Florian Geyer

Florian Geyer (1490-1525) was a Franconian nobleman who led the Black Company during the Peasants War in Germany in the 16th century. He was identified as precurser of the vanguard of the proletariat in Frederick Engels, The Peasant War in Germany (1850). He was also the problemmatic hero of one of Gerhart Hauptmann's major plays, the historical drama Florian Geyer, published in 1896, *[1], and the inspiration for the German folk song, "Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen" ("We are the Black Band of Geyer"), which has been adopted by the international Marxist labor movement as a rousing union anthem. *[2] As one of the few German historical figures identifiable with the national history of Germany, and not merely of a principality or region of the country, Geyer attracted the attention of Hitler and the National Socialist Party. As a result, during World War II, the 8th SS Cavalry Division was named after him. The family of Florian Geyer died off in the early 1700s and the original Geyer castle, in Giebelstadt, passed into other hands, but is still the site of an annual "Florian Geier Festspiele".

See also

Geier

External Sources

• [3] is a history of Giebelstadt and the noble Geyer family

• [4] is the German Wikipedia article on Florian Geyer