Franz von Fürstenberg (politician)

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Franz von Fürstenberg
Statue of Franz Freiherr von Fürstenberg in Munster

Baron Franz Friedrich Wilhelm von Fürstenberg (born August 7, 1729 in Herdringen Castle , Arnsberg , † September 16, 1810 in Münster ) was a German politician and the most important statesman in the Duchy of Münster in the second half of the 18th century. Fürstenberg was committed to a cautious and educational reform course.

Life

Career

Fürstenberg came as the son of Christian Franz Dietrich von Fürstenberg and Helene von Galen, daughter of Wilhelm Goswin Anton von Galen from the Westphalian noble family von Fürstenberg . His sister Maria Anna (1732–1788) was the abbess of Fröndenberg Monastery . His brother Franz Egon (1737-1825) was Prince-Bishop of Hildesheim and Paderborn. He studied at the Jesuit School in Cologne from 1746 to 1748 , at the University of Salzburg from 1750 to 1751 and in Rome from 1751 to 1753 . In 1748 he was already cathedral capitular in Münster and Paderborn . The Münster cathedral chapter sat down at the time traditionally sons of the Westphalian nobility together. In 1762 the Elector of Cologne and Bishop of Münster, Maximilian Friedrich von Königsegg-Rothenfels , appointed him Minister for the Duchy of Münster and in 1770 as Vicar General .

The statesman

Fürstenberg in particular was given the government of the ailing and indebted Münster land, and he finally managed to overcome the consequences of the Seven Years' War in the Münsterland . Fürstenberg redeveloped the budget, promoted agriculture and trade, improved the administration of justice, regulated the police system and urged the clergy to continue training. He enforced the taxation of the clergy against a storm of indignation. In addition, the criterion for acceptance into a monastery should no longer be wealth, but the seriousness of religious life . Furthermore, Fürstenberg improved the military system through a popular armament similar to the Landwehr and through the establishment of a military academy. He issued a medical ordinance for the Münsterland, which was considered the most modern of its kind in Germany.

In 1780 Fürstenberg was dismissed from his ministerial office because he had campaigned for the introduction of a standing army and was pursuing the plan to dig a canal towards the Rhine. He had met strong opposition in both. Above all, however, he had campaigned in vain against the election of Maximilian Franz of Austria as coadjutor of Cologne's elector-archbishop and prince-bishop of Münster Maximilian Friedrich , as he himself sought to succeed him on the Münster bishop's seat. His younger brother Franz Egon succeeded in doing this for Hildesheim and Paderborn in 1786.

The baron remained vicar general until 1807 and kept the supervision of the school system, with the reform of which he was supported above all by his friend Bernhard Heinrich Overberg .

The school reformer

The focus of the Fürstenberg reforms was the school system. In 1776, the vicar general published a revolutionary “school regulation” for the grammar school , which fundamentally changed the canon of subjects in favor of mathematics and the natural sciences. In 1777, compulsory schooling in the Principality of Münster was tightened. Together with Bernhard Heinrich Overberg , he worked out a reorganization of the elementary schools in the 1780s. On his initiative, a school trial began at the Paulinum Gymnasium in 1780 : High German became a school subject. He initiated a reform of the grammar school, founded the University of Münster and a seminary.

The stenographer

Franz Freiherr von Fürstenberg was also an important stenographer . He used the English shorthand system of Aulay Macaulay for his diary entries in French from 1761 and also made his own creative changes within this system.

Fürstenberg and Princess Amalie von Gallitzin

Grave of Franz von Fürstenberg in the cloister of the cathedral in Münster / Westphalia, Germany

In Münster, Fürstenberg belonged to the Catholic Münster circle (familia sacra) around the princess Amalie von Gallitzin , who had lived in Münster since 1779 and with whom he was a close friend. His letters to the princess are an important literary testimony of the century. After the French Revolution in 1789, during the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars , Fürstenberg worked with Amalie von Gallitzin to take care of fleeing clerics from Flanders and Brabant who were stranded in Münster.

Fürstenberg was buried in the Überwasserfriedhof in Münster; Since October 21, 1929, his grave has been in the canon cemetery of St. Paulus Cathedral in Münster .

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Fürstenberg, Franz von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fürstenberg, Franz Friedrich Wilhelm von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, statesman in the Principality of Münster
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1729
PLACE OF BIRTH Herdringen Castle , Arnsberg
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1810
Place of death Muenster