Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer

Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer

Baron Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer (born December 25, 1802 in Regensburg , † March 14, 1853 in Munich ) was a Bavarian politician , minister and mayor of Regensburg from 1836 to 1848 .

Life

Descent and youth

Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer was a grandson of the merchant and banker Georg Friedrich von Dittmer, who was raised to the baron status in 1789 . His father was the merchant Carl Christian Thon, who had married Friederika Amalie von Dittmer in 1795, the younger daughter of Georg Friedrich von Dittmer. As a son-in-law, Christian Thon was ennobled in 1800 together with his father-in-law, whose two biological sons had died in 1795, with permission to use the noble name von Thon-Dittmer . As a child of the very wealthy and well-respected Thon-Dittmer merchant family, the son Gottlieb spent his youth in Regensburg, living in what is now the Thon-Dittmer-Palais , the first phase of which was completed in 1785, while the second phase, which gave the building its current appearance , took place between 1808 and 1809. From 1821 Thon Dittmer began studying law at the universities of Würzburg , Jena and Erlangen . His father Carl Christian von Thon-Dittmer had taken over the entire company in 1814, in which his brother-in-law Georg Friedrich Mantey von Dittmer had also been involved, but after 1820 he put the business on hold after he had realized that none of his three Söhne was interested in taking over the company later.

Apprenticeship and first years of employment

Gottlieb Thon-Dittmer was while studying in 1821 in Würzburg member of the fraternity Old Würzburg fraternity become and in 1824 a member of the Old Erlanger fraternity . Both were politically active connections of a new type, which were democratically national-liberal and aimed to change the existing system of monarchical-bureaucratic individual states in the German Confederation founded in 1815 . In addition, he had also joined the Youth League, which was organized as a secret society and aimed at political overthrow. When this was revealed by the governments, there were criminal proceedings in Prussia with long prison terms, while the trials in Bavaria ended in acquittal, as was the case with Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer.

From the end of 1824 Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer completed his legal traineeship at the Wörth court and passed the state assessor examination in June 1826 as the best of his class. He then worked as a Princely Actuary , then as a Princely Domain Assessor at the Princely House of Thurn und Taxis , whereby Prince Maximilian Karl was not bothered by the political activities of his employee during his studies. The prince's behavior began to change after the royal government banned the formation of political associations on March 1, 1832, prior to the Hambach Festival . Despite the ban, Thon Dittmer published a polemical article on the persecution of political associations in Regensburg in the Bayerisches Volksblatt on April 19, 1832 , which was written by the doctor and political journalist Dr. Eisenmann had been founded. At the end of May 1832, Thon Dittmer even made public statements in Regensburg. At an event of the magistrate on the occasion of the Gaibach Festival for the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bavaria , which took place on the same day as the Hambach Festival, Thon Dittmer made a toast in the presence of the District President to the freedom of the press, opinions and thoughts:

“The great struggle in Germany, for the freedom of the press, for the freedom of thoughts and opinions, for that freedom that awakens the spirit of the nation, enlivens the love of the fatherland and maintains and sharpens concern for the general welfare - a happy ending and Victory!"

This incident resulted in Thon Dittmer and other princely officials being reprimanded by Prince von Thurn und Taxis with the admonition not to expose themselves to ultra-liberalism in the future , because otherwise they would have to reckon with the consequences of the lord of the service. Warnings had to be taken seriously, because the publicist Eisenmann was arrested in September 1832 and sentenced to long imprisonment for high treason in 1836. Thon Dittmer was also questioned, defended his liberal principles, protested against the proceedings, but received a reprimand and had to resign from all liberal associations under the pressure of the Interior Minister Eduard von Schenk, who was obedient to King Ludwig I (Bavaria) . Despite the restrictions on individual freedoms, the supporters of the liberal direction in Regensburg remained connected to the constitutional monarchy anchored in the constitution, but also maintained close contact with one another, which became clear when the mayor was elected four years later.

