Johann Heinrich von Carmer

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Johann Heinrich Casimir Count von Carmer

Johann Heinrich Casimir Graf von Carmer (born December 29, 1720 in Kreuznach ; † May 23, 1801 in Rützen , Silesia) was a Prussian judicial reformer .

origin

His parents were Johann Wilhelm de Carmer and his wife Ida Maria Rademacher . His father was an electoral palatinate collector and chamber councilor then went into Prussian services where he became court councilor.

Life

After attending the Reformed High School in Kreuznach , Carmer studied law in Giessen , Jena and Halle . Then he worked, among other things, at the Reich Chamber of Commerce . In 1749 he was accepted into the Prussian service as a trainee lawyer at the Court of Appeal . In 1751, Grand Chancellor Samuel von Cocceji appointed him to the government council in Opole . Later he was first director, then president of the Oberamtsregierung in Wroclaw . When in 1768 he became chief president of all the upper-level governments in Silesia , he received the title of Silesian Minister of Justice. When the incumbent Grand Chancellor Maximilian von Fürst und Kupferberg was dismissed by the Prussian King Friedrich II in the course of the Müller-Arnold affair in 1779 , the King made Carmer his successor .

As Grand Chancellor, Carmer and Carl Gottlieb Svarez implemented extensive reforms in the Prussian judiciary, in some cases against the resistance of the Berlin judiciary. Already during his time in Silesia he was in contact with the king on questions of judicial and procedural law reform, so that the Grand Chancellor Prince who was actually responsible was passed over. While he advocated cautious adjustments and cautious redesign to fulfill Friedrich's wishes for reform, Carmer, with his gripping and energetic manner, was more in favor of comprehensive reforms and promised the monarch remedy. After he was appointed as Grand Chancellor and First Minister of the Department of Justice, he was able to start implementing his ideas.

Relief by JHC Graf von Carmer at the monument to Frederick the Great in Berlin

The decisive factor for the work that followed was a cabinet order of April 14, 1780, which went back to him in terms of content. This indicated the main features of a reform of the entire law, in particular procedural law. In execution of this order, Carmer and his colleagues created the Corpus Juris Fridericianum , which was replaced by the general land law for the Prussian states passed in 1794 under Friedrich Wilhelm II . This resulted in laws that would shape Prussian legal life for decades. Carmer not only wrote parts of these laws himself, but also ensured the necessary support for the projects from the king and their defense against resistance. For his achievements in the standardization and modernization of Prussian law, he was awarded the Order of the Black Eagle by King Friedrich Wilhelm II on January 18, 1788 .

From 1789 he was an honorary member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

For the former Berliner Siegesallee , the sculptor Adolf Brütt created a bust of Carmers in monument group 29 , unveiled on March 22, 1900. The bust was assigned as a side bust to the central statue of Friedrich Wilhelm II. Von Carmer is portrayed in a sovereign manner as a representative of law and order. The bust has been preserved, albeit without a head, and has been resting together with other Siegesallee figures in the Spandau Citadel since May 2009 .

Carmerstrasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg has been named after Johann Heinrich von Carmer since 1892.

Bruno Frank gave a literary portrait of Carmer in his novella The Grand Chancellor in the Days of the King cycle .

family

He married in 1762 on Rützen Wilhelmine Friederike von (1733–1778), a daughter of the Reichshofrat and senior official government president in Glogau Baron Hans Friedrich von Roth and Rützen . The couple had two sons:

  • Hans Friedrich Heinrich (born January 10, 1765 - † July 26, 1809), Prussian secret war and government councilor ∞ Countess Maximiliane Senfft von Pilsach (born October 19, 1778)
  • Wilhelm (October 3, 1772 - March 2, 1841)
∞ Wilhelmine von Goldbeck (* 1771; † 1804), only daughter of Justice Minister Heinrich Julius von Goldbeck (* 1733; † June 10, 1818)
∞ Caroline Auguste von Goldbeck (* 1781; † October 1, 1848), daughter of the secret war councilor Hans Christoph von Goldbeck (1735–1828)

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann Heinrich von Carmer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Heinrich Andreae : Crucenacum Palatinum cum ipsius archisatrapia . Johannes Baptist Wiesen, Heidelberg 1784, pp. 482-486, especially pp. 482f ( Google Books ).
  2. ↑ List of the Knights of the Royal Prussian High Order of the Black Eagle, page 12, Decker, 1851
  3. ^ Members of the previous academies. Johann Heinrich Kasimir Freiherr von, Count von Carmer. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on March 5, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Uta Lehnert: The Kaiser and the Siegesallee. Réclame Royale , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-496-01189-0 , p. 209
  5. ↑ Carmerstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  6. ↑ Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der Briefadeligen houses, 1911, fifth year p.299
personal data
SURNAME Carmer, Johann Heinrich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carmer, Johann Heinrich Casimir Graf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian grand chancellor and judicial reformer
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1720
PLACE OF BIRTH Kreuznach
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1801
Place of death Rützen , Silesia