Carl von Bodelschwingh

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Carl von Bodelschwingh

Carl von Bodelschwingh (born December 16, 1800 in Hamm , † May 10, 1873 in Berlin ) was a German administrative lawyer in the Kingdom of Prussia . In the province of Westphalia he was district administrator of the Hamm district and district president in Arnsberg . He was Prussian Minister of Finance for eleven years and sat in the Westphalian provincial parliament (Prussia) . Before and after the founding of the German Empire , he was a member of the Reichstag . He was commander of the Westphalian cooperative of the Order of St. John and lived at Haus Heyde in what is now Uelzen (Unna) .

origin

His father was Franz von Bodelschwingh-Velmede (1754–1827) on Gut Velmede in what is now Bergkamen . His mother was Friederike von Bodelschwingh , the heiress of the manor Haus Heyde. The family owned a total of six estates in the area north of Unna, plus a house in the center of the then district and garrison town of Hamm, in which they often lived. They had three children: next to Carl, the youngest, Sophie (1791–1855), who was nine years older, and Ernst von Bodelschwingh the Elder , who was six years older and who had a career similar to that of him and was also a Prussian minister, was the youngest . The three children inherited two of the estates from their parents, Carl inherited the family seat on his mother's side, namely the moated castle Haus Heyde with Gut Binkhoff 3.7 km to the north .

Due to his offices, Bodelschwingh did not live permanently at Haus Heyde for many years, but at the places where he worked, especially during the eleven years as Prussian finance minister in his official apartment in the Prussian finance ministry in Berlin.

Early years

Bodelschwingh first attended the Hammonense grammar school , then in 1813 for a short time the pedagogy in Halle and finally the Joachimsthal grammar school in Berlin. There he received the school leaving certificate on March 15, 1821 . He then studied construction for one semester at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin , then law and camera science . After becoming active in the Corps Guestphalia (II) Göttingen in 1820, he completed his studies.

After serving as a one-year volunteer in the Guard Rifle Battalion , he returned to Haus Heyde and supported the parents in managing their property. On September 30, 1835, he was elected district deputy by the district council of the Hamm district, which at that time comprised the city of Hamm and today's Unna district, and on February 20, 1836 he was entrusted with the municipal administration of the district 's district office. On January 15, 1837, he was appointed district administrator of the Hamm district and held this office until 1844. On August 20, 1844, he was appointed senior government councilor and department head of the government in Minden , and on May 27, 1845, he was appointed vice- president of the Münster administrative region . He was then from July 18, 1849 to July 1851, district president in the administrative district of Arnsberg .

Finance minister

Politically, Bodelschwingh was part of the ultra-conservative politician Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach . In July 1851 he was appointed to the Prussian government under Prime Minister Otto Theodor von Manteuffel and was then Prussian Finance Minister until this government was dismissed on November 6, 1858. Although conservative, Bodelschwingh is said to have been open to technical developments. As the "Westfälische Anzeiger und Kurier" praised in an article about him from Christmas 1863, Bodelschwingh was as Minister of Finance from 1851 to 1858 under the ("reactionary") Prime Minister von Manteuffel "at that time an ardent supporter of the transport sector, especially the Construction of railways, especially in Westphalia and the Rhine Province, in those areas where mining and industry began to develop at that time. ”On leaving, he was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle 1st class with oak leaves. He then returned to the Heyde house he had inherited.

On September 30, 1862 he was reappointed to the Prussian government, this time under Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck , and was Minister of Finance for the second time until June 1866. Since Bismarck chose Bodelschwingh for his cabinet, he should not have had a slight opinion of him. Both had largely the same basic attitudes: deeply religious, strictly conservative, convinced of the divine right of the king. In politics, however, their views diverged more and more over the years. There were differences and differing views, especially in trade policy. What you read about Bodelschwingh in Bismarck's thoughts and memories is rarely positive. There are passages like “Support for my politics is not to be expected”, “Bodelschw's bureaucratic dodging” or “Foiled by the intrigues of Bodelschwinghs [...]”. In June 1866 he resigned because, as finance minister, he did not want to provide the funds for the German war . As emphatically as Bodelschwingh stood up for German unity , in contrast to Bismarck, he rejected a war between Germans, a "sinful fratricidal war" as he once called it, in order to achieve this goal. “Germans don't fight against Germans” was his word.

The subsequent development showed that it was not his, but Bismarck's policy that was more successful. It must have been particularly bad for him that two of his sons died in this war, which he rejected and because of which he had said goodbye. All of his four sons took part in the war, as well as his son-in-law Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder , then a pastor in Fröndenberg / Ruhr , as field preacher . All four sons also fought in the decisive battle of Königgrätz (July 3, 1866). The telegraph then brought the family to the Heyde house that one had been killed and another was fatally wounded. “God make us happy donors”, Bodelschwingh later wrote under the obituary notice for his two sons.

