Karl August von Hardenberg

Karl August von Hardenberg

Karl August von Hardenberg , from 1814 Prince of Hardenberg (contemporary: Carl August von Hardenberg ; born May 31, 1750 in Essenrode , † November 26, 1822 in Genoa ) was a Prussian statesman who came from the Electorate of Hanover, the von Hardenberg family. Hardenberg was Prussian Foreign Minister from 1804 to 1806 and State Chancellor from 1810 to 1822; In 1814 he was raised to the rank of prince for his services .

Life

Hanover 1750–1781

Von Hardenberg was born in 1750 as the eldest child of eight children of Colonel Christian Ludwig von Hardenberg and his wife Anna Sophia Ehrengart (born von Bülow from Essenrode , sister of Friedrich Ernst von Bülow ). When the child was born, his mother was 19 years old and his father was 49 years old. This aspect influenced him all his life. During the first years, Karl August's upbringing was in the hands of his tutor Gavell, who had also raised his mother. The educational plan was based on the customs of the time and his class. French was spoken, and from the age of six Hardenberg learned Latin too . The Hofmeister Wedekind took over the education. Hardenberg visited the Pageninstitut in Hanover, where his first circle of friends of the same age was formed from the first families of the Electorate of Hanover. However, Karl August enjoyed an unusually progressive and enlightened upbringing for a young nobleman. His dream was civil service. So he decided to study law and enrolled at the University of Göttingen at the age of 16 for the winter semester of 1766/1767 and stayed for four semesters in Göttingen. There he was initially a member of the student order Ordre de l'Esperance and on May 23, 1768 was admitted to the Göttingen Masonic Lodge Augusta to the three flames . In the same year he moved to a new steward ( Johann Friedrich Gervinus ) to Leipzig on order in addition to law a year Belles Lettres study. There he met the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

In 1770 Hardenberg got an auditor's position . Auditor was the name for an assistant at the court, similar to today's trainee lawyer . In January 1771, six months after taking office, he was transferred to the financial administration of the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg . But in December 1771 Hardenberg's patron Burchard Christian von Behr died completely unexpectedly . His successor Benedict von Bremer brought his own protégés with him. Hardenberg complained angrily to the Elector - who was named George III. was King of Great Britain and Ireland in personal union - in London, who suggested he take a trip through Europe to broaden his horizons.

On July 15, 1772, Hardenberg went on his Grand Tour and visited several German royal courts, the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Wetzlar and the Reichstag in Regensburg . On November 23, 1773, he was appointed chamber councilor, and on June 8, 1774, he married fifteen-year-old Christiane von Reventlow. The son Christian Heinrich August von Hardenberg-Reventlow was born in 1775, the daughter Lucia Anna Wilhelmine Christina von Hardenberg-Reventlow on April 9, 1776. On January 13, 1780 he published a memorandum on the reform of the Hanoverian administration. On February 15, 1781, Hardenberg and his wife moved to London to win over the elector for his reform. In 1778 and 1781 he stayed in London, where an affair developed between his wife Christiane and the Prince of Wales (later George IV ). Since the scandal threatened to become public, Hardenberg submitted his resignation on September 28, 1781. On May 30th he was appointed to the ducal-Braunschweig Privy Council.

Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel 1781–1790

Hardenberg initially had prospects of becoming a leading minister in the principality. With his new employer Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel , he agreed on many fundamental issues. Here, too, he submitted a memorandum on administrative modernization. In an expert report, he took the view that the imperial estates had the right to oppose the emperor if he violated imperial law. In Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel he joined the Duchy of Prussia dominated for accession league of princes one. From 1786 he was head of a newly established secular school college. When reforming the school system, he oriented himself towards Johann Heinrich Campe and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and aimed to separate the school and the regional church. Overall, however, he was unable to prevail with his plans against the resistance of the estates. He himself had to abolish the secular school directorate in 1790.

