Johann Andreas Kelchner

Johann Andreas Kelchner (born August 2, 1789 in Frankfurt am Main ; † December 18, 1865 there ) was an official at the Prussian legation at the Bundestag in Frankfurt.

Life

Kelchner came from an originally relatively wealthy family, which was impoverished by several strokes of fate. His father Georg Wilhelm Kelchner was a Frankfurt merchant and owned an estate in Grünstadt , where the family originally came from. The estate was destroyed by clubists , the house in Frankfurt fell victim to the siege by the Hessian troops in 1792 , what remained was destroyed in the bombing of Frankfurt by the French under Jean-Baptiste Kléber in 1796 and the last remainder of the property was destroyed by fire in 1811.

Understandably, Kelchner's sympathies leaned less toward the French and more toward the Prussian cause. Since Kelchner's original plan to enter Prussian military service had become hopeless due to the outcome of the Prussian defeat at Jena and Auerstedt , he began an apprenticeship in a Frankfurt trading house, but soon found contact with Prussian authorities, including Carl von Haenlein , the Prussian Envoys to the Prince Primate Dalberg , to whom he passed on information gathered during his trade trips in French territory. From 1810 Kelchner was the then at the instigation prefect of Günderrode clerk at the "Directorate General of construction and indirect taxes" of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt , consequently, an employee in the French service, but with the approval of his superiors continued to work as a Prussian agent.

These services were appreciated when the Allied Prussians and Russians moved into Frankfurt on November 2, 1813 and established a central administrative council under the direction of Freiherr von Stein . Stein and the Prussian State Chancellor von Hardenberg found Kelchner useful and Solms-Laubach , Kelchner's superior in the Central Administration Department , entrusted him with a number of tasks related to the reorganization of the German territories in the run-up to the Congress of Vienna . This included the obligation system of the German princes, the central hospice administration, the liquidation system of the German army and the administration of the treasury of the Rhine shipping.

In 1816 Kelchner officially entered the Prussian state service and was given the position of senior president registrar. In 1817 he became the Legation Chancellery of the Prussian legation at the Bundestag in Frankfurt. His activity was not limited to sober office work, but rather Kelchner was entrusted with observation and courier duties in a variety of ways, as well as other activities that arose in the context of the surveillance and combating of liberal and national efforts that began after the Karlovy Vary resolutions . This also included, for example, the seizure of ETA Hoffmann's satire “ Meister Floh ” or the conveyance of Wilhelm von Humboldt's “Letters to a Friend” to the recipient Charlotte Diede .

Kelchner's activity as a secret service reached its climax under the aegis of Karl Ferdinand Friedrich von Nagler , who was the Prussian envoy in Frankfurt from 1824 to 1836, in whose police-state surveillance measures based primarily on secretly opening letters, Kelchner was also involved.

Kelchner kept his position at the Prussian legation under Nagler's successors Schöler , Rochow , Bismarck , Usedom , von Sydow and von Savigny until he retired in 1865 when he was appointed "Privy Councilor". He died that same year.

literature

• Otto von Corvin : From the life of a people's fighter. Memories. Binger, Amsterdam 1861.
• Karl Gutzkow : Looking back on my life. Hofmann, Berlin 1875.
• Ernst Kelchner:  Kelchner, Johann Andreas . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, pp. 556-560.
• Ernst Kelchner , Carl Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (ed.): Letters from the Royal Prussian Minister of State, Postmaster General and former Bundestag envoy Karl Ferdinand Friedrich von Nagler to a state official. As a contribution to the history of the nineteenth century. 2 vols. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1869.
• Ernst Kelchner, Carl Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Ed.): Letters from the Royal Prussian General and envoy Theodor Heinrich Rochus von Rochow to a state official. As a contribution to the history of the nineteenth century. Sauerlander, Frankfurt a. M. 1873.
• Gustaf Kombst (Hrsg.): Authentic files from the archives of the German Confederation. To clear up the treasonous machinations of the German princes. Schuler, Strasbourg 1835. 2nd edition Leipzig 1838.
• Gustaf Kombst: The German Bundestag towards the end of 1832. A political sketch. Schuler, Strasbourg 1836.
• Gustaf Kombst: Memories from my life. Herbig, Leipzig 1848.
• Heinrich von Poschinger (ed.): Prussia in the Bundestag 1851 to 1859. Documents of the Royal Prussian Bundestag legation. Publications from the K. Prussian State Archives Vols. 12, 14, 15, 23. Hirzel, Leipzig 1882–1884.

Web links

• Literature about Johann Andreas Kelchner in the catalog of the German National Library