HECKER, FRIEDRICH FRANZ KARL (181 German revolutionary, was born at Eichtersheim in the Palatinate on Sept. 28, 1811, the son of a revenue official. On entering the Second Chamber of Baden in 1842, he at once began to oppose the government. A speech, denouncing the projected incorpora tion of Schleswig and Holstein with Denmark, delivered in the chamber of Baden on Feb. 6, 1845, spread his fame beyond the limits of his own state, and his popularity was increased by his expulsion from Prussia on the occasion of a journey to Stettin. In 1847 he became president of the Volksverein, where, with Struve, he drew up the Radical programme carried at the Liberal meeting held at Offenburg on Sept. 12, 1847 (entitled "thirteen claims put forward by the people of Baden"). In addition to the Offenburg programme, the Sturmpetition of March I, 1848 de manded further far-reaching concessions. New demands were made at Offenburg on March 19, and Hecker moved a resolution in the preliminary parliament of Frankfort that Germany shoulc be declared a republic.
On April 12, Hecker and Struve sent a proclamation to the in. habitants of the Seekreis and of the Black Forest "to summon the people who can bear arms to Donaueschingen at mid-day on the i4th, with arms, ammunition and provisions for six days." They expected 70,00o men, but only a few thousand appeared. The troops of Baden and Hesse marched against them, under the com mand of General Friedrich von Gagern, and Hecker was defeated at Kandern (April 2o). Hecker escaped to Switzerland, and in Sept. 1848 retired to the United States, where he had a farm near Belleville, (Ill.). During the second rising in Baden in the spring of 1849 he returned, and had got as far as Strasbourg when he had to retreat before the victories of the Prussian troops over the Baden insurgents.
After his return to America he fought in the Civil War as colonel of a regiment which he had himself got together on the Federal side in 1861 and 1864. In a famous festival speech at St. Louis in 1871 he expressed the enthusiasm of the German Ameri cans for their newly-united fatherland. He received a less favour able impression during a journey he made in Germany in 1873. He died at St. Louis on March 24, r 88 i .
Hecker was very much beloved of all the German democrats. The song and the hat named after him (the latter a broad slouch hat with a feather) became famous as the symbols of the middle classes in revolt. In America, too, he won great esteem, not only on political grounds but also for his personal qualities.
Hecker's works are: Die Erhebung des Volkes in Baden fur die deutsche Republik (Baden, 1848) ; and Reden and Vorlesungen (Neer stadt a. d. H., 1872) . See F. v. Weech, Badische Biographien, iv. (1891) ; L. Mathy, Aus dem Nachlasse von K. Matty, Briefe aus den Jahren 1846-1848 (Leipzig, 1898) .