Hardenberg's wife Christiane divorced him in 1788 and on June 9, 1788 he married Sophie von Lenthe, who was divorced because of him . This made it unsustainable for Braunschweig.

Ansbach-Bayreuth 1790–1798

Hardenberg received the offer to enter the Prussian service and went to the Margrave of Ansbach and Bayreuth ( Karl Alexander von Brandenburg-Ansbach ) as a leading minister . The background was that he intended to resign and hand over his property to the Prussian line of the Hohenzollern .

After the resignation of the margrave, Ansbach-Bayreuth became a province in the possession of the Prussian crown. Hardenberg led the incorporation of the province as Prussian minister. He had ensured that he was directly subordinate to the king and not to the Prussian administration. This enabled him to rule the area as an independent province largely without outside interference. Like a viceroy, he held court in Ansbach , Triesdorf and Bayreuth .

Integration into the Prussian state was very difficult, as the two areas were mixed up with other territories. There were enclaves and exclaves, and sovereign rights sometimes overlapped. Hardenberg did not hesitate to violate the rights of imperial knights and other nobles of the empire and to revoke their privileges contrary to imperial law. He forced the exchange of areas with the aim of creating a clearly delimited Prussian area. Inside, the right of the nobility to turn to the emperor in disputes with the sovereign was abolished. If necessary, Hardenberg also used military pressure to achieve his goals. With the help of secretly financed newspapers, he tried to influence public opinion in his favor and on this point proved to be one of the first pioneers of press policy. For this purpose, he initially employed Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin , who from August 1792 published the Ansbachische Blätter , which appeared twice a week , but died in November of the same year. In 1796 the propagandistic Volkszeitung appeared briefly , edited by Hardenberg's colleague Theodor von Kretschmann . Finally, at the end of 1796, the minister recruited Simson Alexander David , a Braunschweig writer, businessman and traveler to England , who had given himself the name Karl Julius Lange and who emphasized enlightenment positions. From January 1797 he caused a lot of sensation with his Deutsche Reichs- und Staatszeitung for businessmen and men of the world , as the paper appeared de facto free of censorship in Nuremberg , later in Erlangen and, thanks to the secret protection of Hardenberg, survived several lawsuits and complaints unscathed. Contemporary observers attested the newspaper, in which prominent, democratically-minded authors wrote, “genuine opposition spirit”. Especially the Franconian landed nobility, the churches and Austria, inspired by Hardenberg, were heavily attacked. It was not until May 1799 that Lange had to stop the paper and, after brief imprisonment, fled to the then Danish Altona to emigrate. Hardenberg continued to secretly support the idiosyncratic journalist there financially and from the end of 1803 ensured that he was employed again in Berlin.

In Ansbach-Bayreuth, Hardenberg was able to implement his earlier plans for a fundamental administrative reform. Four line ministries for justice, home affairs, war and finance have been established. Numerous officials who served under him later played an important role in reforms at the central government level. Others who did not go to Berlin were among the administrative modernizers in Bavaria, to which Ansbach-Bayreuth later fell. Well-known employees included Alexander von Humboldt , Friedrich Leopold von Kircheisen , Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein and Friedrich von Schuckmann .

As part of the first coalition war , foreign policy tasks were increasingly assigned to him. He advocated a clear course of war against France and an alliance with Great Britain and the Netherlands. In 1795 Hardenberg was a signatory to the Basel Peace Treaty with France . The left bank of the Rhine had to be abandoned, but Hardenberg tried to strengthen the Prussian position. He achieved the creation of a line of neutrality. Even if this was not as far as he had hoped, it meant that Prussia and northern Germany had about ten years of peace, while Austria and southern Germany were still at war. In Ansbach-Bayreuth, he tried to strengthen the Prussian position in southern Germany by acquiring territory. However, neither Nuremberg nor the Hochstifte Würzburg and Bamberg were successfully acquired .

