Johann Nikolaus Becker

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Johann Nikolaus Becker , pseudonym Apollonius von Beilstein (born September 25, 1773 in Beilstein , † December 17, 1809 in Simmern ), was a German lawyer and writer. He worked as a justice of the peace in the Rhine-Moselle department .

Life

Origin, school and studies

Johann Nikolaus was the son of Count Metternich's cellar administrator Johann Baptist Becker and his wife Anna Maria Hoerrer. He was the fourth of a total of 13 children, eight of whom died early. His grandfather Anton Hoerrer was also cellar master at Beilstein and his uncle Peter Hoerrer was the forester of Count Metternich at Königswart in Bohemia. His origins from a family of sovereign servants probably contributed to his uncompromisingly pro-revolutionary attitude, although in 1799 he presented his father's former employer surprisingly positively.

The sovereign Prince von Metternich-Winneburg made it possible for him to attend the Jesuit grammar school in Koblenz, which was followed by law studies in Mainz and then in Göttingen, which he probably completed with a doctorate.

Becker was an avowed Jacobin and ardent supporter of the French Revolution and made no secret of his hatred of the nobility, but above all of the clergy. Becker was probably a member of the Mainz Jacobin Club . At least he stayed there at the time of its founding and existence, but left the city shortly before the Prussian reconquest in April 1793.

In Göttingen he studied with August Ludwig Schlözer and worked on the Göttingen Musenalmanach .

Career and work

From autumn 1794 until at least March 1796, Becker stayed in Würzburg and from 1797 the freelance writer worked in Koblenz together with his peer Johann Joseph Görres . In 1798 he stayed at the Rastatt Congress , published a sharp criticism of Metternich ( on the critical history of the Rastadter Peace ) and was "taken prisoner to Würzburg on November 4th".

In 1800, together with Franz Georg Joseph von Lassaulx, he founded the revolutionary newspaper The Residents of the West Rhine , which was renamed the Koblenzer Zeitung in 1803 .

The writer Becker was soon disaffected and turned to the profession he had learned. At the Tribunal 1st Instance in Simmern , he became a security officer ( Magistrat de sûreté ) and later a justice of the peace in Kirn . As such, he achieved great merits in the pursuit of the Rhenish robber gangs, including those of the Schinderhannes .

Becker was very literary and denounced, for example, the lack of any scientific education in the Electorate of Trier . He was a leading member of the Literary Society in Koblenz.

Worth mentioning is his idioticon with dialect terms from the Moselle department, printed in the appendix to the travel reports from 1799 , which, according to his own confession, is quite poor, but the first of its kind.

Becker died of the consequences of a hoof blow while riding through the Soonwald .

Works

Sources and literature

  • Church books of the parish of Beilstein in the diocese archive Trier / transcription by Otto Münster (Bullay, n.d.)
  • Alfons Friderichs (Ed.): “Johann Nikolaus Becker”, In: Personalities of the Cochem-Zell district. Kliomedia, Trier 2004, p. 41, ISBN 3-89890-084-3
  • Franz J. Weihrauch: The handover of Koblenz. The Jacobin Johann Nikolaus Becker as an eyewitness to the French invasion in October 1794.

Web links

Wikisource: Johann Nikolaus Becker  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Reichsfriedenscongress zu Rastadt. Second continuation. Rastadt and Basel: Decker 1799. p. 18. ( full text in the Google book search)
personal data
SURNAME Becker, Johann Nikolaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beilstein, Apollonius von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and justice of the peace
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH Beilstein
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 1809
Place of death Simmer