Histories

Victor is the patriarch of my branch of Buhrs: an outsized figure that none of his grandchildren ever met, although his specter always seemed to hang over every story I ever heard from that branch of the family.  He has always seemed larger than life to me, even though he died more than fifty years before my birth, and one day when I randomly Googled his name an entirely new chapter of his life appeared before me.

A mug shot. (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/306707), with the simple title: Buhr. Victor. 25 ans, né à Cologne (Allemange).  Peintre décorateur. Anarchiste.

The mug shot, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now I wouldn’t exactly call myself fluent in French, but I didn’t really need a translator ro understand the title.  My great grandfather was arrested for being an anarchist?  Who knew?

This opened up a whole world of Google searches.  It turns out that when you Google “Victor Buhr anarchiste” you get a number of hits.

So this is what I know about Victor.

He was born on August 3, 1868, the middle of five children.  His parents, Christian Buhr and Anna Maria Kraemer Buhr, had wed on October 31^st, 1863, in Cologne.  They had three sons (Johann Joseph, b. August 15, 1864; Joseph, b. June 1, 1866; and Victor) and then two daughters (Anna Maria Franziska, b. August 19, 1870; and Maria Elizabeth, b. March 29, 1873). 

I don’t know anything about their childhood, and I’d love to know more.  In contrast to most of the other mug shots in the collection, Victor looks pretty well-fed: did he come from a comfortable background?  He was an artist: did he go to art school?   I haven’t been able to find the answers to these questions.

There was a family story that Christian lost the family’s fortune in a card game, and then Victor became a socialist, wrote a book about it, was kicked out of Germany, and came to the United States.  I have no way to verify the card game story, or when or why he became a socialist, but the book part is true.  He was conscripted into the German army, and wrote a book called “Der Sozialismus in der deutschen Armee,” which he self-published in 1892. 

Socialism was only made legal in Germany in 1890, and in 1891 he was elected chair of the Verein Independent Socialists (VUS) in Berlin.

He moved to Paris after the publication of his book, living at 127 re des Dames.  Despite his mugshot, wasn’t actually a fan of the anarchists.  He was a socialist through and through, but he wanted the anarchists and the socialists to work together.  It was at one of these meetings that he was rounded up, his photo taken, and he was told that he could either be sent back to Germany (where he would have been arrested… about 60 members of the VUS were tried in Magdeburg in 1895) or could go to America.  And so off to America he went, with a few weeks in Liverpool in between.  His mug shot was even put into a border control book, to ensure that he not be allowed back into the country.

He was arrested and expelled on May 8^th, and by June 17^thwas in Southampton, boarding the “City of Paris” steamer.  I wonder if he appreciated the irony of his boat’s name, considering that he’d just been expelled from Paris?  I like to think yes.  He arrived at Ellis Island on June 23^rd.

He married Carolina Bottjer in 1897.  I’m not sure how they met, but I’m guessing through one of her brothers.  They had nine children over the next twenty years, all of whom lived until adulthood.

Bibliography:

http://geschichtevonunten.de/01_sek-lit/regionen/md/T-VUS-v1.11.pdf