**On November 3, 1835, Ludwig Lessing still celebrates his 23rd birthday in Zurich, but he will not live to see the next morning. Illustration by Marco Heer.**

Murder and espionage: the Lessing case

The murder in 1835 of German student and spy Ludwig Lessing in Zurich uncovered a network of espionage and political activism among German exiles in Switzerland. His death increased international pressure on Switzerland to adopt a hard line against revolutionaries seeking refuge on Swiss soil.

Patrik Süess

Patrik Süess is a freelance historian.

Ludwig Lessing, from Freienwalde near Berlin and a law student at the University of Zurich since the 1834/35 winter semester, celebrated his 23rd birthday on 3 November 1835. Friends gave him a straw garland and clay tobacco pipe. He attended lectures in the morning and met his good friend Carl Cratz and an acquaintance called Karl August Baron von Eyb in the afternoon in the Café Littéraire. Lessing told them that he would not be at his usual haunt ‘Grüne Häusli’, a popular bar among German students, later that evening as he had “another appointment”. He also told his landlady Mrs Locher-v. Muralt that he was going to a meeting which he had promised to attend that evening. Mrs Locher-v. Muralt found him to be in very good spirits. Following a brief visit to the museum reading room, Lessing left at 6.30pm and walked along the Sihl river towards the Enge district. His subsequent movements are unknown.

**Weinplatz Zurich, right beside the *Café Littéraire*. Graphic print by Johannes Ruff, ca. 1835.** e-rara

The following morning, milkman Heinrich Wydler found Lessing’s body beside the Sihl between Enge and Zurich, lying on his front and covered by his coat. He was holding a pocketknife in his left hand, which he had evidently used to defend himself. The autopsy revealed that Ludwig Lessing had been subjected to a brutal attack and stabbed 49 times.

A safe haven for the revolutionary minded?

The Zurich police immediately suspected a politically motivated murder, as Lessing had close ties with politically active German students and refugees in the city. These middle class and republican activists, pursued in their own country as ‘demagogues’, rejected the post-Napoleonic return of the monarchic system, calling instead for liberal reforms and German national unification.

The Zurich police immediately suspected a politically motivated murder, as Lessing had close ties with politically active German students and refugees in the city. These middle class and republican activists, pursued in their own country as ‘demagogues’, rejected the post-Napoleonic return of the monarchic system, calling instead for liberal reforms and German national unification. "The Thinkers' Club – Also a New German Society" // Caricature on freedom of speech in Germany, print graphic, around 1820. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Foto: Georg Janssen

Switzerland was a popular safe haven at the time for people fleeing political persecution in Germany and Austria; the regenerated cantons offered them a relatively safe and free environment for political organisation and agitation, perhaps understandably so as the liberal governments and large sections of the population sympathised with the democratic-republican leanings of the refugees. The clandestine political organisation Young Germany was founded in Bern with the involvement of Italian career revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini. Its aim, as reflected in its slogan “liberty, equality, humanity”, was republican revolution in Germany. Young Germany was in the habit of meeting at the Café Littéraire in Zurich, the same place where Lessing was often to be found.

A portrait of Georg Büchner from the first edition of his complete works by Karl Emil Franzos, 1879. — Author Georg Büchner also sought refuge from political persecution in Switzerland, or more precisely Zurich, where he was awarded a PhD in 1836 for his work on the nervous system of the barbel (fish). He died in 1837. A portrait from the first edition of his complete works by Karl Emil Franzos, 1879. Wikimedia

The revolutionary movement was especially popular among the academic German youth. These refugees, who were often members of banned fraternities, flocked to the new Swiss universities in Zurich and Bern:

The new University of Zurich, not least due to its hiring of liberally-minded professors, including politically persecuted academics from Germany, immediately following its foundation (…), was seen by neighbouring countries bent on restoration as a hotbed of radicalism, which made it even more attractive to political exiles.

from Jodocus Donatus Hubertus Temme: Der Studentenmord in Zürich. Criminalgeschichte, 1872 (‘The murder of a student in Zurich. A criminal history’).

In December 1834, Prussia banned its citizens from studying at the Universities of Bern and Zurich. Ludwig Lessing was one of the students who identified with the revolutionary ideals. He played a leading role in establishing a clandestine fraternity in Berlin. Then he was arrested – and became willing to cooperate when in custody: Lessing was prepared to make a statement to the authorities in return for an amnesty and being allowed to continue his studies in peace. He was even prepared to keep providing information on the revolutionary student scene to the authorities. In other words, this was the start of Ludwig Lessing’s role as an informer for the Prussian police or the Frankfurt ‘Bundes-Central-Behörde’ (federal central authority), which gathered information on political activities at home and abroad for the whole German Confederation. The authorities built up a spy network to provide this information, and it operated across borders including in Switzerland.

**The charge on the Frankfurt Guardhouse on 3 April 1833 led to the founding of the Bundeszentralbehörde (federal central authority). Reproduction of a coloured woodcut by Francois Georgin.** Wikimedia

Lessing: the spy in Switzerland

In Bern, where he began to study medicine in 1834, Lessing was told to infiltrate political movements. He immediately assumed the role of agent provocateur and exhorted the German tradesmen in Bern to rise up against the “tyrannical yoke” of the German aristocracy – then reported back to Berlin on the threat posed by the revolutionaries. However, Lessing was not a good spy: he didn’t know much and failed to operate in a structured and systematic way. He was also something of a busybody who was allegedly involved in some top secret political goings-on. This soon led his countrymen to suspect him of working as a spy. When the newspaper ‘Berner Volksfreund’ openly expressed this suspicion, Lessing moved to Zurich where he remained a member of Young Germany.

Article in Berner Volksfreund of 19 November 1835 on the labelling of Lessing as a “spy”: “Whoever says the Volksfreund started the rumour that Lessing was a spy, is lying. The Volksfreund even offers to prove that this rumour first arose in German circles, and we are in no way trying to harm the person in question or his friends. Our intention is simply to serve the Fatherland by issuing a timely warning.” e-newspaperarchives

What did his friends in Zurich, who were also members of this secret fraternity, know about Lessing’s double life as a spy? Did they know that he was also reporting back to Germany about them? It’s hard to say as the presiding judge in Zurich, Hans Konrad von Meiss, was unable to get a word out of them. Baron von Eyb had known Lessing well and they shared a box at the theatre, but he claimed to have no knowledge of an organisation called Young Germany. In reality, however, Eyb held a prominent position in the republican clubs present in the towns and cities of central Switzerland, as he was the treasurer of Young Germany. Julius Thankmar Alban admitted to having been a close friend of Lessing but claimed he knew nothing about politics – in spite of having been head of Young Germany in Zurich since 1835 and having travelled with Lessing in August to a conspiratorial meeting in Ticino. Friedrich Gustav Ehrhardt had visited Lessing at his home on a number of occasions and in August 1835 had even engaged in a duel with him, but he claimed to have no interest in political associations. In actual fact, Ehrhardt was a “fanatical central figure in the radical refugee movement”, to quote a contemporary account of the case ‘Der Studentenmord in Zürich. Criminalgeschichte’ (‘The murder of a student in Zurich. A criminal history’). He produced the early communist magazine ‘Das Nordlicht’ with Lessing’s friend Carl Cratz. The travelling cobbler Friedrich Herrscher said that Cratz and Ehrhardt had warned him about Lessing being a “spy” and that he, Herrscher, had attempted to warn Lessing that the students and tradesmen were planning to kill him.

When the Prussian envoy to Switzerland, Theodor von Rochow, claimed to have learned from a reliable source that Alban and Cratz had lured Lessing to Enge on the pretext of meeting a lady and then killed him, they were both arrested. However, they vigorously denied the charge. As political undesirables, they were used to being questioned and were adept at sidestepping awkward questions. As the authorities were unable to make anything stick against them, Alban und Cratz were duly released. In the end, August Baron von Eyb was the only person who faced charges. During the proceedings, it emerged that he wasn’t a baron at all and that his real name was Zacharias Aldinger. He had also been spying for the police since July 1834 as a key player in Young Germany in Switzerland. His reports on the latest happenings among the political exiles in Switzerland were even delivered personally to Austrian State Chancellor Metternich. However, the only charge that stood up in court against Eyb/Aldinger was passport forgery.

**The published ruling of Zurich Criminal Court, 1837.** Google Books

The failure to bring Lessing’s murderer(s) to justice may well have had something to do with a lack of interest among certain influential figures in Zurich’s political and legal circles. Not only did these people sympathise with the exiles and their ideas, they were also keen to avoid anyone looking too closely at their own affairs. And with good reason, quite a few revolutionary-minded Zurich cantonal councillors had protected the politically active refugees and even given them financial support in some cases. Even the President of the Zurich Supreme Court, Friedrich Ludwig Keller, could be considered one of Lessing’s enemies: in a letter to his handlers, Lessing claimed that Keller was a member of Mazzini’s Young Europe and that he had misappropriated funds held by Young Germany. And that’s not all: Lessing described Keller as a “devious” man of “poor character”, who “although he had a wife and children, also had relationships with other women”, according to the contemporary account by Jodocus Donatus Hubertus Temme.

President of the Zurich Supreme Court, Friedrich Ludwig Keller, was accused of being a member of Young Europe by Ludwig Lessing. — **President of the Zurich Supreme Court, Friedrich Ludwig Keller, was accused of being a member of *Young Europe* by Ludwig Lessing.** Wikimedia

Nationwide repercussions

Ludwig Lessing’s murder played a big part in the enactment of the ‘Fremdenconclusum’ by the meeting of delegates from the separate cantons, known as the ‘Tagsatzung’ on 11 August 1836. It stipulated that refugees, “who abused the safe haven granted to them by the cantons and jeopardised the inner security and peace or neutrality of Switzerland and its international relations (…),” should be deported. This was Switzerland’s response to foreign pressure. The Confederation had long been a thorn in the side of the conservative powers of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria and Prussia) due to its relatively liberal and democratic political development and accommodating asylum policy. The three nations saw Switzerland as a hotbed of political unrest and a revolutionary tinderbox. The question of political refugees was a longstanding source of diplomatic conflict. At the end of 1834, Austria even threatened to block the border and impose a trade embargo unless Switzerland tightened up its regulation of aliens and expelled political exiles wanted in their home countries. Following the enactment of the ‘Fremdenconclusum’ – which was incidentally repealed just two years later − Carl Cratz and Zacharias Aldinger, alias Baron von Eyb, plus 154 other political refugees were expelled from Switzerland. Julius Alban, however, was allowed to remain at the University of Zurich. Friedrich Ehrhardt, one of Zurich’s most active political exiles, was so well shielded that he actually secured employment at the Zurich District Court in spite of being a suspect in the Lessing case. As early as 1836, he joined the law firm of Zurich Cantonal Parliament President (and subsequently Federal Councillor) Jonas Furrer. Following his naturalisation, Ehrhardt became Zurich public prosecutor and a colonel in the Swiss army. The pinnacle of the erstwhile communist’s career came when he was appointed legal counsel to railway pioneer Alfred Escher. Nonetheless, suspicion over his involvement in Ludwig Lessing’s murder hung over him until his death in 1896.

More of: Modern Age Politics Crime

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