Carl Zedelius

Christian Carl Philipp Wilhelm Zedelius (born March 17, 1800 in Neuchâtel (Friesland) , † September 2, 1878 in Eversten ) was a politician in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg .

Life

Education and early years

Carl Zedelius was born as the son of the bailiff and chief appeal councilor Friedrich Wilhelm Zedelius and his wife Wilhelmine Henriette von Prott, both of whom last lived in Ovelgönne. He grew up in Oldenburg , where he attended high school. He then studied law at the University of Göttingen , where he was a member of the Corps Bremensia Göttingen . After his legal training and the legal entrance examination, he entered the civil service of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg in 1824. Initially he worked as an official auditor in Elsfleth and as a district court clerk in Ovelgönne . After the second state examination in 1827, he was appointed chamber secretary in 1828 and finally government secretary in Oldenburg in 1830. In the following year he was transferred to the cabinet office, where he was primarily responsible for the legal editing of the draft constitution that Grand Duke August I had worked on with his Minister of State Günther von Berg following the July Revolution of 1830 . In 1836 Zedelius was promoted to court counselor and from 1837 to 1844 also belonged to the consistory of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg . In 1847 he was appointed secret cabinet trainee.

As a parliamentarian

Zedelius was already convinced during the pre-March period that the small state of Oldenburg , which had previously been ruled by absolutism , had to be modernized through preventive reforms. In 1842 he joined the literary and sociable association of Oldenburg and was considered a representative of moderate liberalism typical of Oldenburg. After the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 he tried to mediate between the conservative government, the Grand Duke and the Oldenburg population. He was the author of the proclamation of March 18, 1848, which contained the decisive promise of the Grand Duke to a constitution for the Grand Duchy and thus ensured that the March Movement in Oldenburg was peaceful. In April 1848 he was appointed government commissioner at the assembly of the 34 , the Oldenburg pre-parliament. Here he gained his first experience within the unfamiliar parliamentary bodies. In May, as the Grand Duke's confidante, he participated in the unsuccessful attempts to form a new government. When the first constitutional government finally met in the summer of 1848 under the moderate liberal Johann Heinrich Jakob Schloifer , Zedelius took over as ministerial advisor (and de facto minister) the interior and finance departments within the state ministry, which were particularly important during this restructuring phase. However, because of the conflicts due to the desired foreign policy rapprochement with Prussia , the government resigned on December 11, 1849.

As a result, Zedelius remained politically active and represented Zedelius and took an active part in the country's political life in the following years. He committed himself to the declaration of the Gotha post-parliament of June 28, 1849, which spoke out in favor of the small German unification of Germany under Prussian leadership, and in January 1850, together with Maximilian Heinrich Rüder and Wilhelm Selkmann, he became a member of the Volkshaus of the Erfurt Union Parliament . He belonged to the right-wing liberal faction of the "Constitutional Party", which formed the left of parliament due to the lack of left-wing liberal and democratic members.

From 1850 to 1860 he was a member of the Oldenburg state parliament, from 1851 to 1856 as its president. During this tenure, Zedelius set up a commission to reorganize the organization of the authorities and a commission to reorganize the municipal constitution in the Grand Duchy in 1851. The new order for the municipal constitution came into force in 1856 and significantly strengthened the self-government of the municipalities. In addition, from 1851 Zedelius also headed the Oldenburg military college.

Late career

On January 17, 1853, Zedelius was then appointed regional president of the Principality of Lübeck , an Oldenburg exclave in Holstein , in Eutin . After only three years, however, he resigned from this position in order to succeed the late Finance Minister August Christian Ferdinand Krell in the Oldenburg government under State Minister Peter Friedrich Ludwig von Rössing . On February 6, 1872, he resigned his office, which he had now held in the government headed by Karl Heinrich Ernst von Berg , for reasons of age and was given retirement. His brother-in-law Friedrich Andreas Ruhstrat succeeded him as Minister of Finance.

family

Zedelius married Emma Wilhelmine Christine Johanne born on September 26, 1837. Ruhstrat (1820–1902), daughter of Privy Councilor Ernst August Ruhstrat (1787–1852) and sister of the later Prime Minister Friedrich Andreas Ruhstrat (1818–1896). His son August (1840–1904) later became a secret councilor.

Awards

• Awarded the title of Excellence , 1860
• Oldenburg House and Merit Order of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig

* Small cross, 1850

* Small Capitular Cross, 1852

* Capitular Comturship, 1858

memory

On the East Frisian island of Wangerooge one of the main streets, Zedeliusstraße , was named after Carl Zedelius.

literature

• Albrecht Eckhardt: From the bourgeois revolution to the National Socialist takeover. The Oldenburg State Parliament and its deputies 1848–1933. Isensee, Oldenburg 1996, ISBN 3-89598-327-6 , p. 112 ( Oldenburger Forschungen NF 1).
• Hans Friedl: Zedelius, Christian Karl Philipp Wilhelm. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , p. 820 f. ( online ).
• Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament (Erfurt Union Parliament) from 1850 , 2000, pp. 345–346.

Web links

• Entry , Lower Saxony State Archives (Oldenburg location) , Directory of State Services Directory, Order 1 No. 597 p. 49

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1910, 63 , 70.