Mayor of Regensburg and member of the state parliament

Friedrich Brügel , who was re-elected in 1836 , had been mayor since 1832 . It was to be expected, however, that his election would not have been confirmed by the king because of a criminal investigation against him. In this situation there was a second election, in which Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer was elected mayor of Regensburg with 28 out of 32 votes in October 1836. Now the question was how the king would be advised by his advisor Eduard von Schenk. Schenk had been replaced as Minister of the Interior, but as General District Commissioner he was able to assess the people and conditions in Regensburg better than before. Schenk's verdict was very positive: Thon-Dittmer can still be assessed as a political opponent, but his wealth guarantees an independent existence and because of his lack of family ties in Regensburg, he would not have to contend with adverse influences. After the events of 1832, he would not have been guilty of anything more. He is an open character without falsehood or ambushes, a capable, educated, dignified businessman whom one can rely on with complete confidence in the strict enforcement of laws and ordinances relating to public order. The king remained skeptical, but after the Minister of the Interior, Prince Oettingen Wallerstein, also applied for the confirmation, it was also issued by King Ludwig I in the hope that Thon-Dittmer would justify the confirmation by performing well as mayor.

Thon-Dittmer fulfilled the expectations placed on him by relieving the municipal budget by introducing a direct tax to reorganize the poor fund in 1837, soon after taking office, and also by making his former opponent Schenk an honorary citizen of Regensburg in 1838. As early as 1839, Thon-Dittmer's ambitions were also directed towards state politics, and since he was a landowner, he was appointed as a substitute for the assembly of estates and soon achieved the status of a full member of parliament. Because of his great talent as a speaker, he quickly became the recognized spokesman for the liberal Protestant opposition in the Chamber of Deputies . He had sharp arguments with Karl von Abel, who had been Minister of the Interior since 1837 . As a former liberal Protestant, he had become a strongly conservative Catholic, wanted to restrict the freedom of the press and bring the education system under the influence of the Catholic Church. He followed the will of King Ludwig I almost unconditionally. When Thon-Dittmer was re-elected in the state elections in 1845, the king refused to grant him leave of absence from the mayor's office. With this measure, the king had an opportunity to influence the composition of the Chamber of Deputies in his favor.

After Thon-Dittmer took office in the Vormärz period , the living conditions of large sections of the population deteriorated drastically after a wave of price increases and simultaneous unemployment. Even the middle class was threatened with impoverishment and the government in Munich feared unrest. Mayor Thon-Dittmer was instructed to monitor the mood in the population more than ever. In the spring of 1844 Thon-Dittmer reported to Munich that the poor welfare organization had so far succeeded in limiting the plight of the working class, but that there was a lack of jobs in the construction industry because neither the Thurn und Taxis company was awarding construction contracts nor the city's construction work The expansion of the sewer network that has begun, the road construction and the railway connection can be continued because there is a lack of money. In the famine year of 1846/47 there were enormous increases in food prices, and yet the attitude of the population remained "a still legal one," as Thon-Dittmer reported to Munich. After a good harvest in 1847, the situation in Regensburg remained calm, although in the spring of 1848 a storm of addresses with national-liberal demands was directed to the Bavarian king from other parts of Bavaria under the impression of the February Revolution in Paris and the popular movements in Germany . On March 6th, the Regensburg magistrate felt compelled to send an address to the king, which, however, only very mildly expressed the very moderate liberalism prevailing in the magistrate.

Interior Minister in Munich

While the address in Regensburg was sharply criticized by the left-liberal press, the proposals / demands from Regensburg met with goodwill from the king. The King called Thon-Dittmer to an audience in Munich with a handwriting and assured him that all proposals from Regensburg would be fulfilled by means of a proclamation on the same day. On March 8, 1848, Thon Dittmer was appointed to the State Council with the task of forming a March Ministry ( Ministry of Dawn ) as administrator of the Ministry of the Interior on behalf of the King and implementing the royal concessions in the proclamation in cooperation with the Landtag. On March 9th, the proclamation was celebrated in the festively illuminated city of Regensburg and in the city ​​theater .

