August von Kotzebue

August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue (, ; – ) was a German playwright, who had also worked as a Russian diplomat.

In 1817, one of Kotzebue's books was burned during the Wartburg festival. He was murdered in 1819 by Karl Ludwig Sand, a militant member of the ''Burschenschaften''. This murder gave Metternich the pretext to issue the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819, which dissolved the ''Burschenschaften'', cracked down on the liberal press, and seriously restricted academic freedom in the states of the German Confederation. Provided by Wikipedia