Heinrich von Béguelin

Heinrich von Béguelin

Heinrich Huldreich Peter von Béguelin (* August 8, 1765 in Berlin , † October 7, 1818 in Potsdam ) was an important Prussian tax officer and employee of the Prussian Minister Freiherr von Stein and the State Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg as well as a member of the Academy of Useful Sciences in Erfurt.

Live and act

origin

Heinrich von Béguelin's parents were the ennobled Nicolaus von Béguelin (1714–1789), director of the philosophical class of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin and court master of the future King Friedrich Wilhelm II .

family

In 1791 he married Christine von Splitgerber (* 1770 - 8 May 1797), with whom he had the following children:

• Frederike Wilhelmine Maria Antonie Franziska (9 December 1792 - 13 May 1793)
• Gustav Heinrich Alexander (born February 3, 1794 - † June 8, 1877), retired lieutenant colonel. D. ⚭ Auguste Donalies (March 1, 1825 - May 12, 1850)
• Julius Kasimir Albrecht Anton Theodor (* July 4, 1796 - March 15, 1860), tax recipient in Kerpen

⚭ 1820 Karoline Anna Elisabeth Isabella Piedmont (* 1779; † March 29, 1834)

⚭ 1834 Christine Petronella Felicita Krahe (* December 18, 1808; † August 26, 1853)

⚭ 1855 Bertha von Hallberg († December 10, 1861)

• Christine Sophie Auguste Hedwig Ferdinandine (May 12, 1797 - February 4, 1870)

After the death of his first wife, he married Amalie Cramer , the daughter of Hofrat Carl Christoph Cramer (1750–1827) and his wife Louise Ernestine, born on May 15, 1798 at Schloß Hermsdorf near Glogau (Silesia) . Biesler, the adopted daughter of Hofrat Simon Heinrich Sack .

• Josephie Adelheid Clemntine Antoinette (* February 27, 1799 - December 30, 1822) ⚭ Wilhelm Friedrich Amadeus von Kienitz († December 8, 1863), Steurrat in Zossen
• Konstanze Klara Eugenie (* June 21, 1800; † August 15, 1883) ⚭ 1823 Wilhelm Friedrich Amadeus von Kienitz († December 8, 1863)
• Charlotte Luise Henriette Karoline Amalie Serafine (* July 8, 1801, † September 11, 1803)
• Cäcilie Johanne Franziska (* February 15, 1803; † April 15, 1847) Fil 1829 Filipp Kalau von Hofe, Major († June 7, 1849)
• Serafine Karoline Auguste Dorothea (* December 22, 1804 - November 4, 1807)
• Heinrich Karl Raimund Maximilian (born December 26, 1805 - † January 29, 1807)
• Raimund Karl Gaston (born November 3, 1807 - † August 25, 1891) ⚭ 1842 Pauline Emilie Johanna Henriette Steger (* March 9, 1818 - † March 7, 1888)
• Oktavia (born January 31, 1809 - September 6, 1809)
• Mona (born January 31, 1809 - † February 17, 1809)
• Prosper Edmund Heinrich Otto Nikolaus (born September 25, 1810 - † April 6, 1812)
• August Karl (born October 31, 1812), tax collector
• Theodor Karl Heinrich Felix (born March 29, 1815 - † July 12, 1876), a. D.

When Heinrich von Béguelin died due to a stroke on October 7, 1818, the eldest of the three daughters, Antonie, was only 19 years old, while the eldest of the three sons, Raimund, was 11 years old and the youngest was still an early child.

Life and meaning

Béguelin studied 1783–1785 in Königsberg and in 1789 joined the General-Ober-Finanz-Kriegs- und Domainen -directory as an assessor , the central Prussian authority for internal and financial administration, and in 1803 became a secret Oberfinanzrat in the Accise and Customs Department of this authority , to whom the Minister Freiherr von Stein was placed. In 1805 he was given the management of the newly founded statistical office together with the war council Leopold Krug while maintaining his previous duties .

Napoleon entered Berlin at the head of his troops on October 27, 1806. History painting by Charles Meynier , 1810

The Tilsit Peace Treaty in the Secret State Archives

Meeting of the monarchs on the Memel near Tilsit; Painting by Adolphe Roehn (1799–1864)

After the defeat of the Prussians against Napoleon in the battle of Jena and Auerstedt in October 1806, the Béguelin and the Prussian administration moved to Königsberg and finally to Memel . Napoleon occupied Berlin on October 27, 1806. In the Peace of Tilsit , Prussia lost half of its national territory and had to make high contributions .

