Leiningen cabinet
The Leiningen cabinet was the first Reich Ministry of the Provisional Central Authority of the emerging German Reich . As the search for a prime minister dragged on, Reichsverweser Johann von Österreich appointed the first three Reich ministers on July 15, 1848: Anton von Schmerling as Minister of the Interior and Foreign Minister, Johann Gustav Heckscher as Minister of Justice and Eduard von Peucker as Minister of War.
On August 5th, the Reichsverweser completed his government, including with Karl zu Leiningen as President of the Reich Ministry (Prime Minister). This was preceded by negotiations between the right center, the actual ruling faction, with the left center, which wanted to be appropriately involved. So there was a cabinet reshuffle on August 9, in which Robert von Mohl from the Left Center became Minister of Justice. The right center then had three ministers and five undersecretaries , the left one minister and two undersecretaries. Ministers Leiningen, Peucker and Duckwitz and Undersecretary Biegeleben were not MPs, but they leaned towards the right-wing center. The left and the extreme right of the National Assembly were not represented.
The Reich Ministry resigned on September 6, 1848 after the National Assembly had de facto rejected the Malmö armistice . A new formation under a different Prime Minister did not materialize, so that the cabinet remained in office. Because Leiningen no longer wanted to belong to the (largely unchanged) government, the Schmerling cabinet followed on September 17 .
occurrence
Preliminary meetings
The imperial administrator was not very familiar with the situation in the National Assembly. Even before leaving Vienna for Frankfurt, he thought of two Prussian generals as cabinet ministers, the Prussian commander-in-chief in the war against Denmark Wrangel (as Reich Minister of War) and the former Prussian military plenipotentiary to the Bundestag and now MP Joseph von Radowitz (as Reich Minister of the Navy ). According to his wish, two Austrians in the cabinet would have been the new Austrian Foreign Minister Johann von Wessenberg as Reich Foreign Minister and the Bundestag envoy Anton von Schmerling as Reich Justice Minister . The National Assembly would have rejected the two Prussians as too conservative; with the two Austrians in addition to the imperial administrator, the Habsburg monarchy would have been disproportionately represented. Heinrich von Gagern (at the request of Johann Reich Minister of the Interior) was still considered indispensable as President of the National Assembly. In the coming negotiations about the formation of a cabinet, the Reichsverweser was essentially passive.
Leading members of the right-wing liberal casino faction of the National Assembly met on July 1 (shortly after the election of the Reich Administrator on June 29) to talk about members of the government. Then there were exploratory talks between Heinrich von Gagern, the Rhine Prussians Hermann von Beckerath and Gustav Mevissen as well as Anton von Schmerling. Schmerling was convinced of his own entry into the cabinet, demanded the Ministry of the Interior for Austria and advocated adequate representation of Prussia. He thought of the outside world and war. The other ministries, finance, justice and trade, he considered less important, but important for the moral weight and the representation of members of the National Assembly. They should come from people in the smaller and medium-sized states.
Search for candidates
Beckerath thought the same about Prussia and wanted to see the Foreign Minister as Prime Minister as well. Like the other three participants in the conversation, he wished for Ludolf Camphausen , the Prussian Prime Minister and liberal Rhinelander who had just resigned. Camphausen, who had traveled from Berlin, turned it down after an interview with Gagern on July 13 in Frankfurt. He considered it problematic that the imperial administrator was also acting as the deputy of the Austrian emperor. He had also disliked the fact that the National Assembly had established central power without the participation of the individual states. Just like the submission of the individual states, which is being sought, this will in the longer term cause a conflict with Prussia. According to Camphausen, Gagern should become Prime Minister and Foreign Minister himself, since the majority in the National Assembly had carried him up. He also rejected Gagern's proposal to become minister in a Gagern cabinet.
The Prussian king promised the imperial administrator in a letter that he would try to change Camphausen's mind. Prussian circles assumed that Gagern would be needed as president and only the respected Beckerath could be considered as prime minister (who, however, refused, but later became finance minister). In Frankfurt, it became clear that Schmerling would become Minister of the Interior, Arnold Duckwitz from Bremen would be Minister of Commerce and Karl Mathy from Baden would be Minister of Finance. For the judiciary, people thought of Johann Gustav Heckscher from an early age .
