Vincenz Fettmilch
Encyclopedia
Vincenz Fettmilch was a grocer
Grocer
A grocer is a bulk seller of food. Beginning as early as the 14th century, a grocer was a dealer in comestible dry goods such as spices, pepper, sugar, and cocoa, tea and coffee...

 and gingerbread
Gingerbread
Gingerbread is a term used to describe a variety of sweet food products, which can range from a soft, moist loaf cake to something close to a ginger biscuit. What they have in common are the predominant flavors of ginger and a tendency to use honey or molasses rather than just sugar...

 baker
Baker
A baker is someone who bakes and sells bread, Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades...

 who led the Fettmilch uprising of the guilds in 1612-1616 to get rid of foreigners (mainly Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

) in the city, whom they viewed as competition and usurers.

Fettmilch settled in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

 in 1602. On August 22, 1614 he led a mob that stormed the Judengasse (Jews' Lane) and plundered the city's 1,380 Jews, forcing them to leave the city until the emperor personally intervened, and on February 28, 1616 Fettmilch and six others were executed in Frankfurt's Rossmarkt (horse market) square. On the same day (20 Adar in the Hebrew Calendar) the exiled Jews were led back into Frankfurt by imperial soldiers. Above the gates to the Judengasse a stone imperial eagle was mounted bearing an inscription reading "Protected by the Roman Imperial Majesty and the Holy Empire". The first act of the returning Jews was returning the desecrated synagogue and devastated cemetery to religious use. The anniversary of the return was celebrated as the Purim Vinz; the Purim-Kaddisch featured a merry march to commemorate the joyful return. After this, pogroms virtually ceased in Germany until the rise of the Nazis in the 20th century.

External links

  • http://www.juedischesmuseum.de/judengasse/ehtml/E005.htm
  • http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06237a.htm
  • http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/ferguson.htm
  • http://www.folkworld.de/21/e/toms.html
  • http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Frankfort-on-Main
  • http://www.stadtgeschichte-ffm.de/service/chronik/chronik_2_2_e.html
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK