Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring

Gravestone of Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring

Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring (born August 22, 1799 in Hamburg , † October 9, 1863 in Meran ) was a German-Danish writer, journalist and politician.

Life

family

Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring was born as the son of the Dutch horse dealer Jacob Wit and his wife Johanne Ferdinande, nee. Eckstein, a native of Copenhagen, was born. The family lived in Eimsbüttel near Pinneberg . Because the place of residence was on Danish territory, Wit von Dörring was born in Hamburg to prevent the Danish military obligation. Only those who were born in Denmark or were born to Danish parents outside the country are considered to be Danish. According to the baptismal register of St. Johanniskirche in Eppendorf , he was born in 1799 and not in 1800, as is often mentioned in the literature. His mother, a sister of Baron Ferdinand von Eckstein , divorced Jacob Wit shortly after the birth of her son and married the Danish major and chamberlain von Dörring, but did not take the child into the marriage.

At a young age he named himself after his stepfather as "Wit called von Dörring"; on September 7, 1830, he received a royal Danish diploma, permission to use this name.

School and study

He spent the first seven years of his life in Altona with the family of his cousin Ferdinand Teuffer and the following two years with a pastor in Plön . From the age of nine to twelve he was taught by Pastor Meier on the Danish island of Alsen . His next teacher was in Bernstofsminde near Brahetrolleborg in the school teachers' seminar . After the death of his stepfather, he returned briefly to Plön and then from 1815 to 1817 visited the Christianeum in Altona and the Johanneum in Hamburg.

In autumn 1817 he began studying law and philology at the University of Kiel . Because he dueled several times and was therefore given a prison sentence , he had to end the semester early.

Influenced by the reports on the Jena boys life and the celebration of the Wartburg Festival in 1817, as in the well Kiel students August Daniel of Binzer participated, meant that he was in the on 6 April 1818 University of Jena for diplomacy -Studies enroll left. In the summer semester of 1818 he became a member of the original fraternity , which had only been founded a year before. Together with Karl Ludwig Sand , who was murdered on March 23, 1819 August von Kotzebue , he belonged very early to the politically active "closer association" of the Jena fraternity founded by Robert Wesselhöft , which formed the inner circle. During the Whitsun holidays in 1818, he met the private lecturer Karl Follen in Giessen , who was the head of the radical wing of the fraternity. This wing was also known as the “ Giessen Black ” or the “Unconditional”, who called for a German-Christian unified state , popular rule and a republican-democratic constitution and in their idealism did not exclude the sacrificial death and murder of political opponents. Karl Follen was also a co-founder of the secret, radical “ Youth League ”, which Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring joined early on.

After his return from Giessen, he joined a “Scientific Association” in the summer of 1818, probably founded by Robert Wesselhöft and August Daniel von Binzer and meeting in the “ Grünen Tanne ”. Other members were Uwe Jens Lornsen , Heinrich Leo , Karl Ludwig Sand and Heinrich von Gagern . This small group of fraternity members met fortnightly to hear and discuss lectures by Jakob Friedrich Fries and Karl Follen, among others .

Stay in Paris (1818)

In August 1818 he had to leave Jena because on the way to Giessen in Fulda he had mocked officers of the "Landgraf Karl" regiment because of their braids and had got into an argument with them. This resulted in an exile from the city of Fulda, which he was still accused of in 1831. So he made his way to Paris , partly on foot and partly by stagecoach via Heidelberg , Frankfurt , Mainz and Metz . There he went to see his uncle, Baron Ferdinand von Eckstein, who was inspector general of the Paris police and was friends with the then French Minister of Justice, Hercule Comte de Serre .

Probably Karl Follen had drawn his attention to the mood and position of the political parties in France at the time. So Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring was supposed to find out for the “unconditional” whether the French revolutionaries would be ready to overthrow. Because of his contacts to influential circles, he was now frequently invited to various Parisian salons, came into contact with representatives of the various parties and learned about their plans. He shared the knowledge he had gained with his uncle, Baron von Eckstein, and with Justice Minister de Serre. However, he did not proceed diplomatically and honestly, but rather wanted to further strengthen his already pronounced self-confidence. In his later notes, he condemned his behavior at the time.

He also came into contact with Bishop Henri Grégoire and other French liberals. However, his uncle Baron von Eckstein displeased these liberal contacts and feared political disadvantages for himself. He gave his nephew enough financial means so that he could return to Jena.

