Karl Ludwig Sand

March 23, 1819: Karl-Ludwig Sand murdered August von Kotzebue, a playwright in the service of the Russian government, because of his criticism of the student associations and their nationalist yearnings. The idealization of Sand, who was beheaded in 1820, shows just how widespread the disaffection with the reactionary "Metternich System" was. Fragments of his scaffold were venerated like relics, lithographs depicting the stations of his life and numerous portraits expressed utter repudiation of the German Confederation's policies of repression.