Carl Eckhard

Carl Maria Joseph Eckhard (born March 13, 1822 in Krenking Castle in Engen , † August 30, 1910 in Mannheim ) was a Baden lawyer, businessman and politician. He began his career as a civil servant in Donaueschingen , where he was in close contact with the Prince of Fürstenberg . In the course of the Baden Revolution , he moved to the so-called Lake District Government in Constance , whereupon he was suspended from civil service. He then settled in Offenburg as a lawyer in 1856 , where he became a member of the local council and, as a national liberal member, was a member of the Baden state parliament from 1861 and of the Reichstag from 1871 . From 1870 he lived in Mannheim and was involved in the founding of several banks, above all the Rheinische Kreditbank . He was a member of the supervisory boards of numerous banks and companies, including the Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik , was a partner in several weaving mills and the Lampertsmühle, and held numerous honorary positions.

Life

Origin and early years with the Prince of Fürstenberg

Carl Eckhard was the son of the Princely-Fürstenberg Oberamtmann Carl Friedrich Eckhard and Anna Maria Clavel and was born in the Krenkinger Castle in Engen, which served the father as an official residence. He first attended the elementary school in Engen, then from 1833 to 1839 the Lyceum in Constance. From the autumn of 1839 he studied law in Freiburg im Breisgau , where he lived with his sister Sophie, who was ten years his senior. During his studies in 1840 he became a member of the Euthymia Freiburg fraternity . In 1843 he studied another six months in Heidelberg and then returned to Engen. After describing himself as a poor pupil and student, he mainly occupied himself with self-study in order to prepare for the state examination. He passed his exam in Karlsruhe in spring 1845 and was then accepted into the Baden civil service. After a short time as a trainee at the Engen district office , on April 1, 1845, he was employed as an actuary at the Donaueschingen district office . There he was a frequent guest at the court and took an active part in social life. On March 1, 1846, he moved to Hüfingen as a legal intern , but was still able to take part in social life in Donaueschingen due to the close proximity. Among his acquaintances were Karl Egon II zu Fürstenberg and his wife, as well as the descendants Karl , Max, Emil, Elisabeth and Pauline. Through his acquaintance with the court conductor Jan Václav Kalivoda and his children, Eckhard was trained in singing and therefore also appeared as a singer at social events. Accompanied by the royal-Fürstenberg court orchestra, he sang z. For example, the role of Tell in Rossini's play of the same name during the Federal Singing Festival in Schaffhausen in 1846. The performance was so successful that it was repeated a little later at the Donaueschingen court. At the Fürstenberg court, Eckhard also made the closer acquaintance of the siblings Maria and Teresa Milanollo, who became known as violinists . Carl Eckhard appreciated the advantages of court life, but also saw envy and intrigue in many cases, so that he decided not to accept a possible call to court service, but to remain in the civil service.

Baden Revolution

While Donaueschingen was quiet with its courtly society, in Hüfingen there was already political resentment in the early 1840s. Eckhard, who had friends at court as well as in the revolutionary people's associations, tried to find a middle way for himself. When it came to the first popular assemblies near Donaueschingen, he was therefore also present as an advisor to the prince and advised against escalation caused by armed princely hunters and foresters. The meetings ended peacefully.

In the late year 1848 Eckhard became administrative administrator for the office in Hüfingen, since his predecessor had been transferred to Radolfzell. When, in the further course of the Baden Revolution in 1849, imperial troops were quartered against Friedrich Hecker , who was active in the Lake Constance area , Eckhard again behaved moderately.

In May 1849 he was appointed by Lorenz Brentano to the so-called Maritime District Government in Constance . There he shared an office with his former fellow student and current provisional councilor Gustav von Rotteck and was entrusted with the conditions of the church and parsonage buildings, especially with the start of construction work on the Konstanz Minster. Eckhard saw himself as an administrative officer in the lake district government and maintained contacts with both the revolutionary and the conservative camp.

