Albert von Bennigsen-Foerder

Albert von Bennigsen-Foerder , complete Albert Friedrich Gustav Karl von Bennigsen-Foerder (born April 9, 1838 in Salzwedel , † February 1, 1886 in Berlin ) was a Prussian landowner and administrative officer.

Life

Albert of Benningsen came from the line Bennigsen-Foerder of the noble family of Bennigsen. He was the third child of the mayor of the same name of Salzwedel Albert von Bennigsen-Foerder (1800–1847) and his wife Mathilde nee. Thorwirth (1818-1874).

He received his education at the high school in Salzwedel, the Francisceum Zerbst and the Stephaneum (Realgymnasium) in Aschersleben . He studied law at the Georg-August University in Göttingen and became active in the Corps Saxonia Göttingen at Easter 1857 . It was reciprocated on February 8, 1858, and inactivated at Easter 1859 . His attempts to manage the estate, first on the maternal estate of Plate in the Altmark until 1864 and on Striche, Birnbaum district , until 1875, both failed. In 1875 he entered the Prussian administrative service. At the end of May 1875 he began his career in the district office for the Stormarn district in Wandsbek . In 1875/76 he was briefly representative of the sick Hardesvogt in Kappeln . First provisional, then in 1877 he became parish bailiff in Reinbek . During this time he became acquainted with Otto von Bismarck , who lived in nearby Friedrichsruh . Bismarck promised himself a connection to and influence on his cousin Rudolf von Bennigsen by sponsoring Bennigsen-Foerder . He also saw it as a suitable tool to promote the Borussification of the district and to remove the remaining influence of the knighthood and landscape of the duchy.

So Bismarck made sure that the principled Lauenburg district administrator Andreas von Bernstorff , as squire of Stintenburg himself part of the knighthood, was specially transferred to Berlin and Bennigsen-Foerder was his successor in June 1880 as district administrator of the Duchy of Lauenburg . Bennigsen-Foerder initially administered the office on a provisional basis; in July 1881 he received his regular appointment. Another goal of filling the position with him was an attempt by Bismarck to influence the Reichstag election in 1881 in the constituency of Schleswig-Holstein 10 (Duchy of Lauenburg), his home constituency, in the interests of the conservatives. The plan "by means of an inadequately staged intrigue" to discredit the most important representative of the liberals in the district, the chamber councilor and member of the landscape college Heinrich Berling , with the help of an officious leaflet by the district administrator and false reports distributed to the press in order to discredit Karl von Schrader , A friend of the Bismarck family and a corps brother of Herbert von Bismarck , helping to secure a seat in the Reichstag ended in a scandal. In fact, the liberal candidate August Westphal was elected with a large majority . Bennigsen-Foerder, who personally appeared in the liberal stronghold of Lauenburg (Elbe) on election day to intimidate voters, faced several legal proceedings before the Lübeck district court . The public insult that Bertling had initiated ended out of court after Bennigsen-Foerder made a declaration of honor. Because of the events in Lauenburg, he was sentenced to three months in prison, which was converted into a fine.

The events became the subject of debates in the Reichstag on December 15, 1881 and January 24, 1882 . In addition to the impairment of the freedom of choice, it was also about the political officials and the neutrality of the district administrators in elections.

“The Reichstag elections on October 27, 1881 can claim the sad fame of having seen the most intensive use of the state power apparatus in favor of the government of acceptable candidates. Within these efforts, the Bennigsen-Foerder case represents the climax - and thus also the turning point. "

- Hans Fenske : The district administrator as election maker , p. 574

Bennigsen-Foerder was transferred to the prison administration of the Posen Province on January 28, 1882 . His successor as district administrator was Oskar von Dolega-Kozierowski . Bennigsen-Foerder was director of the penal institution in Luckau in Brandenburg and, from 1885, director of the governor's prison on Molkenmarkt in Berlin. The following year he died at the same age as his father.

He was married to Klara Julie born on April 20, 1868. von Tresckow (* 1847) from Kade. Of the six underage children at his death, Gertrud (* 1872) became one of the first trade inspectors in Prussia in 1901. Through the youngest son Rudolf Johann Alexander von Bennigsen-Foerder (* 1879 in Reinbek), who became a lawyer and in-house counsel at Borsig in Berlin, he was the grandfather of Rudolf von Bennigsen-Foerder .

literature

• Hans Fenske : The district administrator as an election maker. A case study on the Reichstag elections of 1881. In: Prussianism and Liberalism. Essays on Prussian and German history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Edited by Hermann Joseph Hiery, Röll, Dettelbach 2002, ISBN 3-89754-196-3 , pp. 561–579 (first in: Die Verwaltung 12 (1979), pp. 433–456)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Family details according to Marcelli Janecki : Handbuch des Prussischen Adels , Vol. 2, Berlin 1893, pp. 58f.
2. ↑ Kösener corps lists 1910, 85/178
3. ↑ ^{a b} Wolfgang von der Groeben : Directory of the members of the Corps Saxonia zu Göttingen 1844 to 2006 , No. 174, p. 23
4. ↑ Fenske (Lit.), p. 568
5. ^ Tobias C. Bringmann : Reichstag and duel. The duel question as an internal political conflict in the empire 1871–1918. Freiburg 1996, ISBN 3-8107-2249-9 , p. 156
6. ↑ Fenske (Lit.), p. 571
7. ↑ Protocol
8. ↑ For more details see Fenske
9. ^ Cf. Michael Karl: Factory inspectors in Prussia: The staff of the trade supervisory authority 1845-1945. Professionalization, bureaucratisation and group profile. (= Studies in Social Science 126) Heidelberg: Springer 2013 ISBN 9783322935991 , p. 249f.