Friedrich Curtius (civil servant)

Friedrich Curtius, 1911

Friedrich Curtius (born July 7, 1851 in Berlin ; † May 4, 1933 in Heidelberg ) was a German administrative lawyer and civil servant who also worked as a public official in the Protestant Church, member of the state parliament and author.

Life

Friedrich Curtius was the son of the archaeologist Ernst Curtius and his wife Auguste geb. Better. Friedrich Curtius was the godchild of Emperor Friedrich III. whose tutor his father had been. From the marriage with Louise geb. Countess von Erlach-Hindelbank was born into his son Ernst Robert Curtius in 1886 .

Friedrich Curtius studied after high school law . In 1878 he moved to Alsace , where he passed his second state examination. In 1884 he was appointed district director of the Thann district. From 1897 to 1901 he was district director in the Colmar district and from 1901 until his retirement in 1903 in the Strasbourg-Land district , based in Strasbourg .

From 1903 to 1914 he was President of the Directory of the Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine . In 1905 he was also elected President of the Lutheran Upper Consistory . Together with Bishop Adolf Fritzen , Curtius tried to settle the many quarrels about the approximately 120 simultaneous churches, but in vain. The disputes were then often only resolved by the fact that the Catholic parishes built their own parish churches, whereby the number of Catholic joint uses of Protestant church buildings could be reduced to 64 cases by 1914.

As co-editor of the memorabilia of Prince Clovis zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst , Curtius fell out of favor with Wilhelm II . The emperor resigned as consistorial president through the Reich governor. Curtius' friend Albert Schweitzer then mobilized pastors and members of the senior consistory to support Curtius, with success, because the Reich governor refrained from further humiliations and resignations.

Curtius used himself for the introduction of active and passive women's suffrage in church elections to presbyteries and synods. In 1911 his proposal was slowed down by opposition in the inspection assemblies (synods of the seven ecclesiastical inspections of the Church AB of Alsace and Lorraine), especially in those where rural representatives dominated. But in 1911 the senior consistory passed a narrow majority on active and passive women's suffrage and requested that the state ministry introduce an amendment to the Lutheran church order of 1802 in the Alsace-Lorraine state parliament , which, moreover, should also determine that the regional church AB itself should in future regulate theirs internal affairs. In it Otto Mayer supported the novella, but said women's suffrage should first be introduced elsewhere than in a regional church of all places.

As President of the Directory of the Regional Church, Curtius became a member of the first chamber of the Landtag of the Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine in 1911. The Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine had also applied for an amendment to their church ordinance from 1905, which also provided for women's suffrage and internal church autonomy. On July 5, 1912, Curtius intervened personally with the Undersecretary of State Emil Petri , who was responsible for justice and religious affairs , in order to anchor autonomy and women's suffrage without compromise in the amendment to the law. But Petri remained negative and the amendment to the law was ultimately no longer passed.

When the liberal Alsatian Progress Party was founded in 1912, he was a board member. When the imperial administration of the Reichsland banned French as the language of preaching in church services after the outbreak of war in 1914 (the only exceptions were church activities in municipalities with predominantly Francophone residents, typically in the Lorraine district ), Curtius protested in vain and resigned as President of the Directory in September, with which he resigned resigned from the state parliament. On November 24, 1914, the church leadership named Hans von der Goltz as President of the Directory, who was officially confirmed on December 16.

The further life of Friedrich Curtius can be deduced from the photos and documents found in Viktor von Weizsäcker's estate . Probably shortly before the death of his wife Louise in 1919, he moved in with his wife, daughter Olympia and his sister-in-law Greda v. Erlach, to Heidelberg. It was there that Olympia met the doctor and philosopher Viktor von Weizsäcker, with whom she became engaged in April 1920 and whom she married in August 1920. Since that time, and through several different households within Heidelberg, Friedrich Curtius lived the rest of his life in a domestic community with his daughter, his son-in-law, their children and his sister-in-law. He must also have taken an active part in the spiritual life of this family. Karl Jaspers lived next door in the Plöck, while Martin Buber and Max Scheler came to visit. Friedrich Curtius' second daughter, Greda Curtius, married Werner Picht in 1912. The pedagogue and philosopher Georg Picht emerged from this marriage .

Friedrich Curtius was buried in the mountain cemetery in Heidelberg, not far from the residence of the family members Weizsäcker, Curtius and v. Erlach in Häusserstrasse.

literature

Stefanie Müller: Ernst Robert Curtius as a journalistic author (1918–1932). Views on Germany and France in the mirror of his journalistic activity. (Dissertation, University of Freiburg) Lang, Bern et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-03-911435-1 , in particular pp. 28, 60, 61.
Government and Parliament of Alsace-Lorraine 1911–1916. Biographical-statistical manual. Mulhouse 1911, p. 121.

