Bartholomäus Fischenich

Bartholomäus Fischenich based on a photo from the StA Bonn

Bartholomäus Ludwig Fischenich (born August 2, 1768 in Bonn , † July 4, 1831 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer and member of the Prussian Council of State .

Live and act

After graduating from the Montanergymnasium in Cologne , the son of the sexton of St. Remigius studied law in Bonn , first at the University of Cologne and from 1787 at the University of Bonn with Gottfried Daniels . After a year of employment in 1790/1791 as a lay judge at the High Court of the Archbishop of Cologne and Bonn, Fischenich continued his studies in Jena and Leipzig. In Jena he became an advocate of the teachings of Immanuel Kant and also made the acquaintance of Johann Gottfried Herder and above all with Friedrich von Schiller , with whom he had a lifelong friendship. A written correspondence testifies to the lively exchange of their philosophical thoughts.

In 1792 Fischenich was appointed full professor to the chair for natural, international and criminal law at Bonn University, where he was appointed court advisor a year later . During the time of the French occupation of the areas on the left bank of the Rhine , Fischenich was a member of the district administration for the area between Neuss and Andernach from 1794 to 1795, from 1795 a member of the Cologne Upper Tribunal and finally from March to September 1797 a member of the Intermediate Commission. From the latter, Fischenich was deposed by the French because he spoke out vehemently against the establishment of the Cisrhenan Republic . A year later he lost his chair there when the University of Bonn was closed.

After three years of officially looking for a job, Fischenich accepted a position as a law teacher at the Bonn Central School in 1800. After this school was closed in 1802, he switched to the first instance tribunal at the Bonn court as prosecutor . In 1811 Fischenich took over the presidency of the tribunal of the first instance at what was then the Aachen Regional Court , which was responsible for civil law cases in the Aachen arrondissement . In addition, the courts of justice were subordinate to several surrounding cities.

After the French left and Prussia took over the government , Fischenich became a member of the royal Immediat Justice Commission in Cologne in 1816 . In 1819 he was appointed to the Prussian Ministry of Justice as a secret senior judge and at the same time as a secret senior auditor at the Rhenish Auditing and Cassation Court , both in Berlin. Finally, in 1825, he became a member of the Prussian State Council, to which he belonged until his death.

After Fischenich was able to count Ludwig van Beethoven among his close circle of friends in Bonn , a letter that he wrote from Bonn to Charlotte von Schiller in Jena on January 26, 1793 is significant . In it he reported on an encounter with Beethoven - without naming his name - and mentioned that even then he intended to set Schiller's Ode to Joy to music:

"I am enclosing a composition of the fire color, and I wish to hear your judgment on it. It is by a local young man whose musical talents are generally attached boasts, and now the elector to Vienna to Haidn sent. He will also work on Schiller's joy, namely every stanza. I expect something perfect, because as far as I know him, he is entirely for the great and sublime. Haidn reported here "he would give him great operas and soon have to stop composing." Otherwise he would not bother with such trifles as the side dish, which he only made at the request of a lady. "

The ode was not set to music until 1823/24 in the finale of the 9th Symphony .

literature

• Johann Heinrich Hennes: Mementos of Bartholomäus Fischenich mostly from letters from Friedrich von Schiller and Charlotte von Schiller. Cotta, Stuttgart-Tübingen 1841 (digitized version)
• Schiller to Fischenich. A previously unknown letter from 1792. In: Yearbook of the German Schiller Society. Volume 7, 1963, pp. 3-14
• Ulrike Teschner: Bartholomäus Fischenisch. A Rhenish philosopher and lawyer from the Enlightenment period. Röhrscheid, Bonn 1968
• Conrad Varrentrapp :  Fischenich, Bartholomäus Ludwig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 47-49.
• Thomas R. Kraus : On the way to the modern age - Aachen in the French time 1792/93. 1794–1814 , Verlag des Aachener Geschichtsverein , Aachen 1994, ISBN 3-9802705-1-3 ; Pp. 552/553 and a.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Friedrich Schiller to Bartholomäus Fischenich on February 11, 1793 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Friedrich Schiller to Bartholomäus Fischenich on March 20, 1793 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Klaus Martin Kopitz , Rainer Cadenbach (Ed.) U. a .: Beethoven from the point of view of his contemporaries in diaries, letters, poems and memories. Volume 1: Adamberger - Kuffner. Edited by the Beethoven Research Center at the Berlin University of the Arts. Henle, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-87328-120-2 , p. 272 (digitized version)