Clovis of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst

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Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (Portrait of Franz von Lenbach , 1896)
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Chlodwig Carl Viktor Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Prince of Ratibor and of Corvey (born March  31, 1819 in Rotenburg an der Fulda ; † July 6, 1901 in Bad Ragaz in Switzerland ), was a German politician . He remained independent , but was considered moderately liberal .

During the revolution in 1848/1849 he was Reich envoy and later Prime Minister of Bavaria (1866–70). In the Empire in 1871 he became a member of the Reichstag, envoy and finally, for a short time, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which today is comparable to a minister. He was governor of the realm of Alsace-Lorraine when Kaiser Wilhelm II (a relative) surprisingly appointed him Chancellor and Prussian Prime Minister. The dominant person in his chancellorship, however, quickly became his State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Bernhard von Bülow , who became Hohenlohe's successor in 1900.

origin

Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst came from the Franconian Hohenlohe family , which has been documented since 1153 and which had been imperial until 1806 .

He was the second of five sons of Prince Franz-Joseph zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1787–1841) and his wife, Princess Konstanze zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1792–1847). Like his father, he was baptized a Catholic, while his mother was a Protestant. The brothers of Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst - in their relatives the four surviving sons were also called "the four Haimons children " - were:

  • Viktor (1818-1893, later Duke of Ratibor),
  • Philipp Ernst (1820–1845),
  • Gustav Adolf (1823-1896, later cardinal),
  • Konstantin zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1828–1896, later the chief steward of the Austrian emperor in Vienna).

The father-in-law, the childless Landgrave Victor Amadeus von Hessen-Rotenburg (1779–1834), had decided to sell his allodial property - Ratibor in Silesia, Corvey in Westphalia and Treffurt in the administrative district of Erfurt - the two eldest sons of Prince Franz-Joseph to inherit. Hohenlohe spent most of his childhood with him in Rotenburg an der Fulda and in Schillingsfürst Castle near Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Middle Franconia .

His nephew Konrad zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst served briefly in 1906 as the Imperial and Royal Minister-President of Austria-Hungary .

education

From 1832 on, he attended grammar school in Ansbach and the royal grammar school in Erfurt . Since 1837 he studied at Göttingen , Bonn , Lausanne , Heidelberg and then again in Bonn Law . A few months after his father's death, he passed the auscultation exam in Koblenz (April 3, 1841) .

In a contract of inheritance, the brothers had divided the estate of their father and uncle in such a way that Clovis got the rule of Corvey, Viktor the Duchy of Ratibor and Philipp Ernst the rule of Schillingsfürst. From 1842, Clovis zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst strove for a diplomatic career, initially in Prussia, where he now lived. He hoped to be able to skip the necessary training period in the judiciary and with the government by submitting a petition to Friedrich Wilhelm IV . However, the application failed due to an objection from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In April 1842 he joined the court in Koblenz as an auscultator, and in August 1843 he passed the second legal examination. He then worked as a trainee lawyer with the government in Potsdam . This step into the non-diplomatic civil service was very unusual for a gentleman who saw himself as being on an equal footing with the ruling houses. However, even during his training, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst took it for granted that he would dine with the king ( Friedrich Wilhelm IV. ) Every week as an equal .

Politician in Bavaria and during the revolution of 1848/49

When the third of the brothers, Philipp Ernst, died in mid-May 1845, he ceded Corvey to the Duke of Ratibor and took over the Schillingsfürst family business. Since he had thus become resident in Bavaria, he resigned from the Prussian civil service in 1846. By transferring the rule of Schillingsfürst to him, he became a hereditary member in the Bavarian Chamber of Reichsräte (the first chamber of the state parliament ). There he represented a liberal policy aimed at the unification of Germany and fought against the Austrian ultramontane trend. Within the chamber, however, he remained without any major response to his ideas.

During the revolution of 1848 he supported the Frankfurt National Assembly and the provisional central authority . First of all, he brought the official news of the arrival of the imperial administrator Archduke Johann to the governments in Athens , Rome and Florence . In 1849 he was the Reich envoy to London . Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst saw the revolution as an opportunity to achieve German unity. He was very close to the draft constitution by Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann (1785–1860).

