Georg Friedrich King

Georg Friedrich König, “State prisoner in Celle”, portrait sheet with a crown of thorns , 1834

Georg Friedrich König (* 1781 ; † 1848 ) was a lawyer in Osterode am Harz . Due to an explosive political indictment, he fell out of favor with the royal Hanoverian government in 1831 and was imprisoned for ten years. König is one of the pioneers of the constitutional state in the German pre-March .

King's indictment

König's protest pamphlet, written under the influence of the July Revolution in Paris and the ongoing restoration in the German monarchies , bears the title Indictment of the Ministry of Münster before public opinion . Their main demands are the transfer of the royal domains into state ownership , the rapid and radical removal of the peasant burdens and duties towards the manor and the state promotion of industry . Behind this is the demand for public discourse and parliamentary representation of popular interests.

With his brilliantly formulated demands and the widespread mood in the bourgeoisie , König combined severe attacks on the person of the first royal minister, Count Münster , for whom he not only had a close alliance with the central figure of the Restoration, Prince Metternich , but also personal enrichment in the time of upheaval of the Congress of Vienna - both largely inapplicable according to today's historians' judgment.

Personal consequences

After the publication of his work and the subsequent unrest, Georg Friedrich König was arrested by the military in Osterode and sentenced to ten years in prison in Hanover. He spent his imprisonment in Celle and Emden . During this time he was still active as a writer. In German letters. Written in the prison in Emden , published in 1837, he presented his view of the German past and future from the perspective of freedom and justice in the form of letters to his son.

Political Consequences

In Osterode, through King's initiative, a communal guard was formed in January 1831 and civil and urban rights were publicly demanded from the Hanover government. The spark jumped over to Göttingen , where students formed a national guard and demonstrated in the city for freedom and the constitution. The government responded to both events by sending soldiers and forcibly restoring calm. Count Münster, however, was dismissed as Minister in February 1831 after 26 years of service. In the long term, Georg Friedrich König was one of the pioneers of the Göttingen Seven , the Frankfurt National Assembly of 1848 and the further development of the democratic constitutional state.

literature

• Ernst Schubert : Constitution and Constitutional Struggles , in: Niedersächsische Geschichte , Göttingen (Wallstein) 1997, ISBN 3-89244-223-1 ; on GF König pp. 442f., 446

Web links

• Short biography