Ernst von Bülow-Cummerow

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Ernst von Bülow-Cummerow, 1843

Ernst Gottfried Georg von Bülow-Cummerow (born April 13, 1775 in Prützen , † April 28, 1851 in Berlin ) was a Prussian landowner who campaigned for the promotion of agriculture by founding a bank and other measures. In addition, he worked as a political and economic journalist in the interests of the landowners. Politically, he represented positions that can best be described as reform-conservative. During the revolution of 1848 he was instrumental in bringing about the so-called Junker Parliament to defend the interests of the landed property.

Origin and early years

Ernst von Bülow-Cummerow came from the von Bülow family . His father Christian Friedrich von Bülow (born 1737) was a landowner and a Danish chamberlain . The mother was Louise (born von Meding), a daughter of the Erbland Marshal and District Administrator v. Meding from the Schnellenberg house. Christian Friedrich v. In 1764, Bülow took over the Prützow and Hägersfelde estates from his father Cord Hans v. Bülow, a captain a. D.

Von Bülow-Cummerow, the second youngest of the family's seven children, was appointed lieutenant in the Queen's regiment in the army of the Electorate of Hanover at the age of 13 after being raised by private tutors in 1788 . However, he did not have to start work because he was granted six years' leave before starting work. When that time was up and war with France threatened, his father obtained approval to leave the service in 1790. He then studied from 1794 at the University of Rostock , from November 1795 at the University of Jena . There he got to know the political world of England, which is why he compared the Prussian constitution with English constitutionalism throughout his life. He then traveled and from 1798 worked as a chamberlain and travel marshal in the service of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz . After his return in 1805, he and his brothers Georg Bernhard von Bülow and Werner Ludwig, who also had no prospect of owning property in Mecklenburg, decided to emigrate to the sparsely populated Western Pomerania. With him came his wife Friederike Zander, nee. Fliessbach, the widow of a pastor. With her he had a daughter, Louise, born in 1809. The self-enlightened thinking Erich Krauss commented on this marriage in 1937 with the words: "A free, independent spirit from birth, he had shed the ties of the strictly closed nobility at an early stage."

Economic activity

With relatively little money, he acquired a large estate in the Regenwalde district in Western Pomerania in 1805 , which had already changed hands in 1798 and 1804 and which he was able to expand further in 1826/27. The Cummerow estate was the headquarters. Agriculture (he built the first round barns in Pomerania) was supplemented by commercial ventures such as a chemical factory and an iron hammer. However, it came to various financial difficulties. He was therefore considered a progressive, but not entirely solid, economist.

Together with the Chief President Johann August Sack and Chief Forester v. Schmeling called on Bülow-Cummerow on April 22, 1810 to found an agricultural association called "Pomeranian Economic Society". “The main purpose of the association was a thorough and ongoing education of the landowners and farmers about progressive cultivation of the soil, about meadow drainage and improvement. The Pomeranians should be dissuaded from their outdated management principles, both verbally and in writing. "

In 1824 he was instrumental in founding the Ritterschaftliche Privatbank based in Stettin . At the time, it was the only Prussian private bank that had a limited right to issue banknotes. However, the company ran into financial difficulties due to poor management. Further projects to establish central banks by von Bülow-Cummerow later failed because of the government's objection.

He was very successful in founding the “Agricultural Association of Regenwalde ” in 1831. This was linked to the establishment of an agricultural academy and a model farm. The founding of the Eldena Agricultural School in 1835 also goes back to him .

Politician and publicist

Bülow-Cummerow was also important as a publicist. As such, he was a conservative advocate of the interests of the aristocratic as well as the bourgeois landowners. As an opponent of absolutist rule, he campaigned for a monarchy with class elements based on the English model. The property should take a leading position in the co-determination committees.

In 1811, by order of State Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg, a commission was formed to deliberate on the agricultural issue, in which Bülow-Cummerow acted as one of three representatives of Pomerania. There he worked in vain to ensure that the social conditions of the peasants are adequately taken into account. In particular, he advocated the creation of viable farm positions.

Bülow-Cummerow did not initially belong to the Interim National Representation of Prussia, which met in 1812/13 and 1814/15; he was merely a successor to General v. Zastrows . He therefore submitted his plans to revive the money market in print.