General Wrangel was known as a veteran of the military and his colleague Schreckenstein had recently been appointed Prussian Minister of War. So the choice fell on Eduard von Peucker , Prussian major general and last military representative at the Bundestag. Peucker received the approval of his ministerial office from his king and had been assured by the imperial administrator that the regional war ministers should not be made subordinates of the imperial war minister.
The cabinet should have six departments, although it was clear that three ministers would have been enough. A minister of war was needed, internal and external matters could be dealt with together, as Schmerling (and later Gagern) proved, as could finance and trade. The judiciary was still a matter of state. Under-secretaries came to the ministers as deputy ministers. In this way, the parliamentary groups could be better considered in terms of personnel. The War Ministry took over the employees of the former military commission at the Bundestag, otherwise the ministries had only a few qualified employees. By the beginning of 1849 there were four times as many.
Three-person interim cabinet
On Schmerling's advice, the Reichsverweser decided to form at least an interim cabinet soon, even before he left for Vienna to open the Reichstag there. On July 14, he appointed Schmerling Minister of the Interior and Foreign Minister, Heckscher Minister of Justice and Peucker Minister of War. The certificates of appointment were issued for July 15 and were countersigned by a different minister.
The MPs Schmerling and Heckscher assumed that they could only be ministers as long as they knew the confidence of the majority of the National Assembly behind them. On the evening of July 14th, the Casino Group unanimously expressed its confidence in them. This was not expressly required by the Central Power Act, but there was no power base for the ministers outside of parliament. On July 15, a message from the Reich Administrator was read out to the National Assembly, after which Heckscher and Schmerling spoke, with Schmerling presenting a kind of general, preliminary government program.
Schmerling had received an order from the Reich Administrator to look for further ministerial candidates. Prussia was annoyed by some circumstances in Frankfurt (such as the homage decree ) and withdrew its offer to look for a suitable Prussian personality. At the end of July, Prime Minister Baron Christian Friedrich von Stockmar , former Federal Envoy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Foreign Minister Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen , the Prussian envoy in London , were in discussion .
Stockmar had previously rejected the Foreign Ministry on grounds of age; the politician experienced at court thought that through his and Bunsen's mediation, Prussia could still take the lead in the reorganization of Germany, despite all the upsets between Frankfurt and Berlin. He only wanted to become Prime Minister if his friend Bunsen became Foreign Minister. Bunsen was initially interested, but canceled after experiencing the frosty attitude in Berlin.
Stockmar recommended Schmerling to Prince Karl zu Leiningen . On August 4th, the previous ministers, leaders of the casino and Gagern met in the headquarters of the central authority, the former Bundestag palace. They agreed on Leiningen, who, after a long refusal, made himself available as Prime Minister. In the evening they agreed on the Undersecretaries of State. The Reichsverweser, who had already returned from Vienna, accepted Schmerling's cabinet list with almost no change and the next day appointed the ministers and undersecretaries (two each in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and two in the Ministry of the Interior, one in the Ministry of Finance). Karl zu Leiningen became Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.
cabinet
| Office | image | Surname | fraction | Undersecretary of State | fraction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leading Reich Minister |
 |
until August 5, 1848: Anton von Schmerling (1805-1893) |
|||
| Reich Minister President |
 |
from August 5, 1848: Karl zu Leiningen (1804–1856) |
|||
| Reich Minister of the Interior |
|
Anton von Schmerling (1805-1893) |
from August 5, 1848: Friedrich Bassermann |
Casino | |
| Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs |
|
Anton von Schmerling from August 5, 1848: Karl zu Leiningen from August 9, 1848: Johann Gustav Heckscher |
from August 5, 1848: Maximilian Freiherr von Gagern from August 9, 1848: Ludwig von Biegeleben |
||
| Reich Minister of War |
 |
Eduard von Peucker (1791–1876) |
|||
| Reich Minister of Justice |
 |
Johann Gustav Heckscher (1797–1865) until August 9, 1848 from August 9, 1848: Robert von Mohl |
Casino Württemberger Hof |
from August 9, 1848: Christian Widenmann |
|
| Reich Minister of Finance |
 |
from August 5, 1848: Hermann von Beckerath (1801–1870) |
Casino |
from August 5, 1848: Karl Mathy |
|
| Reich Minister of Commerce |
 |
from August 5, 1848: Arnold Duckwitz (1802–1881) |
from August 5, 1848: Gustav Mevissen to September 5, 1848 from August 9, 1848: Johannes Fallati |
Casino |
Changes
Coalition negotiations with the left center
As early as the end of July, the right center had tried to involve members of the left center ( Württemberger Hof ). This should give the cabinet a broader parliamentary base. The right center felt strong enough to be able to fob off the left with three undersecretaries ( Robert von Mohl in the Ministry of the Interior, Johannes Fallati in the Ministry of Commerce and Christian Widenmann in the Ministry of Justice). In return, it accepted that the Undersecretaries of State were given full voting rights in the entire Reich Ministry. Leiningen and Justice Minister Heckscher suddenly contradicted this, because then the undersecretaries would have had the majority (seven versus six ministers), although only the ministers had political responsibility.
