August Grumbrecht

Monument to August Grumbrecht in Hamburg-Harburg

Friedrich Wilhelm August Grumbrecht (born June 21, 1811 in Goslar ; † January 10, 1883 in Harburg ad Elbe , today Hamburg ) was Mayor of Hamburg-Harburg and a member of several German parliaments of the 19th century, including the Frankfurt National Assembly and in the German Reichstag .

Life

August Grumbrecht studied law in Göttingen and Marburg. In Göttingen he became a member of the Old Göttingen Burschenschaft in 1829 and took part in the "Göttingen Uprising" in January 1831.

After graduating, Grumbrecht initially worked as a lawyer in Lüneburg . In May 1848 he was elected for Wendland in the Frankfurt National Assembly, then repeatedly in the Hanover Second Chamber . From 1867 to 1878 he was a member of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation , then of the German Reichstag , where he belonged to the national liberal party and was particularly involved in economic and administrative issues. From 1879 Grumbrecht was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives . From 1855 until his death he also served as mayor of Harburg ad Elbe. In 1871 the city awarded him the title of "Lord Mayor of Harburg". August Grumbrecht died on January 10, 1883 in Harburg.

The Grumbrechtstraße in Hamburg-Heimfeld was named in 1889 after him.

Grumbrecht's style of speaking in the National Assembly in 1848

The leaflets from the Frankfurt National Assembly reported critically on July 1, 1848, of a speech given the day before by the then 37-year-old member of the radical center. The article is an example of the fresh discussion culture of the March Revolution :

“He did not succeed in establishing an essential new point of view; his whole speech was more like a candidate speech, through which one wants to convince and determine the will of the audience. Grumbrecht puts, through the forms of his speech, through his eternal: I am of the opinion, I say, I think, I cannot deny, I am convinced etc., his ego is far too much in the foreground and thereby weakens the impression of his speech by paralyzing pleasure in the thing through displeasure in the person. We were astonished at one of Grumbrecht's comments, because it contained a thought which we would only have given the extreme left to believe. He said something like this: Even if we cannot force a ministry to resign by refusing taxes, etc., they (the ministers) cannot do anything if we have the tribes to us. Nice organization. What should the tribes do in such cases? Refuse to obey the ministers! But that means permanently explaining the revolution. "

- Leaflets from the Frankfurt National Assembly : June 1, 1848, p. 3 (of 4)

Grumbrecht commented in the same newspaper a week later:

“The in No. 6 from 1. d. M.'s criticism of my lecture may be based on itself. If the latter justifies the same, then a defense would be of no use; nor can it be denied that it is impossible for the speaker himself to judge impartially about the nature of his speech forms. Even though I do not see how I aroused such displeasure in my person in the critic, that it paralyzes his liking for the matter (by which what has been said) is paralyzed, but still less as such Displeasure from the forms of speech given, some of which I cannot use at all, I only want to complain that a rather nonsensical assertion has been put into my mouth. According to the stenographic reports, I tried to eliminate the objection - if I am not mistaken, Blum's - that the National Assembly would be too weak in relation to the Central Authority because of the lack of the right to refuse taxes by saying: If only they Meeting with public opinion, with the popular mood in all of Germany, not with that of a province, but with a couple of hundred people in harmony, I have no doubt that it has power to carry out everything it decides. This idea should probably not belong to the extreme left, but rather be directed against it in so far that it takes into account at least the popular mood in one, and indeed the smallest, part of Germany. Here too I would like to say with a famous speaker whom I normally do not dare to stand at the side of: I do not ask that anyone hear my speech if he is otherwise not in the mood, nor that he read it up in the stenographic reports and understands, but that he does not attack me because of statements that I have not made. I expect the fairness of the editorial staff of the leaflets to accept these reclamations. Frankfurt, July 2, 1848. A. Grumbrecht. "

- Supplement to the leaflets from the Frankfurt National Assembly : July 8, 1848, p. 1

In their detailed reply following these statements, the editors state that, according to the first two columns of the shorthand transcript of his speech, Grumbrecht often said “I”, but in view of his sensitivity to this point, the criticism would not have been overlooked. The editors reject Grumbrecht's insistence on the protocol as the only truth: the Paulskirche understood the word “tribes” and not, as it is in the protocol, “popular mood”. In terms of content, however, this does not change much, so the criticism remains. The article closes with the note: "Given the limited space of the leaflets, we will only be able to accept brief reclamations in the future."

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 2: F-H. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0809-X , pp. 194-195.
• Dieter Lent: Grumbrecht, Friedrich Wilhelm August . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hanover 1996, p. 232, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8

Web links

• August Grumbrecht in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Biography of August F Grumbrecht . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kurt Selle : Opposition fraternities in the country of Braunschweig , Wolfenbüttel, 1999, p. 30, online: (PDF; 222 kB)
2. ↑ Wendland-Lexikon , Volume 1, Lüchow 2000, p. 279.
3. ↑ Bernd Haunfelder , Klaus Erich Pollmann : Reichstag of the North German Confederation 1867-1870. Historical photographs and biographical handbook (= photo documents on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 2). Droste, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-5151-3 , photo p. 145, short biography p. 409.