Heinrich von Zedlitz and Neukirch

Gottlieb Heinrich Freiherr von Zedlitz and Neukirch (born August 20, 1863 in Tiefhartmannsdorf ; † November 14, 1943 in Neukirch ) was a German civil servant and district president in Köslin (1915-1919).

Life

Heinrich Freiherr von Zedlitz was a son of the chamberlain and castle captain Hugo Freiherr von Zedlitz (1816–1893) and Ellen von Zedlitz, née Cowell (1835–1912).

Even as a primary school student he was interested in the young national movement in the student body and therefore joined the VDSt Berlin in 1882 at the beginning of his law studies . The chairmanship of the VDSt was very actively transferred there in the winter semester of 1884/85. At the same time he was elected to the Berlin student committee. There it came to violent disputes with the committee member Alfred Oehlke over the participation of the poet Julius Wolff (1834-1910) in the Reich Foundation Commissioner of the VDSt Berlin on January 18, 1884.

This resulted in a duel request by Oehlke to three committee members, including Zedlitz and Richard Holzapfel (1862-1885). The duel on January 5, 1885 caused a sensation across the empire. While the Zedlitz-Oehlke ball exchange ended bloodless, Holzapfel was killed in the following duel. In the subsequent jury trial, Zedlitz was acquitted, although he had pleaded "guilty".

In 1885 Zedlitz served as a one-year volunteer with the 5th Jäger Battalion in Görlitz . He worked as a trainee lawyer at the Muskau District Court , then at the Neurode District Court and then at the District Court I Berlin . On June 30, 1888, he was transferred to the government in Bromberg . He passed as a government trainee on May 30, 1891, the second examination for the higher administrative service and was appointed government assessor. As such, he was assigned to the royal government in Osnabrück in 1891 and transferred to the royal high presidium in Hanover on July 1, 1894 . From the summer of 1897 he was district administrator in the small West Prussian town of Konitz . There, as a result of the murder of a high school student in 1900, the worst anti-Semitic riots in the Wilhelmine Empire broke out.

The "Konitz Affair"

In this so-called Konitz affair , an anti-Semitic mob - who saw the murder as a Jewish ritual murder - faced the Prussian authorities, whose highest local representative was District Administrator Zedlitz. The high point was the anti-Semitic pogrom of June 10, 1900. Zedlitz faced several thousand people without success. His amicable persuasion was fruitless; he and a Jewish department store were pelted with stones. The gendarmes drew their pistols and sabers, but fearful that the tumult would escalate, Zedlitz retreated. A few hours later, however, 150 soldiers whom he had requested advanced against the rebels with bayonets attached. As a result, the excitement subsided. His reports on the “Konitz Affair” to the Prussian interior minister initially show him as a sympathizer of the anti-Semites. However, he took a decisive stand for the Konitz Jews when a hate speech began against them in the press, which was partly responsible for the anti-Semitic unrest. He defended the Jewish residents of Konitz and declared that he "naturally regards a ritual murder on the part of the Jewish religious community as a superstition".

Marked by the events, he left his West Prussian homeland the following year. From July 1, 1901 he was district administrator in Linden near Hanover, from January 1904 a senior lieutenant. D., from 1904 a secret government councilor and lecturer in the Prussian Ministry of Culture . Three years later he was appointed senior councilor.

As parliamentary commissioner he was active in both houses of the Prussian state parliament and in the Reichstag . Around 1912 he moved to the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and finally in 1914 he became the district president in Köslin .

In the war year 1917 he received the Iron Cross on a black-white-red ribbon. In 1918 he was awarded the character of Real Secret Upper Government Councilor and the Austrian War Cross for Civil Merit, 2nd Class.

In the Weimar Republic

He firmly rejected the 1918 revolution and opposed the workers 'and soldiers' council in Köslin as far as he could. This was made easier for him by his personal influence and by the reputation that he enjoyed. On July 1, 1919, however, after the constitution was passed, he finally left the civil service: “I could not be an organ of the social democratic state government”.