Between 1824 and 1831 he was a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of Pomerania .

After that he devoted himself above all to the aforementioned practical economic activity. After a hunting injury tied him to bed for a few months in 1841, he became active again as a writer. The law student Hermann Killisch supported him significantly . He called for the property to be supported by all means. This included the demand for cheap loans or the traffic-technical development of predominantly agricultural areas, for example through the Eastern Railway . In 1843/44 he had trade-policy disputes with Friedrich List . With David Hansemann he had tax policy controversies in 1845.

In promoting the landed property, he also had an eye on aristocratic property in particular. With regard to the large number of bourgeois landowners, he said in his widespread book on the Prussian constitution in 1842: "If someone is a chimney sweep today, tomorrow the manor owner, and the day after tomorrow appoints the pastor, that is not appropriate." But he has the growing one Criticized the power of civil servants in the modern state. Von Bülow-Cummerow claimed that the king, by the grace of God, was actually nothing more than the “representative of sovereignty” as the “head of administration”, but that the latter was the “real sovereign” of the state. In his Book of Prussia he tried for the first time, as a kind of forerunner of Friedrich Julius Stahl in the sense of reform conservatism, to build a bridge between the conservatives and the moderately constitutional liberals. He spoke out for freedom of the press, a Prussian constitution and reforms of the bureaucracy. He had no success with the highly conservatives and the camarilla around Friedrich Wilhelm IV .

His fundamentally conservative attitude was evident during the revolution of 1848/49. He was elected president of the "Association for the Protection of the Interests of Property". He was one of the heads of the so-called Junker Parliament, among others. As such, he was at the forefront of the landowners' resistance to the final implementation of the peasant liberation. Until then, he had represented small German positions in German politics with Prussia as the leading power. Now he turned against the attempts of the Frankfurt National Assembly to allow Prussia to be absorbed into Germany.

Fonts (selection)

  • About the sources for the removal and repayment of national debts. Rostock / Schwerin 1811.
  • About the means to maintain the landowners, to save the capital assets of the state and to balance the landowners and their creditors. Berlin 1814.
  • One point on I. or instruction on the script: The administration of the State Chancellor Prince of Hardenberg, first booklet. Leipzig 1821.
  • About the administration of the State Chancellor Prince von Hardenberg. Continuation of the writing: A point on I etc. Zerbst 1821.
  • Prussia, its constitution, its administration, its relationship to Germany . Berlin, 1842 digitized , digitized
  • The normal monetary system as applied to Prussia . Berlin, 1846 digitized
  • The elections according to the enforced constitution. Berlin 1848.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Krauss: Ernst v. Bülow-Cummerow, a conservative farmer and politician of the 19th century (historical studies, vol. 313) . Berlin 1937, p. 25 .
  2. ^ Krauss: Bülow-Cummerow . S. 26 .
  3. ^ Krauss: Bülow-Cummerow . S. 33 .
  4. ^ Domainenrath von Bülow: About the sources for the removal and repayment of state debts . Rostock / Schwerin 1811, p. 1-24 .
  5. ↑ E. v. Bülow auf Cummerow: About the means to maintain the landowners, to rescue the capital assets of the state and to balance the landowners and their creditors . Berlin 1814, p. 1-107 .
  6. ^ Theodor Wengler : The Pomeranian Provincial Association. Directory of the members of the provincial assembly. Publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania, Series V, Volume 44. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne Weimar Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20109-8 , pp. 10-16.
  7. ^ Herman von Petersdorff : Bülow-Cummerow . In: Conservative Monthly , (10) Volume 68, July 1911, p. 989.
  8. ^ Rene Schiller: From the manor to the large estate. Economic and social transformation processes of the rural elites in Brandenburg in the 19th century . Berlin, 2003. p. 438.
  9. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society , Vol. 2: From the reform era to the industrial and political 'German double revolution' 1815-1845 / 49 . Munich, 1989. p. 298.
  10. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society , Vol. 2: From the reform era to the industrial and political 'German double revolution' 1815-1845 / 49 . Munich, 1989. p. 452.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Bülow-Cummerow, Ernst von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bülow-Cummerow, Ernst Gottfried Georg von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Landowner, publicist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1775
PLACE OF BIRTH Prützen
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1851
Place of death Berlin