Opposition and government responsibility in Bavaria

Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst in 1867

After the failure of the revolution, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst openly supported the Prussian claim to hegemony in German politics, as he had recognized that the power of German particularism was still unbroken. He was a supporter of Union politics . Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst represented his pro-Prussian stance despite the majority opposition from the rest of the Bavarian nobility. In particular between 1861 and 1866 he was in open opposition to the Prime Minister Ludwig von der Pfordten .

After Bavaria's defeat in the German War , a change in domestic policy was inevitable. Therefore Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was appointed Bavarian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister on December 31, 1866 . He recognized the alliance of protection and defiance of August 23, 1866 with Prussia and saw in it an "instrument" for "preserving German territory". He refused to allow Bavaria to join the new federal state, the North German Confederation . Despite concerns, he had to agree to the Customs Union Treaty of July 8, 1867. The attempt to change the treaty in Berlin failed. Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst became Vice President of the Customs Parliament. His plan to create a further federation including the southern German states, the northern German federation and Austria failed because of resistance from Vienna . During this time, he got on with economic policy issues much better. During his tenure, the Bavarian army was reorganized by War Minister Freiherr von Pranckh on the basis of the Defense Act of 1828 and the Bavarian Constitution of 1818.

The liberal parties in Bavaria, above all the Bavarian Progressive Party, which was founded in Nuremberg in 1863, joined forces in the state parliament to form the “United Liberals” in the mid-1860s. In view of the liberal majorities in the state parliament until the end of the 1860s, it was initially possible to govern with the support of parliament. Since the German war of 1866, the liberals had decided to advocate the establishment of a small German nation state under Prussia's leadership and without Austria. From 1869 on, however, the majority was with the conservatives, namely the anti-Prussian, Greater German-minded Bavarian Patriot Party . Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was an opponent of the ultramontane Catholics and rejected the papal infallibility dogma . Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst therefore strove for a stronger separation of state and church . He presented a school law that should take the churches out of their previous influence on schools. At the same time, however, he intensified criticism from the particularist Catholic Patriot Party. The opponents of his educational and pro-Prussian policy united against him, and both chambers of the Bavarian parliament voted for no confidence. Thereupon he submitted his resignation on February 18 and on March 7, 1870 the Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst ministry came to an end. His successor in office was Otto von Bray-Steinburg .

Member of the Reichstag, diplomat and governor

In the same year, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst campaigned for the integration of Bavaria into the German Empire and was a member of the Reichstag from March 1871 to 1881 . First he was parliamentary group leader of the Liberal Reich Party , later he belonged to the Free Conservatives . At times he was the first Vice-President of Parliament.

Despite his Catholic faith, he was an opponent of the Jesuits and supported the culture war politics . This earned Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst the hostility of the Center Party. Due to the illness of the Reich Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck , he received the offer in March 1874 to take over the deputy. Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst refused.

In 1874 he went to Paris as the German ambassador . There he tried to relax the Franco-German relationship. Here he succeeded Ambassador Harry von Arnim (1824–1881), who had got into heated controversies with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Through clever tactical action, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst succeeded here in breaking down the greatest sharpness of the Franco-German differences. He took part in the Berlin Congress in 1878 as German plenipotentiary and in 1880 served as State Secretary of the Foreign Office on a temporary basis .

From 1885 to 1894 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, as governor in Alsace-Lorraine, tried in vain to win the population of the Reichsland for the German cause. His own awkwardness also contributed to this failure.

Imperial Chancellor and Prime Minister of Prussia

Takeover of government in the Reich and in Prussia

Prince Clovis of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst

After the overthrow of Leo von Caprivi as Chancellor of the Reich and of Botho zu Eulenburg as Prime Minister of Prussia, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst took over both positions on October 29, 1894 as successors, which were now again exercised by one person, which initially strengthened his position. He was the first Catholic in this office. The appointment aroused astonishment among the public, as it was generally assumed that Wilhelm II would appoint a younger and more right-wing personality. After all, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was about the same age as Otto von Bismarck and also uncle of the emperor. Before the appointment there was speculation about Botho zu Eulenburg or Alfred Graf von Waldersee . Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden and Wilhelm's confidante Philipp zu Eulenburg had a strong influence on the emperor . The Grand Duke spoke of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst as a knowledgeable statesman who stood above the parties. Ultimately, however, this was only intended to be a transitional chancellor. The prince himself had massive reservations about accepting the office. Apart from age-related psychological and physical weakness, he cited his lack of speaking skills and his incomplete knowledge of Prussian laws and conditions. He also mentioned that he was a non-military. He also feared that he would lack the necessary financial resources. Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst therefore secretly received an additional salary of 120,000 marks a year from the imperial private treasury.