Berlin 1798-1822

Karl August von Hardenberg , marble bust by Johann Gottfried Schadow

Karl August von Hardenberg , painting by Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow , before 1812

In 1798 Hardenberg was ordered to Berlin because he was accused of wasting money. His independence in the administration of Ansbach was restricted, the administrative reforms had to be partially withdrawn and adapted to the status of the rest of Prussia.

In 1803 he gained the trust of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. and was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, in 1804 he was officially foreign minister. He used his increasing influence to gain territorial gains in Westphalia and Central Germany in return for Prussia's neutrality . Not in agreement with the king's policy towards France, he resigned in 1806 at the urging of Napoleon . This process made him popular in the German freedom and national movement.

In April 1807, at the instigation of the Russian Tsar Alexander I , Hardenberg was again entrusted with all internal and external affairs as leading minister. In this function he openly spoke out in favor of a joint Russian-Prussian struggle against Napoleon. As a condition after the Peace of Tilsit in July 1807, Hardenberg had to resign on the orders of Napoleon.

On June 17, 1807, Hardenberg secretly married Charlotte Schönemann (March 1, 1772 - 1854) in his third marriage. The couple had lived together for several years.

The appointment of Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein in 1807 he had a decisive influence on his exile stay in Riga , as well as his dismissal in 1808 through his Braunsberg memorandum of November 12, 1808. In the Riga memorandum “On the Reorganization of the Prussian State” from September 12, 1807, which he wrote on behalf of the king, he developed reform proposals that should enable a monarchy with freedom rights and democratic elements. He recommended to his king not to rely on the legitimacy of his house as a guarantee for Prussia's future, but rather, in the struggle with Napoleon - with caution - to rely on the awakening German national feeling: “With the ever more threatening and not out of sight losing the danger that Napoleon intends to destroy Prussia, the processing and use of the national spirit is extremely important. "

When he succeeded in dismissing Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein's cabinet in 1810 , von Hardenberg succeeded in being appointed Prussian State Chancellor on June 4, with Napoleon's approval . In this function, Hardenberg had a power that had not been achieved before: In addition to external and internal affairs, he also took on the finance department. He continued the Prussian reforms begun by Stein and stalled under Altenstein , but, like Altenstein, could not prevail against the restorative forces. His main goal, the introduction of a constitution and participation of the bourgeoisie, he could not achieve.

The financial edict of October 27, 1810 was the beginning of the Hardenberg reforms , followed in 1811 by the regulation edict , the trade tax law, which stipulated the freedom of trade , the peasants' liberation and in 1812 the emancipation of the Jews . He advocated a liberal constitutional state, as he had already called for in his Riga memorandum, but, unlike Stein, rejected the creation of a German nation state. Hardenberg also planned a tax reform and the creation of a representative body, but this failed due to the resistance of the conservative nobility.

Hardenberg initially held on to the Russian aspirations for an alliance against Napoleon. It was only after Napoleon's army collapsed in Russia in late 1812 that he became active in this regard. As negotiator on the Prussian side, he brokered the Prussian-Russian Treaty of Kalisch , in which a joint revolt against Napoleon was agreed, together with vom Stein, who represented the Russian tsar. In 1813 he signed the Teplitz alliance treaties with Russia and Austria for Prussia .

Neuhardenberg Castle around 1860

Together with Wilhelm von Humboldt and vom Stein, he developed a draft for a federal constitution in 1814. On June 3 of the same year Friedrich Wilhelm III raised him. in Paris to the prince class and gave him the class rule over the Quilitz office, which was renamed Neu-Hardenberg . From 1820 to 1823, Karl Friedrich Schinkel rebuilt the originally baroque palace in a classical style on behalf of the prince.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 he succeeded in securing Prussia a considerable increase in territory, and after 1815 he established a reorganized administration ( Province of Saxony ) in the territories that had been won . He could make the king promise to pass a constitution; a constitutional commission was not convened until 1817. In 1819 he drafted a state constitution for Prussia, which, however, was not implemented.