In 1807, Béguelin resigned from the civil service without pay because he felt he was being dismissed by Minister Stein and he did not want to work for the French occupying power. He withdrew to Glogau, where he was accepted by the husband of her sister Caroline Wilhelmine Auguste Sattig, née. Cramer (1787–1872), the lawyer and counselor Carl Leopold Gottfried Sattig, on his Ziebern estate near Glogau. The conditions there were oppressive due to the French occupation and billeting, so that the family was limited to the poorest of rooms. During this time, Béguelin wrote down his "Memories".

In 1810, at the request of the newly appointed State Chancellor Hardenberg, after his predecessors had failed due to the difficulties of the political situation, he became a member of the finance commission appointed by him.

As part of the work for Friedrich Leopold von Schrötter's draft of the edict on the civil conditions of Jews in Prussia of March 11, 1812, von Béguelin had written an expert opinion for the finance section in 1810 and, in contrast to his colleagues, opposed full equality of the Jewish inhabitants of Prussia. He only wanted to recognize Jews as having equal rights if they distanced themselves from their religion and the customs associated with it. Baron Karl August von Hardenberg could however King Friedrich Wilhelm III. encourage them to issue a more progressive edict, departing from Béguelin's proposal.

Amalie de Béguelin accompanied her husband in 1811 to negotiations with Napoleon in Paris. Her husband had been sent there with the Prussian special envoy Sigmund Otto Joseph von Treskow to negotiate the forced contributions after the defeat by Napoleon and the Peace of Tilsit . These negotiations were initially unsuccessful. In 1811 Béguelin became a lecturer in the office of the State Chancellor and, at the request of Gneisenau and Hardenberg, went back to Paris, where he concluded a convention on February 24, 1812, through which the contributions in Deliveries in kind were converted, the implementation of which he managed until the beginning of the wars of liberation. Through this convention it was achieved that the burdens were reduced and thus funds for the planned liberation from French rule were free. The State Chancellor thanked him by awarding him the Order of the Red Eagle, and at the same time leaving a splendidly furnished official apartment in the building of the Sea Trade (Prussian State Bank). Amalie von Béguelin had run a small political salon in Berlin from 1806 onwards, and from 1812 court circles and senior state officials frequented the apartment in the Seehandel (bank building) on ​​Jägerstrasse, who were able to hold confidential discussions there.

Amalie herself had a close friendship with State Chancellor Hardenberg and Gneisenau. Through secret negotiations in her political salon in the maritime trade, she achieved that the cautious Hardenberg agreed with the impatiently waiting field marshal and army reformer Gneisenau to begin the wars of freedom against Napoleon Bonaparte . Extensive correspondence has been preserved and later published. It emerges from him that with “ravishing eloquence in noble anger” she persuaded the hesitant State Chancellor Hardenberg to drop his concerns and resolve to vigorously oppose France. At her insistence, Gneisenau was called to Berlin from his estate in Silesia, to which he had withdrawn. Amalie von Beguelin mediated the communication between the two.

Battle of Waterloo (painting by William Sadler )

With the then beginning Wars of Liberation (1813-1815), the French supremacy under Napoleon Bonaparte over Prussia and large parts of the European continent was ended after Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated at Waterloo . During the Wars of Liberation, Béguelin was employed at the headquarters.

As a result of the First Paris Peace Treaty of May 30, 1814, the Principality of Neuchâtel (Neuchâtel), which had been separated from Prussia by Napoleon in 1807, was returned to Prussia. Because of the old relationships of Béguelin, whose ancestors came from Switzerland, he became head of the department for Neuchâtel affairs in Berlin. Béguelin accompanied the Prussian Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg at the Congress of Vienna, which dragged on until 1815, negotiated with the envoys of the previous Principality of Neuchâtel and ensured that the special interests of the population were taken into account in the new conditions. The difficult administrative issues that arose from the geographically separated position and the dual position of the principality as a member of the Kingdom of Prussia and as a canton of Switzerland were resolved by recognizing Neuchâtel as a “Swiss canton and Prussian principality”. The Prussian king only finally renounced his claim to the Principality of Neuchâtel in the Treaty of Paris on May 26, 1857. In recognition of his services, the city of Neuchâtel granted Béguelin hereditary honorary citizenship on October 20, 1815. This example followed on June 15, 1816, the citizenship of Valangin.

