Page "History of Germany" Paragraph 141

In 1819 a student radical assassinated the reactionary playwright August von Kotzebue, who had scoffed at liberal student organisations.

In one of the few major actions of the German Confederation, Prince Metternich called a conference that issued the repressive Carlsbad Decrees, designed to suppress liberal agitation against the conservative governments of the German states.

The Decrees terminated the fast-fading nationalist fraternities (), removed liberal university professors, and expanded the censorship of the press.

The decrees began the " persecution of the demagogues ", which was directed against individuals who were accused of spreading revolutionary and nationalist ideas.

Among the persecuted were the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt, the publisher Johann Joseph Görres and the " Father of Gymnastics " Ludwig Jahn.