büchner wrote a kind of declaration of peasant rights against the tyranny of the landholders of the time, and once that declaration ("Der Hessische Landbote") was made public, Büchner escaped to Strasbourg, and then to Zurich where he was killed in 1937, at the age of 23. Pastor Weidig was captured, sent to prison, tortured, and killed in prison. The revolution the two men had hoped for died on the vine due to an informer -- a planned uprising was brutally squelched -- and the peasants had to bide their time for another 12 years before the 1848 Revolution would bring them some of the rights demanded in Büchner's pamphlet.

Gregor Hansen

Georg Büchner

Wolfram Weniger

Hofrat Schiffer

Marquard Bohm

Preuninger, Wärter

Bazon Brock

Hofrat von Stein

• Helmut HerbstDirector · Writer

Release date

February 1, 1982

Status

Released

Original language

German

Runtime

1h 37m

Genres

History, Drama