After the end of the revolution in July 1849, he was told that a return to his previous civil service was out of the question and that he might feel the discontent of the Prussian troops, so that he went to Emmishofen in Switzerland, which was safe from further persecution. From there he came to Feuerthalen via St. Gallen and Trogen . Disgusted by the exaggerated descriptions of the revolution by the other refugees from Baden, Eckhard returned to Baden on August 5, 1849 at his own initiative. First to Freiburg, where his father lived in the meantime, then to Konstanz, where the government councilor Eisenlohr had ordered him and where he was arrested on August 24, 1849. He was released from prison in early September 1849. After a judicial investigation, he was suspended from civil service in 1850, even though he was acquitted of the charge of high treason. Because of the legal costs imposed on him, Eckhard went into revision in May 1851, which was granted.

Lawyer and entrepreneur in Mannheim and Offenburg

Through the mediation of his cousin Friedrich von Engelberg, he became his successor in October 1849 as an assistant to the higher court attorney Dr. Bertheau in Mannheim . In Mannheim he quickly made the acquaintance of Johann Philipp Zeller , who at that time still appeared as a dialect poet, but later founded the Mannheimer Altertumsverein . Otherwise, the early Mannheim time represented a low point in Eckhard's life. He, who was in social life in Donaueschingen, was lonely in Mannheim with only a few friends, and also had an uncertain future, as the judgment had not yet been made because of his participation in the lake district government had fallen. Only slowly did a larger circle of friends appear again, including the Röchling family, in whose house Eckhard sang older church choirs in a double-cast quartet under the direction of Kapellmeister Ludwig Hetsch .

After the process and the revision were completed, he made a first unsuccessful attempt to return to civil service in October 1851. Further attempts followed. In 1854 he was appointed trainee lawyer on the basis of his certificates, with the passing of a second state examination. At that time Eckhard had already decided to practice as a lawyer. Originally he wanted to settle in Mannheim, which he was denied. In February 1856 he was finally admitted to the bar in Offenburg .

On May 24, 1856, he married Fanny Röchling, and after a short honeymoon in Holland, the couple moved to Eckhard's new place of work, Offenburg. Three lawyers were already admitted there, so that Eckhard and his wife initially lived in very modest circumstances, to which they, however, knew how to adapt. After the death of Offenburg's mayor Wiedemer in 1859, Eckhard surprisingly moved into the group of candidates for the office, since the citizens hoped that the recently immigrant would have an impartial influence on the traditional family and party system. On January 26, 1860, Eckhard was elected mayor of Offenburg by the large committee, but turned down the office because he primarily wanted to devote himself to his professional tasks. Instead, he was a member of the Offenburg City Council for eight years.

While still in Offenburg, he was involved in the founding of the Offenburg spinning and weaving mill, and chaired its board of directors for many years. In 1869 he founded the Kollnau cotton spinning and weaving mill, where he also chaired the supervisory board.

Member of the Landtag and Reichstag

From 1861 to 1863 Eckhard was a member of the Offenburg electoral district in the Baden state parliament for the first time . There and through his work in Offenburg, he made the acquaintance of influential personalities. These included the wine merchants Karl and Joseph Hebting as well as their civil servant brother Sales, the factory owner Paul Tritscheller , the Freiburg mayor Eduard Fauler and the Baden ministers Franz von Roggenbach and August Lamey . Due to his parliamentary engagement, he had little time left for his professional affairs, which included a comprehensive report on the Police Criminal Law. In 1863 he resigned from the Baden Chamber of Estates and proposed Roggenbach as his successor, who was then also elected.

In 1864 a district court was set up in Offenburg, whereupon a large number of officials took up residence in the city. These included numerous former companions of Eckhard, including Gustav von Rotteck, the court president Bohn and Wilhelm Gerbel, whom Eckhard knew from Mannheim. Once again through shared musical passions, Eckhard made friends with public prosecutor Friedrich Kiefer and senior public prosecutor Haaß, who lived in the same house as Eckhard. His friends urged him to run again, so that he again belonged to the state parliament for the Freiburg constituency from 1865, where he was elected second vice-president from 1865 to 1870 and first vice-president in 1871/72.