One reason Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst accepted was the imperial concession to leave the choice of close employees to the future chancellor to a certain extent. Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst made the State Secretary of Foreign Affairs Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein the Prussian Minister of State. This served him as support in the Prussian State Ministry and as a mouthpiece in the Reichstag . The fact that close relatives of his had important and influential functions and that there were family ties to the imperial family also played a role: the mother of Empress Auguste Viktoria , Duchess Adelheid of Schleswig-Holstein , was his cousin. The emperor therefore gave him a duel and called him Uncle Clovis.

Legal reforms

Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst saw himself, with a pronounced pride in his former imperial rank, as a moderate liberal. King Albert of Saxony characterized him as a national liberal . He was opposed to the " personal regiment " of Kaiser Wilhelm II . He only dared cautiously at least internal opposition to the imperial interference in government affairs.

Nevertheless, violent internal conflicts soon arose. The focus was initially on the reform of the Prussian military law. The aim was to approximate civil law and in particular to introduce the principle of the public. The emperor - influenced by his immediate surroundings - categorically rejected the advance. Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst supported the law on the one hand because of his more liberal views and on the other hand because he had pushed through similar reforms in the Bavarian military during his tenure as Prime Minister. The conflict between Chancellor and Emperor came to a head and finally culminated in a ministerial and chancellor crisis. The crisis surrounding the military justice reform was not over. When Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst announced a declaration on the subject for autumn 1896, the emperor tried to dictate the text for him. The prince did not obey it, but read his own version. He telegraphed to Wilhelm: "I am not a chancellor, but Reich Chancellor and I have to know what I have to say." The dispute ended in 1898 when the law was signed by the Kaiser. However, he had prevailed on various points. Above all, at the lower levels there was no judicial authority independent of the authority of command. Only the new Reich Military Court as the highest authority under military law was independent. A few more reform laws fell during his tenure. This includes the adoption of the Civil Code in 1896 (which came into force in 1900). The development and consultation was of course long before his time. The Lex Hohenlohe approved by the Reichstag in 1899 made it easier to found associations.

Increasing resignation

But in addition to the detailed question of military reform seen overall, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst did not show such great firmness to the imperial claim to an absolutist regiment in most of the other political areas. Rather, the formerly liberal prince began to give up. In contrast to his predecessor Caprivi, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst saw Germany's transition to an industrial state by no means a positive development. In October 1897 he accepted the dismissal of his closest colleague, Marshal.

Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was - unlike Waldersee, for example - not a proponent of a “coup d'etat” with the aim of changing the democratic Reichstag electoral law, for example, but he saw in the Social Democrats and the center forces whose resistance repeatedly hindered the conservative-liberal government policy has been. Above all, however, the government lacked a permanent majority in the Reichstag. Although he ruled out violent changes in the structure of the state, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst pleaded internally to pull the center on the side of the government in order to change the Reichstag suffrage with the majority that then existed. However, these simulation games were not carried out.

Overall, the Chancellor tried not to pursue a policy of conflict in Parliament. Therefore, he was also hostile to the prison law demanded by the emperor, although in this case too he did not openly oppose it.

Shadow chancellor

Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe greets Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, who visits him in Bad Aussee in 1899

Relatively soon after the beginning of the government of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst Wilhelm II, Bernhard von Bülow was recommended as future chancellor behind the scenes . Philipp von Eulenburg in particular played an important role in this. In the end, Wilhelm believed that he himself had the idea. As early as 1895 the decision was made to systematically build Bülow as the successor to Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. The emperor himself informed the chancellor of these plans. After Marshal's dismissal, Bernhard von Bülow became State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in October 1897. In the same year, Wilhelm also made numerous changes in both the Reich leadership and the State Ministry. Among them was the appointment of Alfred von Tirpitz as head of the Reichsmarinamt . All in all, the imperial personnel policy meant a de facto disempowerment of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. He was well aware of this without drawing any conclusions from it. The reason for this was, on the one hand, that he did not want to give up his office in a ridiculous way. In addition, he hoped that by his presence alone he would be able to mitigate and compensate for the damage caused by the unsteady emperor through his intervention in government.