After completing his work in negotiations during the Congress of Vienna in 1816 he was appointed Chief President of the 2nd Department of the Chamber of Accounts in Potsdam.

literature

• Adolf Ernst: Memories of Heinrich and Amalie von Beguelin from the years 1807-1813. Along with letters from Gneisenau and Hardenberg. Berlin, Online: archive.org and (link.springer.com)
• Hans Haussherr:  Beguelin, Heinrich von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 747 ( digitized version ).
• Petra Wilhelmy: The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century: 1780–1914 . de Gruyter, Berlin 1989, ISBN 978-3-11-011891-9 , p. 611. Keyword: “Beguelin, Amalie von”. With further references to sources, secondary literature and guests. online: (books.google.de)
• Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger, The Berlin Salons: With historical-literary walks (Google eBook), 2000, in particular pages 115–119 about the political salon, online: Google Books
• Ernst Klein, From Reform to Restoration: Financial Policy and Reform Legislation of the Prussian State Chancellor Karl August Von Hardenberg, Berlin 1964, in particular pages 5f, 30, 82ff, 105, 257ff, 278f, 319, online: Google Books
• Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 53 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Birgit Aschmann, Prussia's fame and Germany's honor: On the national honor discourse in the run-up to the Franco-Prussian wars of the 19th century, Munich 2012 in particular p. 218 f. books.google-in excerpts
• Barbara Vogel, General Commercial Freedom: The Reform Policy of the Prussian State Chancellor Hardenberg (1810-1820) (Google eBook), Göttingen 1983, passim, online: books.google-in excerpts
• Karl Mamroth, History of Prussian State Taxation 1806–1816, Reprint BoD 2013, passim, in particular pp. 171–173, online: books.google-in excerpts
• Leopold Zedlitz-Neukirch, Neues Preussisches Adels-Lexicon or genealogical and diplomatic news from the noble houses residing in the Prussian monarchy or related to it ... (Google eBook), Leipzig 1836, p. 196f, online: books.google
• Richard Boeckh, The historical development of official statistics of the Prussian state, Berlin 1803, p. 18ff, online: books.google
• Johann Emanuel von Küster (?), Description of the behavior of the French government against Prussia since the Tilsiter Peace (Google eBook), Berlin 1813, pp. 42–60 (with description of the negotiations in Paris), online: books.google
• Marcelli Janecki , Handbook of the Prussian Nobility , Volume 2, 1893, p. 48f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Data according to Janecki, date of birth obviously does not match the date of death of the mother, possibly mixed up?
2. ↑ Later Prussian Secret Accountant, as well as the godson of Stein and Gneisenau
3. ↑ Hans Haussherr: Beguelin, Heinrich von. In: New German Biography. Volume 1, 1953, p. 747. Online
4. ↑ Marion Schulte, Prussian officers on Judaism and emancipation: 1762–1815, 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-053267-8 , pp. 26 and 125 (footnote 4), digital
5. ↑ Anne Purschwitz, Jew or Prussian Citizen ?: The Emancipation Debate in the Field of Tension between Government Policy, Religion, Bourgeoisie and the Public (1780–1847), 2018, p. 130, esc = y & hl = de & id = b8VdDwAAQBAJ & q = Beguelin # v = onepage & q = Beguelin & f = false digital
6. ^ Petra Wilhelmy: The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century: 1780-1914. Berlin 1989, p. 611. Keyword: “Beguelin, Amalie von” with further references to sources, secondary literature and guests. Online: Google Books
7. ^ Johann Gustav Droysen: The life of Field Marshal Count York von Wartenburg. Volume 1 (Google eBook), Leipzig 1871, p. 202. digital: Google Books
8. ↑ Jean-Paul Prongué, keyword: Béguelin, in: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS), version dated December 31, 2014, URL: mobile.hls-dhs-dss.ch

Works

• Heinrich von Beguelin, Historically critical presentation of the Accise and Customs Constitution in the Prussian States, Berlin 1796, ( online  in the German Digital Library )
• Adolf Ernst: Memories of Heinrich and Amalie von Beguelin from the years 1807-1813. Along with letters from Gneisenau and Hardenberg. Berlin, Online: Internet Archive and Springer Link
• Heinrich von Beguelin, annotated translation of the “Opinion (s) of the economic society on the drafts of agricultural legislation submitted to it, submitted to the Royal High Council of Castile in 1795 by D. Caspar Melchior de Jovellanos”, dedicated to the State Chancellor Hardenberg, Berlin 1816, online:  Internet Archive
• Heinrich von Béguelin, expert opinion for the finance section on the draft of FL von Schrötter (January 24, 1810), printed in: Ismar Freund : The emancipation of the Jews in Prussia. With special consideration of the law of March 11, 1812 , volume 2 documents, reprint: Hildesheim 2004. XII / 524 S. Leinen. ISBN 978-3-487-12687-6 , pp. 289-305.