During his time as a parliamentarian, Eckhard was one of the founders of the National Liberal Party in Baden, which he also chaired for a time. He campaigned for the administrative organization, the reorganization of the police criminal law and the police criminal procedure, the school legislation, the foundation law, laws to improve trade and customs and the expansion of the railway network. At that time he was offered a higher civil service position again, which he refused. Later he was offered the office of Lord Mayor of Karlsruhe, which he also refused.

After the establishment of the German Empire, he was a member of the Reichstag from 1871 to 1874 as a member of the constituency of the Grand Duchy of Baden 7 (Offenburg - Oberkirch - Kehl) , for which he resigned from the Baden state parliament. He resigned his Reichstag mandate in 1874 when his commercial activities came to the fore. At the same time he resigned from the chairmanship of the Baden National Liberals. However, he remained with the national liberal party and in the 1880s, together with Franz Thorbecke, campaigned for an all-German amalgamation of the party, in the 1890s he fought for the preservation of the Jesuit law.

Commercial activity

At a suggestion by Kilian von Steiner , Eckhard helped found the Rheinische Kreditbank in 1870 . For this reason he moved back to Mannheim. The Rheinische Hypothekenbank and the Pfälzische Hypothekenbank emerged from the Rheinische Kreditbank, which he chaired the supervisory board at the beginning of the 1880s . Eckhard was on friendly terms with the chairman of the supervisory board of Rheinische Hypothekenbank, Ferdinand Scipio , and his brother August.

Eckhard was also involved in the founding of the Deutsche Vereinsbank , the Mannheimer Versicherungs-Gesellschaft and the Continental Insurance Company and was a member of the supervisory boards of these companies. He was then elected to the Chamber of Commerce from the Mannheim trade stand. At the Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik he was deputy chairman of the supervisory board for decades and, after Kilian von Steiner's death, chairman of the supervisory board from 1903 to 1907. He was also a partner in Lampertsmühle and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Palatinate Railways.

Eckhard resigned most of his offices due to age when he turned 80 in 1902. In 1903 he also did not want to take over the chairmanship of the supervisory board of BASF, but was often pressed and in the following years still made a name for himself in cooperation with other companies, from which IG Farben later grew, as well as in the introduction of artificial saltpetre extraction, before he made use of the right granted to him to resign at any time at the age of 85 when a certain calm returned to business in 1907.

Honorary positions

Grave in Mannheim

In his late life in Mannheim from 1870 he held the position of city councilor and member of the district council, from 1871 he belonged to Heinrich Rumpel and August Scipio for seven years on the committee of the National Theater , he was also in the administration of the German Schiller Foundation and active on the board of directors of the Grand Ducal Fräulein Institute. Its director, a Fraulein Sammet, was the governess of Eckhard's two daughters and often accompanied the family on trips.

Soon after his return to Mannheim in 1870, the passionate singer Eckhard joined the Mannheim Singing Association, of which he was president from 1877 to 1892. From 1895 he was also chairman of the Old Catholic Community , introduced a local church tax for it and founded a church building fund for the Mannheim Palace Church, which was given to the community .

Finally, it is worth mentioning his involvement in the literary-sociable association Mannheim, for which he gave lectures on witch trials , the Hohentwiel , Konrad Widerholt and the capture and murder of the Duke of Enghien by Napoleon.

tomb

His grave in the main cemetery in Mannheim is a columbarium in the shape of an aedicle made of red granite. The writing tablet is made of bronze, decorated with rosettes and three poppy seed capsules.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft . Vol. 1, Part 7, Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 273-274.
• Carl Eckhard: Memories from my life , Mannheim 1908
• Gustaf Jacob : Friedrich Engelhorn: The founder of the Baden aniline and soda factory . Mannheim 1959
• Gustaf Jacob:  Eckhard, Carl Maria Joseph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 293 ( digitized version ).
• Rudolf Haas, Wolfgang Münkel: Guide to the graves of well-known Mannheim personalities . Mannheim 1981

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd Edition. Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1904, p. 253.
2. ^ W. Münkel: Friedhöfe in Mannheim . SVA 1992, p. 134.

Web links

• Eckhard, Carl Maria in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Biography of Carl Eckhard . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)