Wilhelm Tell ist das letzte fertiggestellte Drama von Friedrich von Schiller.

Booth thought he was relying on the same right. America’s greatest villain devulged that William Tell was one of his role models for the Lincoln assassination. Nothing illustrates this point as well as John Wilkes Booth’s diary. No doubt Austria would have considered Tell a traitor had it conquered Switzerland. It is perspective, or the outcome of a war, that separates the hero from the villain.

Others defend Tell with the German Widerstandsrecht, or right to resist an oppressive government. But William Tell, lurking in the woods to ambush Gessler, could not claim he was still under direct threat. But as with modern law, these rights permit self-defense only as long as the threat persists. Some scholars defend Tell, relying on the ancient Germanic rights of Notwehr and Selbsthilfe (self-defense and self-help), rooted in Roman law. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, public domain. Gessler is on the horse and Tell in the upper right. “I would have used it to shoot you,” said Tell, “had the first arrow struck my son.” Angered, Gessler had Tell bound and carried to a ship to transport him over Lake Lucerne to a dungeon in Gessler’s castle. But Gessler wanted to know why Tell needed a second arrow. William Tell slipped two arrows out of his quiver, and with the first, shot the apple. He forced Tell in the only manner anyone could ever compell a parent to fire a weapon in his child’s direction: by threatening to kill both if Tell didn’t comply. Because Tell had a reputation as an expert shot with his crossbow, Gessler decided the appropriate punishment would be to have Tell prove his prowess by shooting an apple from his son’s head. William Tell, a resident of a neighboring Swiss town, visited Altdorf in 1307 with his son and refused to take the bow. Gessler erected his hat on a pole on the town square and demanded that the townsfolk venerate him by bowing to his hat. Austria sought to dominate Switzerland in the 14 th century and set up Albrecht Gessler as the Austrian magistrate of the Swiss city Altdorf. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, S. William Tell refuses to bow to Gessler’s hat.

William tell schiller