Grave at the Schinkel Church

Hardenberg on a postage stamp of the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin from 1972

After the Karlsbad resolutions in 1819, Hardenberg's influence slowly waned. In 1822 he fell ill after a congress in Verona and died shortly afterwards. Because of the effectiveness of his reforms and the effect on numerous neighboring countries, he is considered one of the great state reformers of the 19th century. His body rests on the back of the Schinkel Church in Neuhardenberg.

family

Hardenberg was married three times. In 1774 (divorce in 1788) he married Countess Christiane Friederike Juliane von Reventlow (1759-1793), a daughter of the Danish Chamberlain Christian Detlev von Reventlow (born November 1, 1735 - February 10, 1759) and Ida Lucia Scheel von Plessen .

• Christian von Hardenberg-Reventlow (1775–1841), freelance lord of Neu-Hardenberg

⚭ 1795 Jeanette Caroline von Reitzenstein (born November 14, 1777; † December 25, 1819)

⚭ 1822 Emma Luise von Hardenberg (born January 29, 1796; June 4, 1853)

• Lucie (April 9, 1776 - May 8, 1854)

⚭ 1796 Count Karl Theodor von Pappenheim (1771–1853), Bavarian field warden

⚭ 1817 Prince Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871), travel writer and garden artist

After his divorce, he married Sophie von Hasberg (1757–1835) in 1788 (divorce in 1800 ), who moved away from the Hanoverian state a. Conference Minister Ernst von Lenthe (1744–1814) divorced. His wife was the daughter of the Hanoverian Land- u. Treasurer Georg Albrecht von Hasberg (1706–1764) and Freiin Hedwig Dorothea Friederike Löw von Steinfurth .

In 1807 he married the singer Charlotte Schöneknecht (also: Schönemann , 1772–1854), a daughter of the kit maker Johann Friedrich Schöneknecht and Eleonore Maria Schlichting . Because of his affair with Friederike von Kimsky , he was last separated from her.

Freemasonry

Karl August von Hardenberg was a member of the Freemasons Association . His mother lodge was the Masonic lodge to the white horse in Hanover . He held the office of lodge master there in the years 1778–1781 . The Great Lodge of Prussia called Royal York for Friendship donated a portrait in his honor . Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher was present at the ceremonial unveiling of the painting .

Fonts

• Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann (Ed.): Diaries and autobiographical records of the Prussian State Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg (German historical sources of the 19th and 20th centuries) . Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-56277-0 .

Honors

Hardenberg Monument Berlin (model)

Hardenberg was honored with streets named after him in numerous German cities. In Berlin, Hardenbergstrasse and Hardenbergplatz in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf have been named after him since 1865 (street) and 1958 (square).

In addition, a monument modeled by the sculptor Martin Götze was erected on Dönhoffplatz in Berlin in 1907 . The bronze statue has been lost since 1949 at the latest, but could be reconstructed in 2006. The replenishment was placed in front of the Berlin House of Representatives in 2011 .

The Hardenberg Gymnasium in Fürth has been named after him since 1966 .

