Karl August von Böhmer

Karl August von Böhmer

Karl August Böhmer , from 1743 by Böhmer , (born March 17, 1707 in Halle , † March 7, 1748 in Glogau ) was a Prussian administrative and church lawyer and senior official of Glogau.

origin

Karl August von Böhmer belonged to the Böhmer / von Boehmer family of lawyers , which in the 18th and 19th centuries belonged to the so-called Pretty Families in Kurhannover and in the early Kingdom of Hanover . He was the son of Justus Henning Böhmer and Eleonore Rosine Stützing (1679–1739) and the brother of the legal scholars Georg Ludwig Böhmer and Johann Samuel Friedrich von Böhmer as well as the physician Philipp Adolph Böhmer .

Live and act

Karl August Böhmer, like his older brother Johann Samuel Friedrich, initially studied law with his father Justus Henning Böhmer at the University of Halle and received his doctorate in 1726 with the dissertation : “ de mente juris canonici ”. He then took on the task of bundling the countless reports and decisions of his father, which he had collected over the years, and to publish them in 1733 under the title: " Consulatationes et decisiones juris ".

A few years later, however, Boehmer shifted his previously more academic work to a career in political and administrative law. Due to the good relations between his father Justus Henning and the Prussian court, King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Of Prussia became aware of Karl August Böhmer and appointed him to his chamber and domain council. After the liberation of Silesia from Austria by Prussia in the course of the First Silesian War , Silesia was divided into two administrative districts, of which Karl August Böhmer was finally appointed senior president of the administrative district around Groß-Glogau under the incumbent minister for all of Silesia, Ludwig, by order of November 25, 1741 Wilhelm Graf von Münchow (1712–1753) was appointed. Boehmer, who was subsequently promoted to privy councilor , held this office until his sudden death in 1748.

Boehmer's merits lay in the fact that he built new structures in the sense of enlightened absolutism based on the Prussian model in an area with a predominantly Catholic population as well as a desolate administration due to the occupation and the chaos of war and a bad economic situation . In this context he introduced, among other things, against the resistance of resistant and traditional parts of the population, especially in the upper class, the Prussian general land law as well as the Prussian tax classification but also above all religious freedom in order to protect the hearts through " just, skilful and impeccable administrative work " to win the Silesian population for Prussia. He did not hesitate to arrest and punish his opponents and rebels against the new system, such as a Count von Finckenstein, who had tried to organize a rebellion against him, with the support of Grand Chancellor Samuel von Cocceji .

Coat of arms of Karl August von Böhmer

On October 12, 1743, Karl August Böhmer was elevated to the hereditary Prussian nobility by Frederick the Great because of his great services as a civil servant . This possibly also happened to enable a befitting marriage to a lady from the old Silesian nobility and thus to contribute to the consolidation of the ties between the Kingdom of Prussia and the newly acquired Silesian province. His coat of arms is split, in front a Prussian wing in silver, with the Saxons turned inwards. At the back a palm tree in gold on green ground. Gem: wings on the crown, covers black-silver and green-gold.

family

Karl August von Böhmer was married to Sophia Elisabeth Amalie von Kalckreuth (1727–1793), daughter of Hans Ernst von Kalckreuth , master of Ober- and Niedersiegersdorf in the Bunzlau district , and Sophie Elisabeth von Bülow from the house of Eschenrode . With her he had two daughters and a son:

• Sophia Emilie Elisabeth (* May 16, 1744; † December 28, 1778) ∞ Count Johann Wilhelm von der Goltz (1737–1793)
• Karoline Auguste (born November 30, 1745; † August 31, 1831) olf Adolf Friedrich Siegesmund von Pape († October 27, 1789), Prussian major
• Karl Just Ernst (April 9, 1747 - April 2, 1848)

With the early death of the son, this branch of the Böhmer / Boehmer family and the above-mentioned acquired title of nobility in the male line died out.

literature

• Hans-Thorald Michaelis : History of the Boehmer family. In continuation of the genealogy, written by Hugo Erich von Boehmer in 1892, of the families Boehmer and von Boehmer descended from Justus Henning Boehmer as well as some of the families related by marriage to them. Rheinische Verlagsanstalt, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1978.
• Entry. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Supplement 4, Leipzig 1754, columns 19-40018.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Klaus Mlynek : Pretty families. 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. 310.
2. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the letter aristocratic houses 1912. Sixth year, p.707 .