Web links

Literature by and about Friedrich Curtius in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Theological and philosophical correspondence 1900-1965 , Werner Zager (ed.), Munich: Beck, 2006, (= works from Albert Schweitzer's estate; edited by Richard Brüllmann), p. 191. ISBN 3-406 -54900-4 .
↑ By order of Louis XIV from 1684, all Lutheran and Reformed parishes must make the choir of their church buildings available for Catholic masses if there is no Catholic church in their parish but at least seven Catholic families are resident. In the 21st century, around 50 Protestant churches in Alsace and the Moselle department are still in use as simultaneous churches.
↑ ^a ^b Cf. “Simultaneum” , from: Wiki-protestants.org , accessed on February 26, 2013.
↑ Curtius edited these memoirs of the former Chancellor on behalf of his son Alexander . They appeared in two volumes in Stuttgart at the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt in 1906 and have been reprinted several times.
↑ Cf. Friedrich Curtius, For the Rights of Women in the Church , Berlin: Karl Curtius, 1910.
^ Anthony Steinhoff, The gods of the city: Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg, 1870-1914 , Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008, p. 418. ISBN 9789004164055 .
^ ^A ^b Anthony Steinhoff, The gods of the city: Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg, 1870-1914 , Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008, p. 419. ISBN 9789004164055 .
^ ^A ^b Anthony Steinhoff: The gods of the city. Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg 1870-1914. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008, ISBN 978-9-00416405-5 , p. 423.
^ Anthony Steinhoff: The gods of the city. Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg 1870-1914. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008, ISBN 978-9-00416405-5 , p. 429.
^ Hermann Hiery: Reichstag elections in the Reichsland. Droste, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-7700-5132-7 , p. 100.
↑ Goltz served as consistorial president of the old Prussian church province of Rhineland from 1920 until his dismissal in 1933 .
^ Anthony Steinhoff: The gods of the city. Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg 1870-1914. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008, ISBN 978-9-00416405-5 , p. 185.

personal data
SURNAME	Curtius, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German administrative lawyer and civil servant, member of the state parliament, office holder in the Protestant church
DATE OF BIRTH	July 7, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	May 4, 1933
Place of death	Heidelberg

[Schweitzer_Briefwechsel_191-1] Theological and philosophical correspondence 1900-1965 , Werner Zager (ed.), Munich: Beck, 2006, (= works from Albert Schweitzer's estate; edited by Richard Brüllmann), p. 191. ISBN 3-406 -54900-4 .

[2] By order of Louis XIV from 1684, all Lutheran and Reformed parishes must make the choir of their church buildings available for Catholic masses if there is no Catholic church in their parish but at least seven Catholic families are resident. In the 21st century, around 50 Protestant churches in Alsace and the Moselle department are still in use as simultaneous churches.

[Simultaneum-3] Cf. “Simultaneum” , from: Wiki-protestants.org , accessed on February 26, 2013.

[4] Curtius edited these memoirs of the former Chancellor on behalf of his son Alexander . They appeared in two volumes in Stuttgart at the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt in 1906 and have been reprinted several times.

[5] Cf. Friedrich Curtius, For the Rights of Women in the Church , Berlin: Karl Curtius, 1910.

[Steinhoff_2008_418-6] Anthony Steinhoff, The gods of the city: Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg, 1870-1914 , Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008, p. 418. ISBN 9789004164055 .

[Steinhoff_2008_419-7] A ^b Anthony Steinhoff, The gods of the city: Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg, 1870-1914 , Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008, p. 419. ISBN 9789004164055 .

[Steinhoff_2008_423-8] A ^b Anthony Steinhoff: The gods of the city. Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg 1870-1914. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008, ISBN 978-9-00416405-5 , p. 423.

[Steinhoff_2008_429-9] Anthony Steinhoff: The gods of the city. Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg 1870-1914. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008, ISBN 978-9-00416405-5 , p. 429.

[10] Hermann Hiery: Reichstag elections in the Reichsland. Droste, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-7700-5132-7 , p. 100.

[11] Goltz served as consistorial president of the old Prussian church province of Rhineland from 1920 until his dismissal in 1933 .

[Steinhoff_2008_185-12] Anthony Steinhoff: The gods of the city. Protestantism and religious culture in Strasbourg 1870-1914. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008, ISBN 978-9-00416405-5 , p. 185.