In his memoirs Wilhelm II wrote at this time: "You can't change the jokey while running". ("You cannot change the jockey during the race")

But Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was no longer able to do so and did not even try to stop the transition to imperialist German world politics or the armament of the navy that began in 1897. The rapprochement with Russia and a deterioration in relations with Great Britain ( Kruger Depesche , Samoa conflict ) passed him by, as did the reaction to the Boxer uprising .

Altogether, Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was only able to effectively make politics for about three years of his six years as chancellor, after which he is only assessed as a placeholder for his successor Bülow.

Honors

Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was an honorary doctor of the Universities of Würzburg and Strasbourg, an honorary member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences , since December 1878 a knight of the Order of the Black Eagle and since 1890 the Carrier of the Black Eagle Order in diamonds.

Marriage and offspring

Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst married Marie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (1829-1897) in 1847 , daughter of Ludwig zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn and granddaughter of the Russian Field Marshal Ludwig Adolf Peter zu Sayn-Wittgenstein , whose cousin Marie in 1859 Chlodwig's brother Konstantin zu Hohenlohe- Schillingsfürst married. After the death of her childless brother Peter in 1887, Marie inherited the large estate of her mother Stefanie Radziwiłł in Russian Poland, which was larger than some small German states, about 18,000 km² with numerous towns and cities in the area of ​​the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the center of Mir Castle . However, she had to sell the property at the end of the 19th century, as new Russian laws did not allow foreign land ownership in Russia.

The marriage produced four sons and two daughters:

The sons were baptized Catholic after the father, the daughters Protestant after the mother.

memoirs

  • Memoirs of Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst ( Friedrich Curtius , ed.), Stuttgart 1906, 2 volumes (English edition: Memoirs of Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst , London 1907). Volume 3: Memoirs of the Reich Chancellor's Time ( Karl Alexander von Müller , Ed.), Stuttgart 1931.

literature

Web links

Commons : Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz Gollwitzer: The noblemen. 2nd Edition. Göttingen 1964, p. 175.
  2. ^ A b Günter Richter:  Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig Fürst zu. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 487-489 ( digitized version ). [here: p. 487].
  3. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society. Volume 3: From the German double revolution to the beginning of the First World War. 1849-1914. Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-32490-8 , p. 174.
  4. ^ A b Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55-67, here: p. 57. Günter Richter:  Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig Fürst zu. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 487-489 ( digitized version ). [here: p. 488].
  5. ^ A b Günter Richter:  Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig Fürst zu. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 487-489 ( digitized version ). [here: p. 488].
  6. ^ Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55-67, here: p. 57. Günter Richter:  Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig Fürst zu. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 487-489 ( digitized version ). [here: p. 488].
  7. ^ Kaiser Wilhelm II: Events and Figures from the Years 1878–1918 , Verlag von KF Koehler, Leipzig and Berlin 1922.
  8. ^ A b Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55-67, here: pp. 58f.
  9. ↑ Cf. Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski : Sixty Years of Politics and Society. Volume 1, Berlin 1936, p. 227 f .: “Despite his thoroughly liberal views, the prince always felt himself to be an equal German imperial prince. He stuck tenaciously to all the traditions of his mediatized class. The awareness of this belonging was decisive for many of his actions. When he returned from his trip to Vienna to his brother Constantine, he expressed his satisfaction that he was not the first dignitary next to the common (Austro-Hungarian) minister and the emperor, but behind many archdukes, but on the so-called 'blood side' had its place. "
  10. ^ Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55–67, here: p. 57.
  11. ↑ cit. after Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55–67, here: p. 61
  12. ^ A b Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55–67, here: p. 63.
  13. ^ Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55–67, here: p. 64.
  14. ^ Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55–67, here: p. 65.
  15. ^ Winfried Baumgart: Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst . In: Wilhelm v. Sternburg (Ed.): The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Kohl. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, pp. 55–67, here: p. 67.
  16. ↑ Gabriele B. Clemens: Review of: Stalmann, Volker: Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst 1819–1901. A German Chancellor. Paderborn 2009 . In: H-Soz-u-Kult , March 15, 2011, accessed March 15, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Clovis to
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig Carl Viktor Fürst zu (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (LRP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Rotenburg on the Fulda
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1901
Place of death Ragaz