Karl von Behr

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Karl Friedrich Ludwig von Behr-Pinnow (born June 27, 1864 at Gut Pinnow ; † May 4, 1941 in Berlin ; often referred to as Karl von Behr-Pinnow ) was a Prussian judicial officer and district administrator and cabinet member of the last German empress. As a social hygienist and eugenicist , he dealt with genetic biology and promoted the spread of eugenic ideas in Germany.

Life

Karl von Behr came from the lines of the noble von Behr family based on Pinnow in the Greifswald district . He was the son of Rittmeister Carl von Behr and his wife Helene († 1872). After his mother's death he was born by his aunt Julie von Massow. educated by Behr (1825–1901).

In 1873 he moved with her to Dresden and from 1875 attended the Vitzthumsche Gymnasium there . He passed the Abitur in 1883 at the grammar school in Anklam . He then studied law at the University of Göttingen until 1886 . After receiving his doctorate on June 10, 1886, he became a trainee lawyer at the district court in Wolgast . From autumn 1887 he studied administrative law, economics and finance at the University of Greifswald . At the same time he worked at the Greifswald administrative court. In 1888 he was a government trainee at the public prosecutor's office in Stettin . In 1891 he became a government assessor in Stralsund . On January 22, 1891 he was appointed Prussian chamberlain. From 1895 to 1897 he was employed at the police headquarters in Frankfurt am Main . Then he was district administrator of the Plön district until the beginning of 1904 .

In January 1904 it proclaimed Emperor Wilhelm II. For eunuchs . In February he was appointed chamberlain to the Empress Auguste Victoria . From October 1904 to October 1911 he was cabinet counselor and case manager of the Empress.

Karl von Behr, whose four siblings died in infancy, had been concerned with combating infant mortality and maternity protection since 1905 . On his initiative, the Kaiserin-Auguste-Victoria-Haus (KAVH) was built, which was opened in 1909 in the presence of the Empress. After the end of his tenure as cabinet councilor, von Behr was chairman of the board of trustees of this charitable institution.

Since 1911 he devoted himself increasingly to genetic research. He had already started to publish numerous papers on genetic biology and eugenics , for which he received an honorary medical doctorate from the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin in 1909 . Karl von Behr was one of the staunch advocates of anti-feminism . With his writings, in which, among other things , he advocated the sterilization of people, he contributed to the spread of eugenic ideas in Protestant circles in Germany. In 1925 he founded the “German Association for Public Appearance and Heritage”, of which he became the first chairman. The association later became part of the " Society for Racial Hygiene ".

In 1926 he sold Gut Pinnow to Erhard von Kuenheim and then lived in Switzerland . In 1939 he moved to Berlin, where he died two years later.

He was a member of the Corps Saxonia Göttingen (1884) and Pomerania Greifswald (1911).

family

Karl von Behr was married to Diana Freiin von Vincke († 1910), with whom he had two children. In 1913 he married Maria von Pestel, with whom he had a daughter.

Fonts (selection)

  • Declining birth rates and combating infant mortality. Springer, Berlin 1913.
  • The future of the human race. Basics and requirements of heredity. 1925.

literature

  • Bernd Jordan: A Pomeranian career. Dr. Karl von Behr from Pinnow. In: Heimatkurier. Supplement to the Nordkurier . May 29, 2006, p. 24.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ute Planert : Antifeminism in the Empire. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998, ISBN 3525357877 , pp. 210-211
  2. ^ Wolfgang Krischke: Humanity on austerity course. Approval also in church circles: eugenics during the Weimar Republic. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 50 of February 28, 1996
  3. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 45 , 352; 53 , 617
personal data
SURNAME Behr, Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Behr-Pinnow, Karl Friedrich Ludwig von (full name); Behr-Pinnow, Karl von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian judicial officer, district administrator and cabinet member, disseminator of eugenic ideas
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Gut Pinnow ( Western Pomerania )
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1941
Place of death Berlin