literature

• Heinrich von Sybel :  Hardenberg, Karl August Prince of . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 572-590.
• Hans Haussherr †, Walter Bussmann:  Hardenberg, Carl August Fürst von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , pp. 658-663 ( digitized version ).
• Walther Killy , Rudolf Vierhaus : German biographical encyclopedia , vol. 4, p. 382 f.
• Joachim Kühn: Hardenberg and the women . In: Yearbook Der Bär von Berlin , ed. v. Association for the History of Berlin , 20th year, Berlin 1971.
• Wilhelm Rothert : Hannoversche Biographie , Bd. 3, Hannover under the Kurhut, 1646-1815 , ed. by Wilhelm Rothert, A. Rothert and M. Peters, Hannover 1916, pp. 405-430
• Heinrich Wilhelm Rotermund : The learned Hanover or lexicon of writers, learned businessmen and artists who have lived and are still alive since the Reformation in and outside of all the provinces belonging to the Kingdom of Hanover, compiled from the most credible writers , Vol. 2, Bremen 1823, p. 248f.
• O. Merker: Karl August Freiherr von Hardenberg's reform thinking in his time in Hanover 1771–1781. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , ed. from the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen , Vol. 48 (1976), pp. 325-344
• Klaus Mlynek : Hardenberg, C (K) arl August von . In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 150, scan from Google books
• Klaus Mlynek: Hardenberg, C (K) arl August von . In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 270.
• Lothar Gall : Hardenberg: The reformer and statesman . Munich, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-492-95210-1 . ( books.google.de )
• Hans Haussherr: "Hardenberg" . Ed .: Karl Erich Born . Böhlau 1962 (first edition: 1943).
• Ingo Herrmann: Hardenberg: The reform chancellor . Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-88680-729-0 .
• Gerhard Schildt : Hardenberg, Karl August Prince of. In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 245 .
• Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann (Ed.): "Free use of forces". An inventory of Hardenberg research . Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-56631-8 .
• Felix Staehelin : An exchange of letters between Karl Ludwig von Haller and Karl August von Hardenberg . In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde , Vol. 11, 1912, pp. 221–229. ( Digitized version )
• Peter G. Thielen: Karl August von Hardenberg, 1750-1822 - A biography . Cologne / Berlin 1967, ISBN 978-3-7745-0053-2 .
• Eberhard Weis : Hardenberg and Monteglas. Attempt to compare their personalities and their politics . In: Yearbook of the Historical College 1997, pp. 3–20 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Karl August von Hardenberg  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Karl August von Hardenberg  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Karl August von Hardenberg in the catalog of the German National Library
• The library of Karl August von Hardenberg is located in the historical collections of the Central and State Library Berlin Foundation .
• Homepage about Karl August von Hardenberg with biographical data and sources

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jakob Caro:  Bülow, Hans Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, pp. 533-538.
2. ↑ Heinrich David Wedekind (1736–1804), studied theology in Göttingen from 1750 and was later pastor in Lindhorst and Geismar.
3. ↑ Peter Jungblut : A demonized life. Simson Alexander David (1755–1812) - the journalist Germany wanted to go to hell . Berlin 2016. ISBN 978-3-7375-4423-8 . P. 131 ff., Also Andrea Hofmeister-Hunger: Press policy and state reform. The institutionalization of public relations work with Karl August von Hardenberg . Göttingen, 1994, p. 136 ff.
4. ↑ Christopher Clark : Prussia. Rise and fall 1600–1947 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2007. ISBN 978-3-421-05392-3 . P. 328.
5. ↑ Text of the Braunsberg memorandum of November 12, 1808 ( memento of the original of February 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Georg Winter (Ed.): Reorganization of the Prussian State under Stein and Hardenberg. First part: General administrative and authority reform. Volume 1: From the beginning of the fight against the cabinet government to the re-entry of the Minister von Stein . (= Publications from the Prussian State Archives, Volume 93), S. Hirzel Verlag, Leipzig 1931, pp. 302–363.
7. ↑ Braunsberg Memorandum, No. 10.
8. ↑ Otto Büsch (Ed.): Handbook of Prussian History. Vol. 2: The 19th century and major topics in the history of Prussia . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1992. ISBN 3-11-008322-1 , p. 287.
9. ^ Günter de Bruyn : Die Somnambule or Des Staatskanzlers Tod , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2015
10. ↑ 25.11.1824: - swr2-verb: Prince Hardenberg's grave is inaugurated.pdf. (PDF) Retrieved November 25, 2017 . 
11. ↑ J. Siebmacher's large and general Wappenbuch, Volume 3, p.17
12. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the German count houses for the year 1841, p.222
13. ↑ Historisch-Heraldisches Handbuch for the genealogical paperback of the count's houses for the year 1855, p.304
14. ↑ Günter de Bruyn : The Somnambule or the Chancellor's death. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2015
15. ↑ Hardenbergstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
16. ↑ Hardenbergplatz. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )