Joseph von Armansperg

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Joseph Ludwig von Armansperg, lithograph by Franz Hanfstaengl (1833)

Joseph Ludwig Franz Xavier Graf von Armansperg (born February 28, 1787 in Kötzting , † April 3, 1853 in Munich ) was a Bavarian lawyer, member of parliament, ministerial official and minister. He served there between 1826 and 1831 as Minister of the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Finance. In the Kingdom of Greece he was head of government under King Otto from 1835 to 1837. From 1825 to 1852 he was a member of both chambers of the Bavarian Parliament, the Reichsrat and the Chamber of Deputies . He was the landlord of Egg and Loham in Bavaria and of Breitenried in Austria as well as the state in Austria above the Enns.

Life

Joseph Ludwig von Armansperg was born on February 28, 1787 in Kötzting as the son of the district judge Joseph Felix von Armansperg and his wife Ludovica Freiin Verger von Moosdorf. He spent his youth and school days in Straubing . In the winter semester 1802/03 Armansperg enrolled to study law at the University of Landshut . On November 30, 1806 he co-founded the Corps Bavaria Munich, which still exists today in Munich . In 1807 the university expelled him for a duel . A year later he graduated with moderate success. In the same year Armansperg found a job as a clerk at the general commissioner of the Regenkreis . State Councilor Joseph Maria Freiherr von Weichs , whose daughter Therese von Weichs Armansperg married in 1816, campaigned for his acceptance into the civil service. In 1810 he was promoted to council accessor at the same authority. In 1812 he moved to the government of the Lower Danube District .

In 1813 Armansperg was assigned to the Bavarian Army under Carl Philipp von Wrede . He was first used as a catering commissioner in the campaign during the wars of liberation from 1813 to 1814. The army time became important to him, as von Wrede took a liking to the “capable and energetic young officials”. Von Wrede sponsored him on his further career. Between 1814 and 1815 he took part in the Congress of Vienna . After winning the area on the left bank of the Rhine during the Wars of Liberation, Armansperg found a position in the provisional government of the Vosges department in January 1814 . After the Austrian Empire ceded the “ Rhine District ” to the Kingdom of Bavaria in the Treaty of Munich in 1816 , Armansperg became the government director of the newly established Chamber of Finance in Speyer . Here he got to know and appreciate the special administrative structures and institutions of the Palatinate - which was decisive for his further work. In 1817, at his own request, he had himself transferred to the same position in the Upper Danube District and worked in Augsburg . His career continued well, so that in 1820 he became director of the Supreme Audit Office . In 1823 he was transferred to the Regenkreis because of his conflict with Finance Minister Maximilian Emanuel von Lerchenfeld . In 1825 he was elected to the Bavarian Estates Assembly. Armansperg made an impression on Crown Prince Ludwig I with his liberal attitude .

After the death of Maximilian I , Ludwig I accepted him into the circle of his close advisers. In a short time he earned the royal trust, so that on January 1, 1826 he was promoted to the Council of State in the ordinary service and the offices of finance minister and interior minister were entrusted to him. Since 1828 Armansperg was a member of the Imperial Council of the Bavarian Estates Assembly as a lifelong Imperial Councilor. Because of his austerity as finance minister, he soon earned the nickname Sparmansperg . Due to contradictions in church politics, Ludwig I. Armansperg withdrew the Ministry of the Interior on September 1, 1828 and appointed the more docile Eduard von Schenk as his successor. In September the monarch appointed Armansperg foreign minister . He was relieved of this position in 1831, as Ludwig I now leaned his political course on Austria, which was incompatible with Armansperg's orientation.

He did not accept the appointment as ambassador in London . Ludwig I. put him at the side of his underage son Otto, who ascended the Greek throne in 1832 . He was president of the Regency Council; He was accompanied by other officials who had also been identified as "troublemakers"; including Armansperg's pupil Karl von Abel . Karl Wilhelm von Heideck and Georg Ludwig von Maurer also assisted Otto in leading the regency . After Armansperg succeeded in removing the hostile members of the reign of Maurer and Abel in 1834, he served as Greek State Chancellor from 1835 . Otto traveled to Germany in 1836. During the trip Armansperg took the position of administrator for Greece until his return in March 1837. Because Armansperg's policy was viewed as a failure, Ignaz von Rudhart succeeded him in office .

After returning to his Bavarian homeland, Armansperg did not hold any public office apart from a brief activity in 1848. Armansperg spent his old age at the Egg Castle near Deggendorf in Lower Bavaria, which he had converted . Armansperg died on April 3, 1853 in Munich at the age of 66.

tomb

Grave of Joseph Armansperg on the old southern cemetery in Munich location

The tomb of Joseph Armansperg is on the old southern cemetery in Munich (New Arkadenplatz 166 at cemetery 30) location .

Act

While serving in the Bavarian Army, Armansperg took part in the advance into France under von Wrede. The time at the Congress of Vienna was formative for his later foreign policy work. During his service time in the " Rhine District " he received several of the institutes created during the French Revolution. He also retained "the important declaration of the government on the irrevocability of the abolition of tax exemptions , tithes and other feudal charges ".

When Armansperg was elected Vice-President of the Second Chamber of the Bavarian State Assembly in 1825, he was able to demonstrate his knowledge of financial matters. He also made a name for himself as a staunch liberal . He advocated the relaxation of the provisions on marriage and residency, freedom of trade , free trade , the abolition of noble privileges and the separation of religion and state . In Ludwig I's circle, his first task was to work out austerity measures in the “Savings Commission”. The appointment and his work in personal union as Minister of the Interior and Finance has received differentiated assessments.

The bill of 1827 on a general property and house tax, which was presented to the estates and which gave the Bavarian tax system a previously missing unity and equality, is emphasized. He countered centralism with a law to set up funds in the government districts instead of transferring expenses from the state treasury. In 1827 Armansperg declared that the Bavarian state had not shown a deficit for a long time. When he left the post of finance minister, "the coffers were full, the deficits covered, and part of the property tax could be waived for the people." According to the historian Dirk Götschmann's assessment , contemporaries viewed him as finance minister largely positively, as he rendered good service during the restructuring of the state budget. With the savings in the state administration he created opponents among the civil servants; this was detrimental to participation in further reforms . Because of the small number of civil servants and the resulting overload, numerous liberal reform projects have failed.

His work as Minister of the Interior was seen as ambivalent. The fact that, after a long debate in the Bavarian Second Chamber, he pushed through the institution of the Bavarian district administrators is considered to be merit . However, the liberals accused him of wanting to be involved in the curtailment of state parliament rights. And as a representative of the First Chamber, his commitment to the abolition of noble privileges was seen reluctantly. Nor was it beneficial to his reputation that he tried to restrict the patrimonial jurisdiction and change the edict of nobility. The failure of the reforms sought led Ludwig I to take a critical stance towards Armansperg. On confrontation with Ludwig I, Armansperg went into church matters because of his attitude towards religion. In particular, the restoration of the monasteries, which were secularized after 1802, a matter close to Ludwig I's heart, he hindered as Finance Minister. The trial of strength led to the removal of the Ministry of the Interior. Ludwig I left Armansperg as finance minister because he did not want to forego his expertise and work. In return, however, he transferred the Foreign Ministry to him.

In the position of foreign minister, Armansperg was able to take steps at the Zollverein with Württemberg , which was finally established in 1828 after a preliminary negotiation agreement. In the same year, he also negotiated with member states of the German Confederation about the establishment of the German Customs Association , which came into being in 1833. Armansperg sought to get closer to Baden. The turn to the west, which even included France, was in conflict with Austrian politics under the statesman Prince von Metternich . The endeavor to become more involved in Bavarian politics together with other ministers as well as the anti-Austria stance cost him his position as foreign minister, since Ludwig I now leaned on Metternich's course in view of the French July Revolution of 1830 . According to the Swiss Josef Inauen, Bavaria was Armansperg's “greatest [], purely German [] 'power” and he wanted the state to “secure an important role in the German Confederation, if not in the European state concert”. In addition, he had rejected Ludwig I's policy of “fear of revolution”.

Armansperg's work in Greece earned him praise; but he was also called domineering. Most recently, because of the failed restructuring of Greek finances, Armansperg had to vacate his position as Arch Chancellor. According to the historian Karl Theodor von Heigel , Armansperg "in order to assert himself against his colleagues" had too much ingratiating himself with English diplomacy, "which was not concerned with the favorable development of the state and the safeguarding of the appointed dynasty".

Characteristics

He served under Franz Xaver von Zwack in the later Bavarian-Austrian provincial administration, which arose on the left bank of the Rhine, and was described as the most gifted student of the latter. The historian Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy characterizes Armansperg as a “superficial dilettante” in connection with his office in Greece. He was considered by Roswitha von Bary-Armansperg to be the spiritual successor of Montgela and a consistent defender of the sovereignty of the Bavarian state. According to the Swiss Josef Inauen, Armansperg was a liberal who was also filled with national ideas. He is also considered to be Montgela's successor. Armansperg is said to have been a "skillful, insightful, powerful and frank speaker".