Return to Jena

After his arrival in Jena, he lived with Karl Follen, who had come to the University of Jena as a private lecturer in October 1818 .

Because the mood in Jena escalated with the appearance of Karl Follen, the triumphal arch that the landlord of the castle cellar had erected in honor of the Tsar's daughter and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna , who was visiting Jena, was damaged on December 15, 1818 . The triumphal arch was torn down by Karl Ludwig Sand and Count Dieterich von Bocholtz . In addition, a provocative pamphlet "A German word for the celebration of the Blücherfest" was published .

Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring accused himself to the University Syndicus Ludwig Christoph Ferdinand Asverus (1760-1830) of having destroyed the triumphal arch. He was also suspected of having been involved in the printing and distribution of the above document. He then asked permission to leave in order to avoid the threatened relegation . At the end of December 1818 he received permission to do so from the Vice Rector and so he left Jena at the end of December and went to Altona.

In the summer semester of 1819 Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring tried in vain to spread Karl Follen's radical ideas in Kiel. After the murder of Kotzebue, Karl Follen was arrested as a spiritual instigator, Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring tried to exonerate him by declaring himself in a letter of October 26, 1819 from Hamburg to the Minister of State Wilhelm von Humboldt as the author and disseminator of Karl Follen's revolutionary "Great song" with the request to murder the princely German tyrants, accused. As a friend and “absolute”, he felt it was his duty to protect Karl Follen, even if this resulted in disadvantages for himself.

Escape to London

At the end of October 1819 he fled to London because, as a friend of Karl Ludwig Sand and Karl Follen, he feared arrest. After his arrival in London he appeared as the leading representative of the German revolutionaries. He wrote articles against the German government in English and French newspapers. He also got in touch with influential personalities, such as Henry Brougham and Jeremy Bentham, as well as with members of the ruling party, the so-called "ministerials", with whom he posed as the leader or confidante of the German revolutionaries. He believed that through his "diplomacy" he could mediate a pact between the parties, liberals and ultras. Due to his contacts with the opposition, the English government had him monitored by the police and the Prussian government, having noticed his essays, instructed its manager in London to take action against it. At the end of January 1820, Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring was expelled from the country by the English government. He returned to his uncle Baron Eckstein in Paris, who had him called back at the same time. This probably acted on behalf of Justice Minister de Serre, who had recommended Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring to friends in England and who felt compromised by his revolutionary appearances and wanted him to move to Paris in order to be able to observe him better. The English ports had instructions not to let him into England any more.

Stay in Paris (1820)

After his arrival in Paris he was monitored by the secret police , but continued to write reports for the English newspaper "Morning Chronicle", met his acquaintances from his first stay and made contact with influential people. In the early summer of 1820 he met Karl Follen, who was staying in Paris. However, he no longer represented Karl Follen's revolutionary concerns with the same vehemence as he did in London. As a direct eyewitness , he watched the assassination of the Bourbon heir to the throne, Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, on February 14, and then began to distance himself from all revolutionary views. Outwardly, however, he maintained the appearance of being a supporter of violent changes in the political situation, but in his later writings he showed how much he regretted his behavior at the time.

In Paris or in Switzerland at the end of 1820 he became a member of a Masonic lodge . He became known with Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson (1771-1842), General Marie-Joseph Motier, Marquis de La Fayette , Auguste Comte and with Charles Dunoyer , the editor of "Le Censeur". Because of his family ties, he also came into contact with members of government circles. From Karl Follen he learned of secret overturn plans in France and that the conspirators would be supported by the Freemasons.

In the summer of 1820 there was a plan in France that the French King Louis XVIII. to assassinate, and an appointment by Karl Follen with French revolutionaries; He also revealed this information to the Comte de Serre and the Minister of the Interior, Élie Decazes .

He tried to mediate between the French and Italian subversives and the revolutionaries at various German universities for which Karl Follen acted in Paris. In doing so, he passed the information received on to Justice Minister de Serre, as he later described in his "Fragments". De Serre was able to convince Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring that a change of government cannot be promoted from below and through violence, but can only succeed with a free constitution from above.