MP

Bodelschwingh was a member of the Westphalian provincial parliament for almost 40 years as a member of the Brandenburg knighthood , where he was a member of the corporate management committee. From 1851 to 1858 and again from 1867 to 1873 he was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives , first for the Tecklenburg district and later for the Herford - Halle constituency , which he also represented in the German Reichstag from 1871 . At the end of the 1860s, Bodelschwingh appears to have been a driving force in the House of Representatives in the conservative opposition to Bismarck, and Bodelschwingh got away with Bismarck's report of his break with the Conservative Party accordingly. Bodelschwingh is portrayed by Bismarck as an intriguer. As has been handed down, Bismarck was upset a few weeks before Bodelschwingh's death with one of Bodelschwingh's relatives: Bodelschwingh was a "fox"; you think you shot him, but "then the beast bites you in the back of the calf".

Religious attitude

Apparently Bodelschwingh was just like his brother Ernst von Bodelschwingh the elder and like the other family members a deeply religious and socially minded person. When his nephew Friedrich asked for his daughter Ida's hand, he wrote in reply - as his memoirs say - “He would rather give me his daughter as the pastor of the poor street sweepers than if I were a distinguished preacher in the embassy; because he hates the diplomats ”.

Bodelschwingh promoted the Inner Mission and was in close contact with Theodor Fliedner and Johann Hinrich Wichern , who were among the most important personalities of the Evangelical Church in Germany. As finance minister, he was a patron of the Kaiserswerth deaconess institution founded by Fliedner in 1836 , which became a model for numerous diaconal institutions in Germany and abroad.

family

Bodelschwingh married on July 28, 1827, six months after the death of his father, Elise Freiin von Bodelschwingh-Plettenberg (1806-1889), daughter of the Grand Commander of the Teutonic Order, Karl Wilhelm Georg von Bodelschwingh-Plettenberg from the ancestral home of the Bodelschwinghs in (Dortmund- ) Bodelschwingh. Elise was later described as "a model of a simple and thrifty housewife of the old Prussian aristocratic attitude who strictly adhered to order and punctuality and was completely absorbed in her large circle of domestic duties".

Carl and Elise von Bodelschwingh had eleven children (seven girls, four boys), of which the oldest (Friederike) died when she was just under four years old. The sons Karl (1831–1866) and Gustav (1838–1866) died in the 1866 battle of Königgrätz in the campaign against Austria. Of the two surviving sons, Ernst (1830–1881) was initially an officer and later for 14 years the district administrator of the Hamm district, the other, Udo (1840–1921), a professional officer (most recently a colonel ) and later “royal Prussian master of ceremonies and chamberlain”. His daughter Ida married the most famous of all Bodelschwinghs in 1861, namely his nephew Friedrich , who later, with Ida at his side, expanded the Epilepsy -Anstalt in (Bielefeld-) Bethel into the world-famous von Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel . Luise (1833–1905) married Konstantin Freiherr von Quadt and Hüchtenbruck (1825–1881), the youngest son of General Konstantin Freiherr von Quadt and Hüchtenbruck . Marie (1842–1923) married Kurt von Patow (1836–1902), Lina (1845–1902) married the theologian Rudolf Kögel (1829–1896).

Bodelschwingh apparently got on very well with his older brother Ernst , before him the Prussian Minister of State, from whom he was very different in appearance. In contrast to the tall, imposing figure of most of the Bodelschwinghs, Carl was rather small and somewhat rounded. As his grandson Gustav reports, when Carl occasionally visited Ernst and his family in the Prussian Ministry of Finance, he "mingled in the happy game, and the children watched as the two graying brothers threw each other with pillows". When Ernst died in 1854, Carl became the guardian of his three youngest children, who were then still minors. The brothers also trusted one another in business matters. As can be seen from the documents available, one represented the other when he was unable to attend.

Bodelschwingh also attached great importance to the upbringing of his daughters, who during his time as finance minister in Berlin received lessons from the most capable teachers, particularly in music. Much evidence - especially the letters from and to him - shows that Bodelschwingh was a compassionate and loyal father and grandfather to his children and grandchildren. In the obituary of the "Wochenblatt der Johanniter-Ordens -Balley Brandenburg" from July 9, 1873 it said about him:

“In the richly blessed family life, in Christian house rules according to the good custom of the fathers, the family members were mutually connected in heartfelt love. Cheerful happiness, love for music, especially the spiritual, and noble sociability enlivened the rich family circle, carried everywhere by faithful adherence to the recognized and known evangelical truth, in real community among children and grandchildren. "

Karl and his older brother Ernst were named among the twelve most important personalities that this room has produced in a 1950 publication entitled “The Unna District - The City of Hamm”.

Bodelschwingh died after a brief illness on May 10, 1873 in Berlin, where he took part in the sessions of the Landtag and Reichstag. He was buried on May 16, 1873 in the Heyde family cemetery. When this cemetery was closed in 1938, his bones and those of his wife were transferred to the von Bodelschwingh family cemetery near Haus Velmede in Bergkamen, where they are still lying today.

