Lux, Adam

Revolutionary

Born: 27.12.1765 in Obernburg am Main

died: 04.11.1793 in Paris

Lux studied in Mainz and obtained his doctorate at the age of 19. He became a tutor to the Dumont merchant family in Mainz, into which he married. He acquired the Donnermühle in Kostheim from his wife's dowry and ran the associated farm in the spirit of Rousseau's "retour à la nature" ("back to nature").

Lux was enthusiastic about the ideas of the French Revolution and joined the Jacobin Club in Mainz. In an effort to make Kostheim a municipality of the French Republic, he organized a referendum on 24.11.1792, in which almost all men entitled to vote voted in favour of annexation. On March 17, 1793, the Rhenish-German National Convention, the parliament of the Mainz Republic based on the French model, convened in Mainz. Lux, who had moved to Mainz in the meantime, was elected as a deputy. On March 21, the deputies had decided to apply to the Convention in Paris for annexation to France. The delegation sent to the French capital for this purpose included Lux, the famous scholar Georg Forster (1754-1794) and the merchant André Patocki. On March 30th, the Convention in Paris unanimously accepted the request of the Mainz deputies. However, it had no effect, as Prussian troops had meanwhile begun the siege of Mainz. This also cut off the delegation's return route to Mainz.

Repulsed by the incipient reign of terror of the Jacobins, Lux turned away from them with an open call for their overthrow. He responded to the execution of Jean-Paul Marat's murderer with the pamphlet "Charlotte Corday", in which he agreed with her political cause. Lux was arrested and, after a short trial, sentenced to death for activities dangerous to the state and executed. His extraordinary life was the inspiration for Stefan Zweig, who memorialized Lux in a drama in ten pictures.