What is it about?
This article examines how monies raised by the London-based „Committee for Relieving the Distresses in Germany and Other Parts of the Continent“ (1805–1815) were distributed by local committees, with the city of Erfurt as an example. Due to a lack of source material for the first campaign in 1805–1806 the focus is on the years 1814–1815. Networks of German immigrants within the British and Foreign Bible Society played a pivotal role on both occasions. Outstanding among them was Ernst August Schwabe, minister of one of the German churches in London and a native of Erfurt. The study shows how the transnational relief effort was organized, the way civil societies in London and Erfurt were interlinked through the aid campaign, and why the Erfurt committee of distribution failed in its trans-regional role. The provision of aid illustrates the diverging interests of donors in immediate emergency relief and of recipients in long-term use of the appropriated resources. A large proportion of the aid eventually went into a fund for war orphans, the disbursal of which was, in practice, controlled by the local women’s association.
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Why is it important?
The article illuminates central aspects of the first large-scale transnational humanitarian aid campaign during the Napoleonic wars.
Perspectives
The article provides an in-depth case study within the larger context discussed in Norbert Götz, ‘Rationales of Humanitarianism: The Case of British Relief to Germany, 1805–1815’, Journal of Modern European History 12, no. 2 (2014): 186–99.
Professor Norbert Götz
Södertörn University
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This page is a summary of: Humanitäre Hilfe im Zeitalter Napoleons. Bürgerliche Gesellschaft und transnationale Ressourcen am Beispiel Erfurts, Historische Zeitschrift, October 2017, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/hzhz-2017-0029.
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