The Knight of Honor of the Order of St. John initially lived in Görlitz , but then moved - in 1934 - to the Zedlitz family palace in Neukirch an der Katzbach . The experiences in Konitz, the war death of two sons, the severe war damage to a third party as well as the collapse and revolution in 1918/19 had led to severe emotional shocks.

Marriages and children

Zedlitz married their first marriage on September 23, 1889 in Berlin, the daughter of the colonel Helene von Ohlen and Adlerskron (1867-1901). He had six children with her:

• Friedrich (1891–1915), killed as a lieutenant in Russia
• Eberhard (* 1892)
• Werner (1894–1918), killed in the First World War
• Hertha Viktoria (* 1895)
• Wilhelm (* / † 1899)
• Helene (* 1901)

In his second marriage on October 15, 1909 in Potsdam , he married the Rittmeister daughter Natalie von Bredow from the Senzke family (1862–1934) and in his third marriage on November 18, 1938 in Bennigsen, the district administrator's daughter Margareta von Benningsen (1891–1966).

Works

• Justification and significance of student efforts for the future. In: Academic papers. 1st year 1886/87, pp. 135-136.
• What do we need? In: Academic papers. 2nd year 1887/88, pp. 45-46.
• The position of the Kyffhäuser Association on the Jewish question. In: Academic papers. Pp. 161-162.
• with Johannes Quandt and Christian Rogge (eds.): Pocket book for the members of the Kyffhäuser Association of German Student Associations. Berlin 1888.
• Shall we agitate? In: Ak. Bl. 6th year 1891/92, pp. 106-107.
• Our practical work. In: Otto Hoetzsch (Hrsg.): Paperback for the Kyffhäuser Association of German Student Associations. 4th edition. Berlin 1903, pp. 66-72.
• Our practical work. In: Karl Kormann (Hrsg.): Pocket book for the Kyffhäuser Association of German Student Associations. 5th edition. Berlin 1910, pp. 63-68.
• Individual memories from my life , Christmas 1935 (Caspar v. Zedlitz and Neukirch family archive, Bergisch Gladbach).

literature

• J. Paalzow, J. Rindermann (ed.): The duel Holzapfel-Oehlke before the jury . Stenographic report of the negotiations on March 18, 1885, Berlin 1885.
• The associations of German students. 12 years of academic struggle . Edited by Herman v. Petersdorff with the participation of Christian Rogge , Waldemar Zetsche and others, 3rd edition. Leipzig 1900.
• Mr. v. Zedlitz and Neukirch to the association conference in 1935. In: Ak. Bl. 50th year 1935/36, 134
• Norbert Kampe : Students and the “Jewish question” in the German Empire. The emergence of an academic backing of anti-Semitism. Goettingen 1988.
• Norbert Kampe: “Student Jewish Question” and “New Nationalism” in the German Empire. On the history of the impact of the associations of German students. In: Marc Zirlewagen (Hrsg.): Emperor loyalty - leader thought - democracy. Cologne 2000, pp. 37-77.
• Helmut Walser Smith: The Butcher's Tale. Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town . Norton, New York, 2002.
• Christoph Nonn: A city is looking for a murderer. Rumor, violence and anti-Semitism in the empire. Göttingen 2002.
• Marc Zirlewagen : Short biographies of Tübingen VDSter. In: Gebhard Keuffel (Ed.): 120 years of the Association of German Students in Tübingen. Essen 2003, pp. 189–192.
• Marc Zirlewagen:  ZEDLITZ AND NEUKIRCH, (Gottlieb) Heinrich Frhr. v .. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 25, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-332-7 , Sp. 1561-1566.
• Genealogical manual of the nobility , Freiherrliche Häuser A. Volume X, Limburg 1977, pp. 474–475.

Web links

• Tiefhartmannsdorf Castle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Walser Smith: The Butcher's Tale. Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town . Norton, New York 2002, pp. 48-49 .