Johanna Stegen, was a German heroine of the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

.

On 2 April 1813 German troops (made up of the fusiliers and volunteer Jägers

Jäger (military)

Jäger is a term that was adopted in the Enlightenment era in German-speaking states and others influenced by German military practice to describe a kind of light infantry, and it has continued in that use since then....

 of the 1st Pommerschen infantry regiment) clashed with Napoleonic troops near Lüneburg

Lüneburg

Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...

. In the course of the battle, the Prussian regiment risked running out of ammunition and so Johanna rushed ammunition to them in her apron, thus significantly contributing to the Prussian victory. She was glorified soon afterwards in the patriotic poems of Friedrich Rückert

Friedrich Rückert

Friedrich Rückert was a German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages.-Biography:Rückert was born at Schweinfurt and was the eldest son of a lawyer. He was educated at the local Gymnasium and at the universities of Würzburg and Heidelberg. From 1816-1817, he worked on the editorial...

. In 1817 she married the Prussian corporal Wilhelm Hindersin in Berlin - he had recently become royal Oberdrucker in the war ministry. In her memory a young woman dresses as her once a year to clean the war monument in Lüneburg and to tell onlookers of her actions, and streets in Lüneburg and Berlin-Steglitz are still named after her.

Sources

• Life and image on "Bastion in Lüneburg"