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Pictures,
&c.
"BAHN-FREI!"
Turners and their motto.
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BAHN=FREI!
German immigrants brought their traditions to America as
well as their trades. Among the traditions was the Turnverein,
a society or rather club for physical education and exercise.
Turnvereine in the german countries were founded early in
the 19th century as a half-secret paramilitary training
facilities for resistance fighters against the napoleonic
occupation; the Turner trained themselves in running, jumping,
swimming and weight-lifting, but also in martial arts like
fencing, shooting and even bayonnet-fencing.
Turnvereine, from their very beginning, were gathering places
for german radical democrats. Thus, the Turner were a constant
threat for the nobility and ardent fighters for the republic,
they joined and even started many a revolutionary uprising
in all german countries. Their motto "Frisch, Fromm,
Froehlich, Frei" (fresh, pious, merry, free) had its
emphasis on the last word.
In the USA, Turnvereine were founded to meet friends
and talk german (and to celebrate feasts, of course, but
NOT Oktoberfeste until in the very late 19th century), but
in the towns of the midwest and west Turnvereine were often
societies for people's rights and self-defense under the
pressure of militant nativists.
The Turner displayed here is a member of the Cincinnati
Turnverein (1861), one of the biggest and richest societies.
The picture is enlarged from a great group picture, showing
the whole Verein displaying various sports like fencing, wheight-lifting
etc. They also brandish a Union flag and some lift
beer mugs, too. The Turner wear something between a large
blouse and a sportive frock coat, a garment obviously designed
as sportswear. The guns and bayonnets are of a special design,
the bayonnet bearing an inscription BAHN=FREI, the
motto of this Verein. "Clear the way", this means,
a expression used in playing tenpins resp. ninepins, the german
Kegelsport. You throw a heavy ball targeted to topple over
the nine pins, of which the one in the midst is called the
king. A very good sport for republicans.
This picture and so much more was sent to us from Bill
Smith, Cincinnati.
To all of you who give us input and help, lots of thanks!
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