Residence in Switzerland (1820)

In order to avoid another application for extradition, he traveled to Switzerland with Karl Follen in July 1820 and spent a long time with Karl Christian Ernst von Bentzel-Sternau in Mariahalde near Erlenbach on Lake Zurich ; he introduced him to the liberalizing tendencies of part of the southern German nobility. During his stay he also explored the possibilities of his new idea of ​​promoting the unity of Germany and Italy through the efforts of the respective government together with the aristocrats.

Stay in Paris (1821)

At the beginning of 1821 Ferdinand Johannes Wit returned to Paris from Dörring. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord , Emmerich Joseph von Dalberg and Élie Decazes had formed a party that wanted to overthrow the Richelieu ministry and support the Piedmontese revolutionaries in their uprising against Austria. He frequented these circles and was very familiar with their plans, but it is no longer possible to say what role he played in them.

Residence in Switzerland (1821)

At the beginning of April 1821 he traveled via Nice and Turin , where he was temporarily arrested, to Geneva . He came into contact with Carlo Chiricone Klerckon, Duke of Fra Marino, who spied on the Freemasons and the secret society of the Carbonari , who were striving for independence and a liberal constitution for the Austrian government in Naples and Milan . Under the code name Alessandro Ferimundo Werther Domingone he became a member of the Carbonari. In July 1821 he came with the Trento lawyer Dr. Joachim de Prati, one of the leading representatives of Carbonari in Switzerland, got in touch.

Arrested in Switzerland

Because of his ties to heads and members of secret subversive associations that had ramified across Europe, the authorities put a bounty on his capture. On September 20, 1821, he was arrested by Piedmontese Carabinieri in Mornex , a small village near Geneva . From Mornex he was brought to Bonneville in the Chamony Valley . This was followed by the prisons in Annecy , Chambéry and, in early November 1821, the prison in Turin. In his interrogations he reported on the European secret society, but he also interwoven the truth with poetry. Due to the mediation of the Austrian Field Marshal Count Ferdinand von Bubna and Littitz , who was military governor of Milan, he was extradited from imprisonment in Turin in February 1822 and transferred to the Milan prison. According to his own statements, his membership in the Freemasons led to the field marshal's influence, but he probably offered the field marshal his spying services. At the end of 1822 he attempted suicide with a pair of wick scissors and was then transferred to a simplified detention center.

Escape

He fled the eased detention to Geneva. As a result, he was declared outlawed and a 10,000 lire premium was offered for capture . He then hid under a false name in Switzerland, in Munich , Frankfurt and with Count Carl von Benzel-Sternau on his estate in Emmerichshofen near Hanau . Because some Freemasons feared disadvantages for themselves, this side refused to give him any support. He made his way to Basel and found shelter with an innkeeper in Rheinfelden and with a neurologist in Stäfa on Lake Zurich ; he had told them that he was a grain-trading Jew from Alsace . After he had left Switzerland, months followed in southern Germany under the English name of "John Stickley" .

Arrest in Bavaria - extradition to Prussia and imprisonment

On the trip to Weimar - he wanted to visit Maria Pawlowna , Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, to hand her a letter to her brother Tsar Alexander I - he was met on February 20, 1824 at the “Zum Hirschen” inn in Bayreuth arrested for betrayal by an acquaintance. In the interrogations that followed, he showed the connection between the revolutionary activities in Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany and reported to his interrogator, Ministerialrat Karl von Abel from Munich, who later became Bavarian Minister of the Interior, about the nature of the "unconditional" and the various secret societies. He incriminated Karl Follen heavily by reporting on his contacts with the French and that he had been informed by Karl Ludwig Sand about his plan to kill Kotzebue; he even gave him the necessary travel money.

Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring was extradited to Prussia in May 1824 and imprisoned in Berlin-Köpenick , his interrogator there was Hofrat Johann Karl Friedrich Falkenberg (1781–1851). To this he made even more detailed statements in writing than he had already made in Bayreuth. He reported in detail on the "Youth League" and other revolutionary movements both in Germany and in Europe. Because of his denunciation, the French philosopher Victor Cousin was briefly imprisoned in Dresden in the fall of 1824, but released soon afterwards because the investigation was unsuccessful. He himself pressed for a judicial investigation against himself; however, it could not be started because there were no concrete indications. However, he could not be released either because the Mainz Central Investigation Commission still had to examine the files of the police investigation.

