Johann Paul von Falkenstein

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Johann Paul Freiherr von Falkenstein

Johann Paul Freiherr von Falkenstein (born June 15, 1801 in Pegau , † January 14, 1882 in Dresden ) was a conservative Saxon lawyer , administrative officer and politician . He made a special contribution to the University of Leipzig and the Saxon regional church.

Origin and education

He was the son of the later Saxon major Heinrich Gottlob Peter von Falkenstein. His mother came from a middle-class family of officials. Childhood was difficult as his parents' marriage ended in divorce soon after he was born. Johann Paul grew up with a relative (a von Witzleben). From 1814 he attended the Roßleben monastery school , which he left in 1819 as the best in his class. From 1819 Falkenstein studied law in Leipzig . After graduating in 1822 he became an assessor at the district office (about trainee lawyer in the regional council) and at the Leipzig City Court. Since he was largely destitute after the death of his foster father, he completed his habilitation in 1823 and became a private lecturer in order to live on the hearing allowances .

Career in internal administration

Favored by the Chancellor of the state government in Dresden, Baron von Werthern, Falkenstein received a position as a councilor in the Leipzig Higher Court in 1823 . He continued his scientific activity and stayed with the best families in town. In 1827 Falkenstein was appointed court and judicial councilor to the state government (a central authority for justice and administration) in Dresden. This allowed him to marry Constanze Gruner (from a family of Leipzig lawyers and merchants) in 1829. With her he had two daughters. After the state reform of 1830/31, Falkenstein moved to the newly created Ministry of the Interior as a secret councilor in 1834, where he prepared the rural community regulations . In the following year, Falkenstein became district director (district president) in Leipzig. At the same time he was government commissioner for the University of Leipzig, which he promoted as best he could. He suggested the establishment of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences (now the Saxon Academy of Sciences ), of which he was elected honorary member on October 31, 1853. As district director he built up the administrative structure that was newly created in all of Saxony in 1835. He did a lot for the Leipzig-Dresden Railway and the Bavarian Railway (after Hof).

Church and Education Policy

In 1844 Falkenstein was appointed Minister of the Interior of the Kingdom of Saxony . He had to deal with the pre-March unrest and movements in Saxony ( liberalism , German Catholicism ). As a result, although not hostile to reforms, it became a symbol of the intransigent politics of the state government in Dresden. In 1848 he was the first of all ministers to resign. He retired to his country estate in Frohburg and worked scientifically. After the failure of the revolution in the Dresden May uprising of 1849, Falkenstein became president of the state consistory in 1850. At that time, this central spiritual authority was responsible for the academic examinations of clergymen and school teachers.

In 1853, at the request of King Friedrich August II , Falkenstein became Minister of Education as successor to Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust . As head of the Ministry of Cultus and Public Education , he was responsible for the churches and the entire educational system. He pursued a line that relied less on repression, but wanted to strengthen traditional forces in church and school. Therefore, he tried to give the regional church , which is actually in state hands, its own organs. In the church council and synod order of 1868 church councils and a regional synod were created. Church visits were also carried out again. He also made an outstanding contribution to education. In 1860, the first regulation on secondary schools was issued. In 1857 and 1866 the teachers' seminars received new regulations, and from 1865 good primary school teachers were admitted to university. The University of Leipzig was greatly expanded. Minister Falkenstein usually conducted the appointment negotiations with the prospective professors himself. The founding of the Saxon Antiquities Association and the New Archives for Saxon History also go back to him.

Falkenstein had a close relationship with King John of Saxony . Therefore, in 1866, the latter gave him the chairmanship of the entire ministry after Beust's foreign policy had failed because of Otto von Bismarck . As overall head of Saxon politics, he tried to preserve as much as possible of Saxony's independence when it was incorporated into the North German Confederation . The unification of the empire under Bismarck's leadership led to a high level of national-liberal sentiment and thus to a liberal majority in the second chamber of the Saxon state parliament. Falkenstein therefore failed with his ideas about reforming the elementary school system. A strong position of the Lutheran regional church in the elementary school could not be asserted in the atmosphere of the culture war , which in Saxony was also directed against the Lutheran regional church. Falkenstein, whose administration of office increasingly had to be accused of listlessness and inconsistency, therefore submitted his resignation in 1871. His successor as Minister of Education was Carl Friedrich von Gerber . Falkenstein was appointed minister of the royal house and held this office until his death. At the same time he was on the state parliaments from 1873/74 to 1879/80 as a member appointed by the king, a member of the first chamber of the Saxon state parliament . He published a biography of King John. It is part of his longstanding efforts to profile Saxony as a major cultural power vis-à-vis the other German powers.

Works

  • (anonymous) About the "directions" in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony. By a state official, in: Protestant Monthly Papers for Contemporary History 10 (1857), pp. 141–152 (presentation of Falkenstein's church policy program).
  • FALKENSTEIN, Johann Paul Freiherr von, Johann King of Saxony. A character picture, Dresden 1878.
  • PETZHOLDT, Julius (Ed.), Dr. Johann Paul Freiherr v. Falkenstein. His life and work according to his own notes, Dresden 1882 (allegedly unchanged reprint of his memoirs).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Josef Matzerath : Aspects of the Saxon State Parliament History - Presidents and Members of Parliament from 1833 to 1952. Dresden 2001, p. 41.
personal data
SURNAME Falkenstein, Johann Paul von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Falkenstein, Johann Paul Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saxon politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Pegau
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1882
Place of death Dresden