Awards

  • Armansperg became an (elected) honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1830 ;
  • In 1849 he was made honorary citizenship of the city of Passau ;
  • Honorary Citizenship of the City of Athens .

Worth mentioning

The Royal Bank in Nuremberg was of little interest to the then Finance Minister Armansperg. In 1827 he would have left the bank to the city of Nuremberg if Ludwig I himself did not know how to prevent this because he did not want to forego the bank's profits.

In the wake of the Greek financial crisis, which had also been publicly discussed since 2010 at the latest, his nickname "Sparmansperg" was mentioned in the Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung in February 2012.

family

He was the son of Count Joseph Felix von Armansperg and his wife Ludovica Freiin Verger von Moosdorf . At the same time he was great-grandson of the Bavarian State Chancellor Franz Xaver Josef von Unertl . He himself was married to Therese von Weichs (* May 6, 1787, † January 10, 1859) since 1816 . The couple had four daughters:

  • Louise (* 1818; † September 11, 1835) ⚭ July 26, 1835 Michael Kantakuzenos
  • Sara Carolina Antonia Clara Sophia (born August 12, 1819) ⚭ July 26, 1835 Prince Demetrius Kantakuzenos
  • Karolina (July 4, 1821; † 1888)
⚭ Florian Mördes (* October 4, 1823 - January 21, 1850), Minister of the Interior of the Baden Revolutionary Government
⚭ 1856 Julius Froebel (1805–1893), politician and writer
  • Maria Catharina Walburga Theresia Elisabetha (* November 5, 1828; † 1850) ⚭ Baron Julius Bernhard von Eichthal (* January 6, 1822; † September 28, 1860)

With Joseph Ludwig von Armansperg , this Bavarian branch of the Counts of Armansperg became extinct in the male line.

literature

Web links

Commons : Joseph Ludwig von Armansperg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c Iustus Perthes: Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the count's houses . tape 41 . Perthes, Gotha 1868, p. 28 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ a b c Dirk Götschmann: The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 197 ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  3. ^ Kösener corps lists 1910, 170 , 1
  4. ↑ Dirk Götschmann: The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 197 f. ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Dirk Götschmann: The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 198 ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  6. ^ A b c d e f Karl Theodor von Heigel:  Armansperg, Ludwig Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 532 f.
  7. ^ House of Bavarian History (Bavarian State Ministry for Science, Research and Art): Stürmer, Johann Baptist Ritter von. Retrieved March 27, 2013 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Dirk Götschmann: The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 199 ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  9. ↑ a b c d e Dirk Götschmann: The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 200 ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  10. ↑ a b c d e f Dirk Götschmann: The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 201 ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  11. ↑ a b c d e Roswitha von Bary-Armansperg:  Armansperg, Joseph Ludwig Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 353 f. ( Digitized version ).
  12. ↑ a b H. Krause: Meyer's new conversation lexicon . II edition. tape I. . Verlag vom Bibliographisches Institut, Hildburghausen 1867, p. 1093 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  13. ↑ a b c d Dirk Götschmann : The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 202 ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  14. ↑ a b c d H. Krause: Meyer's new conversation lexicon . II edition. tape I. . Verlag vom Bibliographisches Institut, Hildburghausen 1867, p. 1092 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. ↑ Dirk Götschmann: The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior 1825–1864. Organization and function, civil service and political influence of a central authority in the constitutional monarchy, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1993, p. 198 f. ( online at Digitale-sammlungen.de )
  16. ↑ a b Josef Inauen: Focus on Switzerland . The southern German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria and the Confederation 1815–1840. Ed .: Urs Altermatt . Academic Press Friborg, Freiburg, Switzerland 2008, p. 70 ( limited preview in Google Book Search - see note 213).
  17. ^ Markus A. Denzel : History of the Munich financial center . Ed .: Hans Pohl . Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, p. 82 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  18. ↑ Manuel Ruoff: German "Sparmansperg" for Greece. Retrieved on March 28, 2013 (from Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung , episode 08-12 of February 25, 2012).
  19. ↑ Moniteur des dates, p. 34, digitized
  20. ^ Julius Bernhard von Eichthal
personal data
SURNAME Armansperg, Joseph von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Armansperg, Joseph Ludwig Graf von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bavarian and Greek statesman
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1787
PLACE OF BIRTH Kötzting , Lower Bavaria
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1853
Place of death Munich