New research

In 2009, on the occasion of the exhibitions and publications on 400 years of affiliation of the Grafschaft Mark to Prussia, the historian Eckhard Trox, director of the Lüdenscheid History Museum , examined the role of Bodelschwingh as Prussian finance minister and his position in the dispute over the unification of the German Empire for the first time. Trox specifically goes into why little is known about Bodelschwingh, who was finance minister for a total of “eleven historically significant” years, and why his life has not even been recognized in biographical encyclopedias. He sees one of the main reasons in the fact that Bodelschwingh's biography was “so to speak at odds” with common expectations and that he was one of the “losers” after the unification of the empire. According to Trox, Bodelschwingh is “undoubtedly a formative figure in politics from the 1850s to 1870s, located between political reaction and industrial optimism in the western provinces”. As finance minister, Bodelschwingh had his own opinions on economic and tax issues. In the run-up to the "German War" he fought heavily against Bismarck's course. A “war” and a “peace party” existed within the ruling conservative camp. The group that rejected the "fratricidal war" was led by Bodelschwingh. He knew he was in agreement with the Catholic and Protestant nobility in Westphalia. Although he also advocated German unity, for him a war would above all have meant having to personally answer for a fight between noble officers of Prussia and Austria by releasing funds. "Also the emerging development - the equal suffrage feared by his political friends, the foreseeable, at least conceivable further, political and social decline in the importance of the Prussian nobility and the feared destabilization of the social and political conditions in Prussia through the presumed momentum of a new and strong empire in the Center of Europe - the conservative opponents of the war seemed downright frightening. ”So even after the establishment of the Reich, Bodelschwingh considered it his duty to prevent the conservatives from working with Bismarck.

literature

  • Vera Niehus: von Bodelschwingh, Carl. In: Michael Basse, Traugott Jähnichen , Harald Schroeter-Wittke (Hrsg.): Protestant profiles in the Ruhr area - 500 life pictures from 5 centuries. Verlag Hartmut Spenner, Kamen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89991-092-6 , pp. 204f.
  • Eckhard Trox and Ralf Meindl: Guardians of the West? Approaches to Carl von Bodelschwingh and Heinrich Wilhelm von Holtzbrinck, two conservative ministers from Grafschaft Mark in the volume accompanying the exhibition Prussia - Departure in the West. History and memory - the Grafschaft Mark between 1609 and 2009 in Lüdenscheid from February 1 to June 21, 2009, Lüdenscheid 2009, ISBN 978-3-929614-54-1 , pp. 133–151.
  • Eckhard Trox: Prussia and the departure to the west. The county mark between persistence and modernization - new avenues of research. In: We are Prussia - The Prussian core areas in North Rhine-Westphalia, 1609–2009. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89861-965-3 , pp. 89–117.
  • Josef Cornelissen: Haus Heyde lives on - 36 pictures about an extraordinary spot in Unna. (= Publication series of the city of Unna, volume 46), Unna 2005, ISBN 3-927082-49-X .
  • Josef Cornelissen: Heyde House near Unna - A Westphalian aristocratic residence in its eventful fate. (= Series of publications of the city of Unna, volume 35), 1998, ISBN 3-927082-37-6 , pp. 125–129, 135–149 as well as a family tree drawn up by Friedrich Wilhelm von Bodelschwingh-Velmede in 1981 by the von Bodelschwingh on Velmede and Heyde in the envelope pocket.
  • Dietrich Wegmann: The leading state administrative officials of the province of Westphalia 1815-1918. 1969, pp. 157-158.
  • For war purposes I don’t give a penny in the 1963 Christmas edition of the newspaper “Westfälischer Anzeiger und Kurier” in Hamm and - probably based on it - in the yearbook Our Westphalia 1982/83.
  • Ernst Nolte: The Bodelschwinghs have multiple relationships with Hamm. In: Festschrift for the 300th anniversary of the state high school in Hamm 1657–1957 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ She married the later General of the Infantry Karl Ludwig Friedrich Konstantin Albert Theodor von Quadt and Hüchtenbruck
  2. ↑ Kösener Corps Lists 1910, 69 , 138
  3. ↑ Bernhard Mann (arrangement) with the assistance of Martin Doerry , Cornelia Rauh , Thomas Kühne: Biographisches Handbuch für das Prussische Abrafenhaus 1867–1918 (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 3). Droste, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-7700-5146-7 , p. 72.
  4. ^ Fritz Specht / Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd Edition. Berlin: Verlag Carl Heymann, 1904, p. 136; see. also A. Phillips (Ed.): The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1883. Statistics of the elections for the constituent and North German Reichstag, for the customs parliament, as well as for the first five legislative periods of the German Reichstag . Berlin: Verlag Louis Gerschel, 1883, p. 86; see. also: Georg Hirth (Ed.): German Parliament Almanach . 9th edition of May 9, 1871. Berlin: Verlag Franz Duncker, 1871, p. 165.

Web links

predecessor Office successor
Moritz von Bardeleben District President of the Arnsberg District
1849–1851 		Ernst von Bodelschwingh the Elder
personal data
SURNAME Bodelschwingh, Carl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bodelschwingh, Ludwig Carl Christian Gisbert Friedrich von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian politician, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamm
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 1873
Place of death Berlin