The extradition to Vienna took place in mid-March 1824 because Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich asked for his statements. There he remained imprisoned until September 1825, during which time he was questioned by Count Josef Sedlnitzky and Councilor Carl von Braulick. He could no longer make any additional statements about what he had stated in Bayreuth and Berlin. In October 1825, Austria was extradited to the Danish home authorities in Hamburg and he was interned at the Friedrichsort Fortress in Kiel. Due to a petition to the Danish king, he was released on December 11, 1825 in Schleswig. In 1826 he lived in Neuenbrock in the Steinburg district . Because he violated residence restrictions in 1827, he was detained again for six months. His biographical “Fragments” and “Lucubrations of a State Prisoner” also date from this time.

After imprisonment

Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring moved to Hamburg in 1827 and made the acquaintance of Heinrich Heine , who said of him, "... if I had power I would let him down". He lived temporarily in Braunschweig and took part in the dispute between Karl II . and the Hanoverian court under Minister Ernst Friedrich Herbert zu Munster . He was later in Munich, but was quickly expelled from there. Since March 1829 he stayed in Weimar and pushed Johann Wolfgang von Goethe close . He had read his “fragments” and received him out of sheer curiosity. However, due to Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring's indiscretion, loquacity and boasting, he abruptly broke off the meeting and left the room with the words: “You boast in your book, my dear fellow, how you have the talent for each one at the first meeting to take in. So that this doesn't happen to me, goodbye! "

On February 2, 1829 Wit von Dörring married the widow Emilie Keller (born March 13, 1799 in Rothenburg ; † January 31, 1854) in Weimar . von Gössel, the only daughter of the Landgrave Hessian-Rothenburg ambassador at the Weimar court. She owned an estate in Urbanowitz near Pawlowitzke in Upper Silesia . He planned to work the estate and requested on March 16 to be allowed to go there for six months. However, the request was rejected by the Prussian government. A later submission by his wife was also unsuccessful. Due to the publication of his pamphlet from 1828 on the Duke of Braunschweig, the Prussian Minister of the Interior Friedrich von Schuckmann refused him to stay in Prussia. Applications made in 1831 to settle in Kassel were also rejected; here the dispute with the Hessian officers in Fulda that took place in 1818 was the reason for the prohibition of the residence permit.

In June 1832 he received permission from the Prussian government to settle with his wife in Urbanowitz. He went into the administration of the estate and tried to stay away from questions of state policy. He also made sure that his four children did not come into contact with these issues and the civil service.

In 1840 the family moved to the Pschow estate they had bought in the Rybnik district , which included a coal mine, stone and plaster quarries and the only sulfur springs in Upper Silesia. He autodidactically acquired the necessary mineralogical and geological knowledge. He was involved in journalism and also socially for the temperance movement , which spoke out against drinking brandy. In addition, there was his commitment against hunger typhus in 1847/48 . In 1848 he used his private funds to build an orphanage for around sixty children on his property. As patron saint, he was also involved in the construction of a pilgrimage church in Pschow from 1846 to 1849.

In 1847 he resumed his political activities. In September he appeared at a meeting of German farmers and foresters in Kiel. For reasons that are unclear today, there were violent protests by students against Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring. However, it may have something to do with the fact that, after a change of heart, he joined ultramontane (strictly papal) circles and planned to found an aristocratic party. This was also made clear by his journalistic publications, in which monarchist tendencies could be recognized.

On June 2, 1848, he was in Breslau and wanted to observe the revolutionary unrest, but then pushed his way forward in the ranks of the reactionaries and caused resentment from the residents through his speeches. In the evening they organized a " cat music " in front of his hotel "de Silésie", whereupon he fled to the main police station. The next day he was taken out of a wine shop by the local population and forcibly taken to the train station while being abused and beaten and forced to leave the city by train. When he returned to the city on August 25, 1848, the people of Breslau again demanded that he be removed by force. A vigilante group took away some of the weapons he was carrying and took him to his hotel to protect him. That same night he had to leave the city under the protection of the vigilante. Some time later he withdrew from the public.

In 1859 an office for public relations (“press office”) was to be set up in Austria and when looking for an office manager, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Johann Bernhard Graf von Rechberg and Rothenlöwen, chose Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring. He spoke several languages, worked for various respected German and foreign newspapers and had important contacts. After he took up his new post, he quit his job after a short time due to a lack of support from his staff. His poor health also played a role here.

His wife died on January 31, 1854, and in 1860 he had to sell the estate because of over-indebtedness.

Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring died during a spa stay in Meran ; his grave is in the evangelical cemetery in Merano .

Works (selection)

• The revolutionary machinations in Switzerland: words of warning; Dedicated to a high agenda and all genuine Swiss. Glarus: Freuler, 1823.
• Wilhelm Hauff; Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring: Messages from the memoirs of Satan . Stuttgart: Franckh, 1826.
• Illumination of the writing: About the essence and mischief of the German theater; In addition to agonies on the Hamburg stage since Mr. Lebrun's co-directorio . Hamburg Hoffmann 1827
• Lucubrations of a state prisoner written down in the criminal prisons in Turin, Milan, Bairuth, Berlin, Vienna. Braunschweig Vieweg 1827
• Teutsche Jugend in Weiland Burschenschaften and Turngemeinden: Materials for the promised first part of the fragments from the life of the adventurer Fer. Johannes Wit, called von Dörring: with reference to Mr. Major v. Lindenfels' liberal remarks on the second part of these fragments. Magdeburg: Heinrichshofen, 1828.
• Attempt to clear up the misunderstandings which were brought about between the King of England and the Duke of Brunswick by Count Ernst von Munster: from official sources . Hamburg: Hoffmann u. Campe, 1828.
• The Devil in Munich and the Fallen Angel: Fantasy and narrative based on modern life . Stuttgart, 1829
• The diplomats. Hamburg Hoffmann & Campe 1830
• Fragments from my life and my time. Leipzig 1830 [1]
• Political paperback for the year 1830–1831 . Hamburg: At Hoffmann and Campe, 1830–1831
• What we need! A respectful and free word, dedicated to his prince and his countrymen . Hamburg Hoffmann and Campe 1831
• My calling to the audience . Leipzig 1832.
• My youth and my travels; Completion of the fragments from my life and time . Leipzig, Wigand, 1833
• Descriptions and incidents of a well-traveled who is resting. Leipzig Wigand 1836
• Views expressed at the first meeting of German farmers . Dresden, 1837
• Appeal to my noble North German confreres for six thousand naked starving orphans. Pschow, 1848.
• As is known, our popular responsible ministry has asked the king to recall the Prince of Prussia . Pschow: Eduard Klein, 1848.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Witt, Ferdinand Johann . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 57th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1889, pp. 144–149 ( digitized version ).
• Robert Franz Arnold :  Wit called by Dörring, Ferdinand Johannes . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 550-552.
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 6: T-Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8253-5063-0 , pp. 349-353.

Web links

Wikisource: Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wit, Ferdinand Johannes in the German Biography , accessed on December 19, 2017.
2. ^ Wilhelm Binder: General Realencyclopadie or Conversationslexicon for Catholic Germany: Tenedos - Zwolle. 10 . Manz, 1849 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 19, 2017]).
3. ↑ Wine to Ziegler . Heinicke, 1866 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 19, 2017]).
4. ^ ^{A b} Detlev Lorenz Lübker: Lexicon of Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg and Eutinian writers from 1796 to 1828 . K. Aue., 1829 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 19, 2017]).
5. ^ Alfons Perlick: Publications of the East German Research Center in the State of North Westphalia . East German Research Center in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, 1962 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed on December 16, 2017]).
6. ^ Gesa Snell: German immigrants in Copenhagen 1800-1870 . Waxmann Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8309-5649-5 ( limited preview in Google book search [accessed December 20, 2017]).
7. ↑ Peter Kaupp: "I played a daring game". ( PDF ) Johannes Wit named by Dörring (1799–1863). In: www.burschenschaftsgeschichte.de. 2003, accessed on December 16, 2017 (181 kB). 
8. ^ Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung . Newspaper expedition; Brockhaus, 1825 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 16, 2017]).
9. ↑ Pierre Mattern: "Kotzebue's Allgewalt": literary feud and political assassination . Königshausen & Neumann, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8260-3738-2 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 16, 2017]).
10. ↑ The Great Song. In: mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved October 19, 2018 . 
11. ^ Ferdinand Johannes Wit von Dörring - Freemason Wiki. Retrieved December 19, 2017 . 
12. ↑ Tragedies. Early prose 1820-1831. Comment . Walter de Gruyter, 1996, ISBN 978-3-05-005305-9 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 24, 2017]).
13. ↑ Südtiroler Volksblatt of November 14, 1863