Carl Schurz: A Biography

Born in Germany in 1829, Schurz became involved in the Revolution of 1848 when he was a student at the University of Bonn. Participating in the revolutionary army in Baden, he managed to escape through a sewer during the siege of Rastatt, flee across the Rhine to France, and come back to rescue his professor, Gottfried Kinkel, from a jail near Berlin. This deed made him famous, and when he came to America in 1852, he speedily made use of his ethnic connections to enter politics. As a role model for German Americans, Schurz always preached the necessity of assimilation but the retention of the German heritage. Schurz's legacy is of importance to this day, particularly because he represented the older liberal German tradition with its tolerance and opposition to racial and religious hatreds.