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Hutten was buried where he died, on the little island of Ufnau, in the Lake of Zürich, at the foot of the mighty Alps. And some of his old associates put over his grave a commemorative stone. Afterwards, the monks of the abbey of Einsiedein, in Schwytz came to the island and removed the stone, and obliterated all traces of the grave.
There are two small islands in the lake, one of which, with a little chapel rising from among its green trees, is Ufnau, the grave of Ulrich von Hutten, one of the fathers of the German Reformation.
Then Zwingli sent him to a kindly friend, the Pastor Hans Schnegg, who lived on the little Island of Ufnau, in the Lake of Zürich. And here at Ufnau, worn out by his long, double conflict with the Pope and with disease, Ulrich von Hutten died in 1523, at the age of thirty-five. "He left behind him," wrote Zwingli, "nothing of worth. What was the value of this short and troubled life?
It was well that they did so; for now the whole green island of Ufnau is his alone, and it is his worthy sepulcher. For many of the details of the life of Hutten, and for most of the quotations from Hutten's writings given in this paper, the writer is indebted to the excellent memoir by David Friedrich Strauss, entitled "Ulrich von Hutten." "Sehet ihr nicht dasz die Luft der Freiheit weht?"
The monks of Einsiedeln, to whom Ufnau belongs, have carefully obliterated all traces of his grave, so that the exact spot is not known, in order that even a tombstone might be denied him who once strove to overturn their order. It matters little to that bold spirit whose motto was: "The die is cast I have dared it!" the whole island is his monument, if he need one.
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