Tours · Düsseldorf · riot
Barricades and Blood - Marktplatz
On Düsseldorf's picture-perfect Marktplatz, in the shadow of the golden Jan Wellem statue, a physician called a crowd to armed resistance against Prussian soldiers on 9 May 1849, igniting a night of barricade fighting that left more than a dozen dead.
About this place
The baroque Rathaus and the gilded equestrian statue of Elector Jan Wellem give Marktplatz the air of a stage set for pageantry. But on 9 May 1849, this square was a flashpoint. Düsseldorf had been under a Prussian state of siege since 7 May, with tensions from the 1848 revolution crackling across Europe. From the house of Bürgerwehr commander Lorenz Cantador on this very square, the physician Peter Joseph Neunzig stood before a gathered crowd and called on citizens to take up arms against the Prussian army and join the provisional government in nearby Elberfeld. Cantador cut the speech short. It was too late. By nightfall, militiamen and Prussian troops were fighting across improvised barricades. The young painter Ludwig von Milewski was among the dead. On 10 May, uninvolved citizens near the Rathausplatz were shot in the chaos. Today the Rathaus hosts civil ceremonies and the square fills with market stalls, while the golden statue of Jan Wellem stares across cobblestones that once ran with blood.
Key facts
- 1849 year — In May 1849, Düsseldorf's Marktplatz became the staging ground for one of the final acts of the German revolution, as citizens clashed with Prussian troops at the barricades.
- 7 May 1849 — Prussia imposed a military state of siege on Düsseldorf on 7 May 1849, two days before the physician Peter Joseph Neunzig delivered his call to arms from this square.
- 12 killed (at minimum) — More than a dozen people were killed across two days of fighting, including the young painter Ludwig von Milewski and uninvolved citizens shot near the Rathausplatz on 10 May.