All Germans are free. The g. nation is a nation of freemen and German soil does not tolerate servitude. Alien serfs who reside on it are liberated by it.

‘Draft of “The Basic Rights of the German Nation”, Articles I-XII, § 1-48, with amendments pencilled in by Jacob Grimm and an upside-down note in his own hand: “Saalgasse No 19”’ (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Grimm-Nachlass, Nr. 415) [2 x DIN A 5]

The provisional draft of the ‘Basic Rights of the German Nation’ was printed and distributed to the deputies with the right half left blank for them to suggest amendments. Jacob Grimm’s copy, for example, contains a pencilled-in amendment emphasising the centrality of freedom. Freedom, as liberté, had been one of the core demands of the French Revolution and was taken up again by the March Revolution.