Ernst von Köller

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Ernst-Matthias von Köller
Ernst-Matthias von Köller

Ernst-Matthias von Köller (born July 8, 1841 in Kantreck , district of Cammin i. Pom. , † December 11, 1928 in Stettin ) was a German politician in the Kingdom of Prussia.

origin

Ernst von Köller came from the Pomeranian noble family von Köller . He was a son of the general landscape director Matthias von Köller (1797-1883) and Juliane Mathilde von Wedel (1803-1859) from the Blankensee house. His brother Georg von Köller (1823–1916) became President of the Prussian House of Representatives, his brother Hugo von Köller (1828–1910) became, like his father, General Landscape Director of Pomerania.

family

In 1869 he married his niece Martha von Köller (1852–1925), the daughter of his brother Hugo von Köller and his wife Albertine von Wurmb . The marriage remained childless.

Life

In 1860 he began studying law at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and was active in the Corps Saxo-Borussia Heidelberg . When he was inactive , he moved to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin in 1861 . After the state examination, he served as a one-year volunteer in the Prussian Army .

In 1864 he entered the Prussian civil service as an auscultator in Friedeberg (Neumark) . He took part in the German War and was seriously wounded in the Battle of Königgrätz . He then became a government trainee with the government in Szczecin . From 1868 to 1887 he was district administrator in the district of Cammin. Then he was police chief of Frankfurt am Main for two years . There he displayed a particularly ruthless and despotic way of asserting Prussian interests in the formerly free city- state. He was also a member of the German Conservative Party of the Reichstag from 1881 to 1888 . Here he voted in 1884 for the extension of the Socialist Law .

In 1889, Köller became Undersecretary of State with responsibility for the interior department in the Ministry for Alsace-Lorraine in Strasbourg . Here he worked with the governor Clovis zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst and, after his appointment as Reich Chancellor in 1894, became the Prussian Minister of the Interior. In this position, too, he emphasized his German-conservative stance. He opposed liberal politics and social democracy . He was one of the ardent supporters of the so-called coup bill , which he made clear in a Reichstag speech on May 9, 1895. The bill, which contained massive restrictions on civil liberties and, in particular, would have led to even tougher crackdowns against social democrats, was ultimately rejected.

In the interests of Kaiser Wilhelm II , he committed indiscretions towards other ministers, which is why he resigned in December 1895. In 1897 the Kaiser, in whose favor he was still favored, appointed him Upper President of the Province of Schleswig-Holstein . From 1900 he was also a commissioner at the agricultural provincial credit association. His term of office would go down in the history of the country as the Köller era. Köller strove to Germanize the province. Many Danes were expelled or fled of their own accord, and their meeting houses were closed. An order dated December 20, 1898 requested all parents to take their children out of Danish schools, otherwise the Danish citizens of their communities would be expelled. The language ordinance of 1888, which declared the German language to be the sole language of instruction in Schleswig-Holstein, was rigorously enforced. Even the pastors were supposed to be replaced by German-minded men, which, however, did not happen after Köller's replacement in 1901. Ultimately, his policy was unsuccessful, which was also due to the personal intervention of the emperor, for whom Denmark was a secret ally of Russia and France. Instead, it strengthened the cohesion of the Danish-speaking population.

As State Secretary in the Ministry for Alsace-Lorraine , he then headed again until 1908 a region that was characterized by explosive conflicts between different ethnic groups. Here, too, Köller was not looking for concessions. The law of the state committee on the right of association and assembly of April 11, 1905 had to be corrected in response to his protest - Köller had been disturbed by a regulation that allowed the use of French in the French-speaking area.

He was last given a seat in the Prussian mansion in 1908, since that year he has lived in Cammin .

Fonts

  • Document book of the Pomeranian family v. Köller 1280-1900 . Strasbourg Latest News A.-G., Strasbourg 1896–1911.
  • Tribe panel of the von Hindenburg family. Prepared on the basis of the feudal acts and court court acts in the Kgl. State Archives in Szczecin. 1918.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 71 , 597.
personal data
SURNAME Köller, Ernst von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Köller, Ernst-Matthias von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Kantreck , district of Cammin i. Pom.
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1928
Place of death Szczecin