For a short time it was thought of forming an additional ministry (with two undersecretaries) for a minister from the Württemberg court. It would have been obvious, however, that there were no factual reasons for this, only the proportion of personnel that was decisive. The solution then consisted in letting Leiningen officiate only as Prime Minister instead. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs went to Heckscher, as he had longed for, so that the Ministry of Justice became free for a Minister Mohl from the Württemberger Hof. Fallati and Wiedenmann became undersecretaries in other ministries as planned. As Undersecretary of State, Mevissen moved from the foreign to the trade department, so that a position in the foreign ministry became available for Ludwig von Biegeleben , a diplomat from the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Schmerling submitted a corresponding cabinet list to the Reichsverweser, which the Reichsverweser followed. On August 9, the members of the entire Reich Ministry received their formal appointment.
September crisis
Resignation of the cabinet on September 6th
The Armistice of Malmö in August 1848 between Denmark and Prussia aroused the tempers in the National Assembly, which had already made support for the German speakers in Schleswig and Holstein a question of national honor in June. The cabinet decided with a heavy heart to accept the armistice. Should the National Assembly refuse, it will resign. Should it come to that, resignation would at least make the immediate execution of decisions of the National Assembly impossible. Despite a warning from Reich Interior Minister Schmerling shortly before the vote on September 5, 1848, 238 versus 221 MPs spoke out in favor of rejecting the armistice (more precisely: suspending the implementation of the armistice conditions, i.e. postponing, which amounted to a rejection). The left and the left center, with the exception of its three cabinet members, among others, had voted with the majority, whereas the majority of the right center and the Prussian-minded of the right voted.
That same evening the entire Cabinet went to see the Reich Administrator to request her release. Archduke Johann initially expressed this verbally and at the same time asked for the management of the company until a new government took office. The Reichsverweser acted in the interests of the parliamentary system, because the Central Power Act would not have opposed a minority government. He commissioned Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann , the spokesman for the majority of the day, to form a new government. The next day the cabinet informed the National Assembly that it would no longer take any action with political consequences.
New recording on September 17th
Dahlmann, with his purely negative random majority of controversial forces, gave his order back to the Reich Administrator on September 9th. Even Friedrich von Hermann from the left center failed to form a coalition. Heikaus: "The parliamentary system had completely failed in its first serious test. It was neither suitable as a means of forcing executive action nor capable of forming a politically capable government."
On September 16, the National Assembly finally accepted the armistice and the old majority was restored. Because of the outbreak of September unrest in Frankfurt, an executive branch capable of acting was needed quickly. On September 17, the Reichsverweser reappointed the cabinet. Leiningen and Mevissen (who switched to business) had announced shortly after their resignation that they did not want to belong to a new cabinet, Heckscher was not considered again against his own will; an unwise, opinionated behavior in the National Assembly was accused of his. A new prime minister was not formally appointed; Schmerling headed the Council of Ministers de facto on the basis of an internal agreement. The Schmerling cabinet received its official appointment on September 24th.
See also
literature
- Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). Dissertation . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1997.
supporting documents
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 84/85.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, p. 52/53, p. 122, fn. 277.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 53-55.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 56-59.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, p. 82.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 59-61.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 63/64.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 66-68.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 61-63.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 64/65.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 65/66.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, p. 72.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 73-75.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 76/77.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 82/83.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 83-85.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 220/221.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 222/223.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 223/224.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 226/227.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 228-231, footnote 549.
- ^ Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848). 1997, pp. 231/232.
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