Gottfried Achenwall

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Gottfried Achenwall (born October 20, 1719 in Elbing ; † May 1, 1772 in Göttingen ) was a German historian and lawyer during the Enlightenment . He is considered a representative of natural law ideas and the German founder of statistics , which he elevated to a science of its own.

His life

Göttingen memorial plaque for Gottfried Achenwall

Gottfried Achenwall was born in Elbing, West Prussia (today Elbląg, Poland) as the son of a businessman. He studied in Jena from 1738 , then in Halle (where he met Johann Stephan Pütter ), then again in Jena and finally in Leipzig and completed his political studies. From 1743 to 1746 he worked as court master in Dresden until he received his master's degree from the philosophy faculty in Leipzig in 1746. Then Achenwall read history , statistics , natural law and international law as a private lecturer in Marburg until he moved to Göttingen in 1748 , where, thanks to Putter's help, he first worked as a paid lecturer and then as an associate professor in the philosophical faculty. From 1751 he was an extraordinary member of the " Societät der Wissenschaften " until he resigned in 1762. In 1753 he became associate professor of the law and full professor of the philosophical faculty. From 1751 to 1763 he was an extraordinary member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

In 1761 Achenwall became a full professor of natural law and politics and in 1762 a doctor of both rights (Schröder, p. 348). During his academic career he taught natural law, public law , international law , history , statistics and politics, including finance and cameral affairs. (The claim sometimes made that Achenwall was the first professor to give his lectures in German instead of Latin is not true).

Since Achenwall was appointed court advisor to the British and Kur-Braunschweig-Lüneburg Crown in 1765 , he traveled to Switzerland and France (1751) and to Holland and England (1759) (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Volume 1, p. 30).

He was (like Pütter; see above) a member of the Masonic lodge "To the three lions" in Marburg, founded in 1743 .

Achenwall was married three times. First with the poet Sophie Eleonore Walther , who died of puerperal fever in 1754 after two years of marriage. After her death he married Luise Moser, daughter of the constitutional lawyer Johann Jacob Moser , who died in 1762. Achenwall's third marriage was to Sophie, a daughter of the secret chamber councilor Jaeger from Gotha . He had a total of five children from all three marriages.

Achenwall died in 1772 of complications from pneumonia.

His work

Achenwall may not have been the inventor of the term “ statistics ” (as often mistakenly claimed), but based on the works of Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626–1692) and Hermann Conring (1606–1681) (Schröder, p. 350 ), the statistics given a scientific character with his work “Outline of the newest political science of the most distinguished European empires and republics” from 1749, which appeared in the following editions since 1752 as “State constitution of the European empires in outline” (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Volume 1 , P. 30). Achenwall is considered to be one of the fathers of statistics because he made it a science of its own. Of course, he did not understand statistics as what is understood by this term today, but rather a comprehensive description of the social, political and economic characteristics of a state (see Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia) by referring to certain headings with “Reliability and security in picking out the essentials "Stated what is worth knowing about a state, so that Achenwall's statistical works" rise from mere collections of notes to scientific works "(Landsberg, p. 354).

Other works by Achenwall are the “Elementa iuris naturae” from 1750, initially developed together with Pütter, as well as “Principles of European history, for the political knowledge of today's most distinguished states” from 1754 (the second edition from 1759 appeared under the title “Geschichte der today's most distinguished states in the outline ")," Draft of the more general European state trades of the 17th and 18th centuries "from 1756," State wisdom according to its first principles "from 1761 and his no longer completed in 1775" Juris gentium Europaei practici primae lineae " . The "Elementa iuris naturae" achieved widespread use at Protestant universities in Germany.

Honors and souvenirs

In Göttingen there has been a Göttingen memorial plaque since 1874 , which is attached to his Göttingen house at Goetheallee 13, in which he lived with Pütter from 1755 to 1764.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elbing, West Prussia, Earth Description of the Prussian Monarchy, Friedr. Gottlob Leonhardi 1791
  2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 23.
  3. ^ Zahn, Friedrich; Meier, Ernst, "Achenwall, Gottfried" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 1 (1953), pp. 32–33 [online version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118643657.html#ndbcontent
  4. ↑ Gottfried Achenwall: Outline of the newest political science of the noblest European empires and republics. Schmidt, Göttingen 1749. Digitized and full text in the German text archive
  5. ^ Walter Nissen: Göttingen memorial tablets. Göttingen 1962, p. 17.

literature

  • Emil Steffenhagen :  Achenwall, Gottfried . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 30.
  • Friedrich Zahn †, Ernst Meier:  Achenwall, Gottfried. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 32 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia: “Achenwall, Gottfried”, Columbia University Press, 6th Edition, 2005, also at < http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Achenwall,+Gottfried >.
  • Hruschka, Joachim: "The deontological hexagon with Gottfried Achenwall in 1767", Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-525-86222-9 .
  • Landsberg, Ernst: "History of German Law" (Third Division), published by R. Oldenburg, Munich and Leipzig, 1898; Unchanged reprint by Scientia Verlag, Aalen, 1957.
  • Schröder, Jan: "Gottfried Achenwall, Johann Stephan Pütter and the" Elementa Iuris Naturae "", in: Gottfried Achenwall and Johann Stephan Pütter, "Beginnings of natural law (Elementa Iuris Naturae)" (edited and translated by Jan Schröder), Insel Verlag , Frankfurt a. M. and Leipzig, 1995.
  • Paul Streidl: "Natural law, political science and politicization with Gottfried Achenwall (1719–1772)", Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-8316-0216-6 .
  • Wolfgang Rother : Gottfried Achenwall . In: Helmut Holzhey, Vilem Mudroch (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy, The philosophy of the 18th century , Vol. 5: Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Switzerland, Northern and Eastern Europe . Schwabe, Basel 2014, pp. 642–647 (literature: p. 707), ISBN 978-3-7965-2631-2 .

Web links

Wikisource: Gottfried Achenwall  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Achenwall, Gottfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1719
PLACE OF BIRTH Elblag
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1772
Place of death Goettingen