Because of the Lola Montez affair , a mass demonstration took place in Munich, which Thon-Dittmer tried in vain to calm down and was hit by a stone in the face. After Thon-Dittmer's instruction to arrest Lola Montez, which had not been coordinated with the king, King Ludwig I abdicated in favor of his son Maximilian II. Thon-Dittmer remained Minister of the Interior and thus had a central position in the reform legislation in the summer of 1848. An important political act on his part was the implementation of decisive measures to liberate the peasants. However, he was unable to enforce many of his views in the circle of the king's new advisors. He then resigned on November 14, but was still a well-paid member of the Council of State as the advisory body of the king.

family

In 1830 Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer married the Catholic Baroness Alwine von Rummel, whereby the Protestant upbringing of the children was agreed in the civil marriage contract. When Bishop Sailer refused to bless the marriage in the church, differences arose which caused unrest not only in Bavaria and which became known as mixed marriages . After the death of his father Karl Christian von Thon-Dittmer in 1831, Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer inherited a fortune of 20,000 guilders and a few shares, which enabled him to lead an upper-class lifestyle. In 1833 he bought a villa built in 1830 by the princely Thurn und Taxischen building council in the Fürst-Anselm-Allee laid out by Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis (today: Kumpfmühlerstr. 1). His first wife Alwine died of puerperal fever in 1838 and his daughter Johanna also died two years later. His son Gustav (* 1835, † 1890) sold the villa in 1888 to the publisher Friedrich Pustet (1831) . Thon Dittmer left the upbringing of his son Gustav to his sister Julia von Zerzog, who lived in Etterzhausen Castle with eight children of her own and with whom he was in lively correspondence. His brother-in-law, husband of his sister since 1827 and who became the landowner in Etterzhausen through this marriage, was Adolph von Zerzog (1799–1880). Like Thon-Dittmer, he was a former member of the Youth League and was sent to the National Assembly in Frankfurt as a very conservative, national-liberal member of the Regensburg constituency in the elections of 1848/49.

After his time as minister, Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer lived in Munich and in 1850 married Marianne Freiin von Boutteville (* 1817, † 1886), daughter of the landlord of the former estate in what is now the Königswiesen district of Regensburg. Two children from this marriage died shortly after their birth in Munich. Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer died in Munich in 1853 after a short illness and was buried in the family crypt in the Lazarus cemetery in the city ​​park of Regensburg.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 6: T-Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8253-5063-0 , pp. 30-31.
• Ursula Finken: Gottlieb Freiherr von Thon-Dittmer, 1802–1853: Political biography of a Bavarian early liberal. Lassleben 1990, ISBN 3-7847-4013-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . 6th edition. MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service GmbH, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 309 f .
2. ^ ^{A b c} Dieter Albrecht: Regensburg im Wandel, studies on the history of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Museums and Archives of the City of Regensburg (Hrsg.): Studies and sources on the history of Regensburg . tape 2 . Mittelbayerische Druckerei und Verlags-Gesellschaft mbH, Regensburg 1984, ISBN 3-921114-11-X , p. 115-119, 123 .
3. ↑ Bayerisches Volksblatt No. 68 of June 9, 1832, SP. 547ff.
4. ↑ Dieter Albrecht: Regensburg im Wandel, studies on the history of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Museums and Archives of the City of Regensburg (Hrsg.): Studies and sources on the history of Regensburg . tape 2 . Mittelbayerische Druckerei und Verlags-Gesellschaft mbH, Regensburg 1984, ISBN 3-921114-11-X , p. 115-130 ff .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Chrobak: The Thon Dittmer-Palais . In: City of Regensburg, Kulturreferat (Hrsg.): Kulturführer . tape 25 . City of Regensburg, Regensburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-943222-55-5 , p. 59-63 .
6. ↑ Dieter Albrecht: Regensburg im Wandel, studies on the history of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Museums and Archives of the City of Regensburg (Hrsg.): Studies and sources on the history of Regensburg . tape 2 . Mittelbayerische Druckerei und Verlags-Gesellschaft mbH, Regensburg 1984, ISBN 3-921114-11-X , p. 119, 135 .

Remarks

1. ↑ In the state elections in 1839, only 86 citizens had the right to vote in Regensburg. The active right to vote was limited to the members of the magistrate and the community representatives, a total of 52 people. From the 86 eligible persons, 11 electors were elected, who united with 18 electors from other cities and markets in the administrative district and from among their number elected the four deputies to whom the administrative district was entitled
2. ↑ The proposals were: law on ministerial responsibility, complete freedom of opinion and freedom of the press, new state election rights, legislative initiative of parliament, public jurisdiction with jury courts , abolition of censorship, swearing-in of the army on the constitution, revision of the constitution in the national sense