Carl Heinrich Hagen

Carl Heinrich Hagen Koenigsberg

Carl Heinrich Hagen (also Karl Heinrich Hagen ) (* 29. July 1785 in Königsberg , † 16th December 1856 ) was a lawyer , economist , Councilor (1811-1835) and from 1811 Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Konigsberg.

Life

Carl H. Hagen grew up as the son of Karl Gottfried Hagen (1749–1829), brother of Ernst August Hagen (1797–1880), brother-in-law of Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1849) and Franz Ernst Neumann (1798–1895) in the vicinity of the scholarly family Hagen-Bessel-Neumann. He was repeatedly taught by his father together with the Prussian princes Friedrich Wilhelm (IV.) And Wilhelm (I) during the royal family's stay in Königsberg in 1808 (lit) in the court pharmacy. With Doris Hagen, geb. Linck (1789–1869) Carl Hagen had six children, including Robert Hagen (1815–1858), professor of mathematics and natural science at the Cöllnisches Gymnasium in Berlin, Hermann August Hagen(1817–1893), professor of zoology at Cambridge University (USA), and Adolf Hagen (1820–1894), government assessor in Königsberg, treasurer of the city of Berlin from 1854 and member of the Prussian House of Representatives and the German Reichstag from 1871 to 1876. According to a diary entry of his sister, Florentine, the political and scientific elite of Prussia frequented the Hagen house, Sackheimer Tränkgasse, among them Alexander von Humboldt (Hagen, p. 169). The correspondence between Hagen and President von Auerswald , State Councilor Georg HL Nicolovius and Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt also testifies to this . After a fulfilling life, Hagen resigned from his position as a councilor in 1835. He suffered a stroke and retired as a professor in 1849. He was a member of the Königsberg Freemason Lodge to the three crowns .

Professional background

After studying law and political science at the Albertus University in Königsberg and as a student of Christian Jacob Kraus (1753-1807) and Albrecht von Thaer (1752-1828), whom Hagen called his unforgettable teacher and patron, he embarked on an administrative career . He enjoyed such a high reputation in Prussia for his writings that in 1809 he became a governing councilor of the Kgl. Prussian government advanced (until 1835) and by the way at the age of 26 (1811) became a full professor (previously as associate professor) of political science and business studies. Later he took over the chair of his teacher Chr. J. Kraus (Gause, p. 350).

Hagen was Vice-Rector in 1826 and Rector of the University of Königsberg in 1834 .

Noticed by his talent, the government sent him to Göttingen and London from 1809 to 1811. Here in England he got to know the ideas of liberalism and became a staunch supporter of the English economist Adam Smith (1723–1790).

plant

One of his first publications caused a sensation: “On the Agricultural Law and its Applicability”, Königsberg 1814. Hagen called for urgently needed state reforms and the lifting of landlord and peasant burdens. Despite the resistance to these planned reforms from the nobility and large estates, Hagen took up the ideas of Albrecht Daniel Thaers (1752–1828), the founder of rational agriculture, to develop his "rational forms of operation with the expansion of the agricultural holdings" (Hagen, p.) to propagate. As early as 1814, Hagen expressed the idea of ​​transferring the landlord's peasant burdens by way of amortization at a low interest rate through intermediaries specially set up for this purpose agricultural credit institutions, or of reforming the rights of peasant businesses, a measure that was only implemented in 1850 by the Establishment of pension banks found its realization (S. Hagen). During his 45-year term in office, Hagen campaigned for the liberal state idea, for freedom of trade and against protective tariffs. So he was one of the early champions of free trade on the European continent.

Hagen's most important writings:

• On the agricultural law and its applicability, Königsberg 1814
• From the doctrine of the state, 1839
• Necessity of Free Trade for National Income, 1844

He also worked on the “New Prussian Provincial Papers” directed by his brother Ernst August Hagen from 1846 to 1857 and from 1813 to 1824 on the “Contributions to the Customer of Prussia” (Gause, p. 455).

literature

• Siegfried Hagen: Three Hundred Years of Hagen's Family History. 2 volumes. Kassel 1938.
• Fritz Gause : The history of the city of Königsberg. 3 volumes. Böhlau, 1971.
• Manuscript (handwritten) by Karl Gottfried Hagen: Lectures before the Crown Prince. Lecture recordings for her own children and the princes Friedrich Wilhelm (IV) and Wilhelm (I) of the royal family, during their stay in Königsberg in 1808/09 on the run from Napoleon. Archive of the Franz Neumann Foundation
• Albert Teichmann :  Hagen, Karl Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 340 f.

Web links

• Carl Heinrich Hagen from the Königsberg family of scholars