Ferdinand Schenck zu Schweinsberg

Ferdinand Schenck zu Schweinsberg (1765–1842); Stone printing 1830

Christiane Schenck zu Schweinsberg, b. Treusch von Buttlar, wife of Minister Ferdinand Schenck zu Schweinsberg

Ferdinand Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Freiherr Schenck zu Schweinsberg (born November 28, 1765 in Hanau ; † December 29, 1842 at Schweinsberg Castle ) was Minister of Justice in the first government to act in Kurhessen after the constitution of 1831 .

origin

His parents were the Hessen-Kassel district administrator Johann Moritz Schenck zu Schweinsberg (1736-1822) and his wife Luise Frederike Philippine, née von Loewenstein (1739-1821).

Life

From 1781 he studied law at the Philipps University of Marburg . In 1785 and 1786, after he had already started his professional activity, he did internships at the Imperial Court of Justice in Wetzlar . In 1784 Schenck became an assessor at the government and consistory in Marburg . In 1788 he was transferred to the Higher Appeal Court . In 1789 he did court service with the Hereditary Prince Wilhelm von Hessen-Kassel and accompanied him on a trip to Switzerland in 1792 . At court he ultimately advanced to chamberlain and thigh. In 1792 he returned to the government and consistory in Marburg, initially as a judicial councilor and later as a councilor.

In 1803, Schenck joined the government of the Dutch Hereditary Prince Wilhelm , who was appointed Prince of Fulda and Count of Corvey , to organize the Justice Department (Ministry of Justice) for the newly created state. As a result, he was also director of the consistory. After the prince was dismissed in 1806 by the French occupying power, who replaced him with an "intendant", Schenck initially remained in his offices, but was relieved of his position in 1809, imprisoned in Mainz and only released in 1810. He then lived on his property in Schweinsberg.

After the restoration of Kurhessen in 1813, Schenck returned to Hessian service - only briefly interrupted by an interlude in 1814 when his former Orange-Nassau-Dutch employer employed him in the government in Dillenburg . As President of the Kassel Higher Appeal Court, he was a member of the four-person commission that drafted the constitution for Electoral Hesse in 1815, which was presented to the estates but rejected by them in 1816. In 1816 he was also actively involved in the takeover of the Grand Duchy of Fulda by Hessen-Kassel.

In Kurhessen, Schenck was now alternately President of the Higher Appeal Court and head of the government in Marburg , before he became Minister of Justice and Head of the State Ministry in November 1830, after the outbreak of the revolution , at the time when the Kurhessische Constitution of 1831 was being drawn up.

In the course of the revolution of 1830, the people's anger was aimed, among other things, at the lover of Elector Wilhelm II. The latter was faced with the choice of leaving his lover or abdicating. He chose the last alternative by appointing Prince Elector Friedrich Wilhelm as a “co-regent” on September 30, 1831, but in fact no longer exercising any government business and went into exile. Friedrich Wilhelm ruled as a "co-regent" from 1831 to 1847; he dismissed Schenck as one of the ministers he had taken over from his father.

Memorial plaque for Ferdinand Schenck zu Schweinsberg on the family cemetery in Schweinsberg

Ferdinand Schenck zu Schweinsberg then lived again on his property in Schweinsberg.

family

He married Christiane Charlotte Friederike Wilhelmine Treusch von Buttlar (1770-1832), widow of Captain Karl von Wolff († 1792) and daughter of Lieutenant General Friedrich Ernst Karl Treusch von Buttlar-Markershausen and Christiane von Buttlar called Treusch from the Altenfeld family. The couple had several children:

• Sophie Luise Wilhelmine Henriette Caroline (1796–1873)

⚭ April 16, 1821 with Hartmann Ludwig Carl von Witzleben (1794–1825), Chamberlain and Chief Justice of Hesse, son of Friedrich Ludwig von Witzleben

⚭ Karl Heinrich Freiherr von Dörnberg (* 1782), District President in Fulda

• Luise (1798–1826) ⚭ Moritz von Baumbach (1789–1871), President of the Hesse High Court
• Marie Sophia Caroline (1800–1888) ⚭ June 2, 1827 Moritz Ernst von Baumbach, President of the Hesse High Court
• Moritz Craft Magnus (1801–1869), Chief Justice of Hesse ⚭ Anna Marie Emilie Freinsheim (1811–1869)
• Ernst Ludwig Gunthram (* 1803) ⚭ October 1854 Emma Söldner (* 1828)
• Amelie (1805–1888) ⚭ July 29, 1837 Ludwig Wilhelm Friedrich Heinrich Treusch von Buttlar (1800–1885), Prussian chamberlain, court marshal of Sigmaringen
• Carl Friedrich Franz (1807–1862), Kurhessischer Forstmeister, lord of Glimmerode

⚭ Charlotte Elise Mathilde Jungk († 1853), parents of Gustav Adolf Schenck zu Schweinsberg

⚭ Hedwig Wilhelmine Frederike Weitzendorf (* 1839)

• Wilhelm Walther Ludwig Carl (1809–1867), Foreign Minister of the State of Hesse ⚭ 1833 Elisabeth Zimmermann (1810–1875)

literature

• Günther Franz: Ferdinand Freiherr Schenck zu Schweinsberg. In: Ingeborg Schnack (Ed.): Life pictures from Kurhessen and Waldeck 1830–1930. Marburg 1950, Volume 4, pp. 331-337.
• Ewald Grothe : Schenck to Schweinsberg, Ferdinand Carl Wilhelm Heinrich. In: Kassel Lexicon. ed. von der Stadt Kassel, Volume 2, Kassel 2009, p. 188.
• Harald Höffner: Kurhessens Ministerialvorstand the constitutional period 1831-1866. phil. Diss., Giessen 1981, p. 287 ff.
• Krafft Frhr. Schenck zu Schweinsberg: In the service of lackluster crowns. From the life of the State Minister of Hesse, Ferdinand Schenck zu Schweinsberg (1765–1842). Elwert, Marburg / Lahn 2001 ( publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse 46. Small writings, 6 ).

Web links

• Schenck zu Schweinsberg, Ferdinand Freiherr. Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Draft constitution for Hessen-Kassel (1816). Notarized representation of the Hessian state parliament negotiations. In: Horst Dippel (Ed.): Constitutions of the world from the late 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-44058-8 , e-book.
2. ↑ The other commission members were Georg Schmerfeld , Ernst Friedrich von der Malsburg and Otto von Porbeck . Werner Frotscher : Constitutional discussion and constitutional conflict: On the development of free-parliamentary constitutional structures in Kurhessen (1813–1866). (PDF; 73 kB) In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History. (ZHG), Volume 107, 2002, pp. 203-221, here p. 206.
3. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses for the year 1870. P. 168.