Ernst Friedemann von Münchhausen

Ernst Friedemann von Münchhausen (born September 19, 1724 in Weimar ; † November 30, 1784 in Berlin ) was a Prussian judge and civil servant and from 1763 briefly Minister of Justice under Frederick the Great ; then head of the spiritual department.

Life

He came from the Lower Saxon noble family Münchhausen . His father was Ernst Friedemann von Münchhausen (1686–1762), ducal Weimar court marshal until 1737 and from 1738 district chief in Thuringia; Herr auf Wendlinghausen (until 1730; sold) and Herrengosserstedt (from 1730; bought). The mother was Charlotte Friederike Quadt von Landskron (1687–1762), daughter of the French Colonel Friedrich Quadt von Landskron and Julie Magdalene Streiff von Lauenstein . His father's younger brothers were the Prime Minister of the Electorate of Hanover, Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen, and the Hanoverian Minister at the German Chancellery in London, Philipp Adolph von Münchhausen , both of whom were in the service of George II of Great Britain.

Ernst Friedemann studied in Leipzig from 1743, was a councilor at the Saxon Court of Appeal in Leipzig, then a councilor in Dresden. In 1750 briefly at the Berlin Court of Appeal , he became President of the New Mark government on August 22, 1750 at the suggestion of Samuel von Cocceji ; then district president in Küstrin ; 1751 President of the Upper Official Government, the Upper Consistory and the Pupillary College in Breslau .

In 1751 he married Anna Helene Henriette von Wurmb (1733–1770), with whom he had two sons (Ernst Friedemann III. And Anton) and a daughter (Henriette ∞ Friedrich Wilhelm v. Poser auf Gleisen, 1780–1799 District President in Küstrin).

On September 19, 1763, Frederick II appointed him secret budget and justice minister and a few weeks later, on October 31, the first President of the Court of Justice (until June 17, 1764). As a minister, he worked on the Silesian Justice Department and criminal matters throughout Prussia. On June 17, 1764 he resigned the presidium of the chamber court and received a number of other departments, in particular he became head of the spiritual department and president of the Lutheran Upper Consistory in Berlin .

Münchhausen was also canon of Magdeburg and curator of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Berlin) and, after 1764, director of the royal library , the art chamber and the cabinet of medals. His portrait of Anton Graff hung in the meeting room of the Prussian Ministry of Justice in Berlin, a second version on his estate in Herrengosserstedt. He had inherited the Herrengosserstedt estate with Braunsroda and Billroda from his father . He had to sell Gut Bendeleben , bought by his father-in-law Ludwig von Wurmb on Großfurra in 1752 , in order to cover the high representational expenses of a minister, in 1763 as well as in 1780 the Hobeck estate near Leitzkau .

literature

• Ernst Friedländer :  Münchhausen, Ernst Friedemann Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 727 f.