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May 18 in German History
--------------------------------- May 18, 1616
Birth of Johann Jakob Froberger in
Stuttgart, Germany. Froberger was an outstanding composer of
the early Baroque period. He composed at the court of Vienna
from 1641-1645 and from 1653-1657). He composed primarily for
the harpsichord and organ.
May 18, 1782
Birth of Adolf von Lützow in Berlin,
Germany. After Napoleon had defeated Prussia, Lützow
organized a cavalry numbering over 3, 000 troops (the
Lützowsche Freikorps) which operated in guerrilla fashion
behind French lines. His corps continued activity until the
final defeat of Napoleon.
May 18, 1797
Birth of Friedrich Augustus II, king of
Saxony, in Dresden, Germany. Friedrich Augustus had granted a
certain degree of democratic reform in Saxony prior to 1848.
However, he felt that the constitution adopted by the
Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 went too far and refused to
support it. As a result he experienced a revolt among his own
people in 1849 which he was able to put down only with the
help of Prussian troops.
May 18, 1824
Birth of Wilhelm Hofmeister in Leipzig,
Germany. Hofmeister was a botanist who was a pioneer in
comparative plant morphology. He was a professor at the
University of Tübingen. His most important work is found in Vergleichende
Untersuchungen (1851).
May 18, 1848
Opening of Germany's first parliament at
the Church of St. Paul in Frankfurt. The parliament is
constituted to have 649 members but is never able to achieve
the full number. On the average 400 to 450 delegates attend
sessions. The parliament developed as a result of the
revolutions in the winter of 1848.
May 18, 1876
Birth of Hermann Müller in Mannheim,
Germany. Müller was a member of the SPD who served twice as
chancellor during the Weimar Republic. He was able to
negotiate the Young Plan which somewhat reduced the
reparations demanded by the Versailles Treaty. He resigned as
chancellor in 1930, unable to deal with the disastrous
effects of the depression.
May 18, 1883

Birth of Walter Gropius (1883-1969) in Berlin, Germany.
An architect who was director of the Bauhaus in Weimar and
Dessau from 1919-1928 Gropius designed buildings at the
Bauhaus complex in Dessau, The Harvard University Graduate
Center ant the U. S. Embassy in Athens. Gropius studied in
Munich and Berlin. He pioneered the prefabrication of
building components. During World War I he served with the
German cavalry. In 1915 he married Alma Schindler, who at
various times also married several other European notables
including Gustav Mahler and Franz Werfel. Gropius left
Germany in 1934 and in 1937 accepted a position at Harvard
University in the United States.
May 18, 1891
Birth of Rudolf Carnap in Ronsdorf,
Germany. Carnap was a philosopher within the school of
logical positivism. He studied at the universities of Jena
and Freiburg. His academic career began at the University of
Vienna where he was very influential in the "Vienna
Circle" of philosophers. He became interested in the
philosophy of science and in 1930 he founded, with Hans
Reichenbach in Berlin, the journal "Erkenntnis".
Among his books are, Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928),
Logische Syntax der Sprache (1934), Meaning and
Necessity (1947), and Logical Foundations of
Probability (1950). In 1936 he immigrated to the United
States and taught at the University of Chicago. In 1952 he
joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and in
1954 the University of California at Los Angeles.
May 18, 1911
Death of Gustav Mahler in Vienna.
May 18, 1912
Death of Eduard Adolf Strasburger in Bonn. Strasburger, a plant cytologist, earned his
doctorate at the University of Jena. He taught at the
universities of Warsaw, Jena and Bonn. Strasburger developed
an accurate understanding of the embryonic sac in gymnosperms
and angiosperms. In his Über Zellbildung und Zelltheilung
he developed the principles of mitosis and showed also
that nuclei can arise only from the division of other nuclei.
In 1882 he coined the terms "cytoplasm" and
"nucleoplasm". He discovered that the rise of sap
is a physical rather than physiological process.
May 18, 1917
In the United States the Selective Service
Act is passed to raise the army needed to participate in WWI.
May 18, 1917
Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (later to become
Pope Pius XII) undertakes his first trip to Germany as
ambassador of the Vatican. He will take up a residence in
Munich.
May 18, 1918,
Death of Blessed Blandina (1883
1918) Blandina is the name chosen upon her entry into the
Ursulan order by Maria Magdalena Merten. She was born in the
village of Düppenweiler, Germany in 1833. She entered the
Ursulan order in 1908 and took her final vows in 1913. She
was active as a teacher in Saarbrücken and Trier. She
contracted tuberculoses in 1916 and died of the disease in
1918 in the convent in Trier. During her lifetime she was
noted for her great piety. During her illness she was noted
for her deep faith and patience. She was beatified by Pope
John Paul II on November 1, 1987. Her day of remembrance in
the Church is May 18.
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