Lot Essay
Karl Ludwig Sand was a German university student and member of the liberal Burschenschaft. He was executed in 1820 for the murder of conservative dramatist August von Kotzebue in 1819 in Mannheim whom he recorded in his diary of 1818 as a 'deceiver of the people' and 'a traitor of the nation'. Sand became a martyr in the eyes of many German nationalists who sought a united German national state.