Karl von Riecke

Karl Viktor von Riecke on a portrait photo from History of the City of Stuttgart , published by the historian Julius von Hartmann, Stuttgart 1905

Karl Viktor Riecke , from 1870 von Riecke (born May 27, 1830 in Stuttgart , Kingdom of Württemberg ; † March 9, 1898 ibid), was a Württemberg civil servant, member of the Württemberg estates and Minister of State for Finance.

Origin of the Riecke family

Karl Viktor von Riecke on a portrait photograph by Friedrich Brandseph around 1862

The ancestors of the Württemberg State Minister for Finance Karl Viktor von Riecke immigrated from Mecklenburg to the Duchy of Württemberg at the end of the 17th century .

In Württemberg the Riecke family had produced a number of notable men over several generations. The following ancestors are mentioned in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie : The doctors Ludwig Heinrich Riecke (1729–1787), Viktor Riecke (1771–1850), Leopold Riecke (1790–1876) and Adolf Riecke (1805–1857), the pedagogues Heinrich Riecke ( 1759–1830) and Gustav Adolf Riecke (1798–1883) as well as the mathematician Friedrich Riecke (1794–1876).

The doctorate legal scholar Christian Heinrich Riecke (1802-1865), who until Hofkammerdirektor and Hofrichter of the Kingdom of Württemberg climb, is Karl Viktor Riecke father. His mother Charlotte Auguste b. Reyscher (1804–1870) is a sister of August Ludwig Reyscher, member of the state parliament . In addition to Karl Viktor Riecke as the only son, four daughters were born in the marriage of his parents.

Life

Karl Riecke attended the Latin school in Tübingen from 1836 to 1842, then from 1842 to 1847 he attended the Illustre grammar school in his native Stuttgart. He completed his first studies during the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849 at the agricultural academy in Hohenheim . Then Riecke trained as a city ​​clerk at the Heilbronn camera office. At the University of Tübingen , Riecke studied law and camera science from 1849 to 1852, commercial economics and mechanical engineering. As a student he joined the Germania fraternity in 1849 . In 1852 he passed the first and in 1853 the second higher financial service examination. As a young graduate, he worked as a temporary accountant in Kameralamt of Heilbronn, before he went from September 1854 on, the usual in those days study tour, the more it over central and northern Germany via Belgium as far as Paris led. In 1857 Riecke became a customs assistant at the main customs offices in Heilbronn and Friedrichshafen . In November 1857 he began as a secretary in the department of finance and in 1859 became ministerial assessor. From September 1859 he was entrusted with the department of customs and trade, monetary and coinage and: "Soon appointed to be active in the most important issues not just of the customs and financial administration, but of the German customs union and the German future".

Political career

Due to the contradictions of Bavaria , Württemberg, Hesse and Nassau, the continued existence of the Zollverein was seriously endangered by the Franco-Prussian trade agreement of 1862 . From the first meetings in April 1862 to the renewed Customs Union in May 1865, Riecke represented the interests of Württemberg as finance councilor. During the negotiations, Riecke made it clear that he considered a rigid adherence to a special South German policy to be a mistake and that he considered state issues to be justified, but felt more committed to the goal of an agreement according to Prussia's ideas under the conditions of free trade. At the beginning of the German War in 1866, during discussions in Munich about safeguarding the customs interests of the southern German states, he helped to bring about the decision that nothing should happen for the time being. As a result, the Zollverein remained in existence despite the war. In 1868 Riecke was one of the signatories of the new Zollverein contract and, as a real chief finance councilor and authorized representative in the Federal Customs Council, could be “a pillar of the negotiations”, as he was praised by Rudolph von Delbrück at Bismarck . Riecke also initiated the trade agreement between the Zollverein and Switzerland . In 1870 he was involved in the negotiations about the entry of Württemberg into the North German Confederation . In the newly established German Reich he worked for another 1½ years in the work of the Federal Council as the Württemberg representative. Riecke was repeatedly invited to transfer to high offices in the Reich, but preferred to stay in Württemberg.

Member of the First Chamber of the Württemberg Lands

Since 1872 Riecke was appointed for life member of the First Chamber of the Württemberg Land estates, which began his direct influence on the state administration and legislation. His reports for the Chamber earned him a high reputation among the public. In July 1873, he succeeded Gustav Rümelin as head of the Statistical-Topographical Bureau (State Statistical Office), which had existed since 1820 . He had been its full member since 1863 and represented it at the international statistical congresses in Berlin in 1863 and in The Hague in 1866. In addition to the population statistics, which were preferentially expanded in the Rümelin regional statistical office, Riecke was responsible for maintaining administrative statistics. In 1872 he was elected to the permanent international commission by the congress in St. Petersburg , and in 1886 he was appointed honorary member of the International Statistical Institute. As early as 1875, the political science faculty at the University of Tübingen appointed him to a chair. Riecke has also done his service to the Protestant regional church , since 1874 as a member of the regional synod appointed by the king and also as its elected president from 1886 to 1891. This time was shaped, among other things, by the new congregational and synodal order to be created as well as the reorientation of the church with regard to its position on civil marriage.

Appointment to the Supreme Council of the Württemberg Crown

In November 1880, Riecke exchanged his position in the Statistical-Topographical Bureau with the management of the tax committee and took care of an accelerated, smooth course of business there. In 1885 he was appointed to the supreme council of the crown, the Privy Council . With King Wilhelm II's accession to the throne in October 1891, 61-year-old Riecke was appointed Minister of State in the Midnight Government at the head of the Department of Finance. He then resigned from his state parliament mandate in the First Chamber. From 1892 he was again an authorized representative at the Federal Council in Berlin. The seven years of his tenure as Minister of State in Stuttgart were not enough to implement all of the measures he had called for, such as the introduction of a general income tax , the statutory order of the state budget, the involvement in strengthening and making the Reich finances independent and at the same time unbundling the State households.

When Riecke died on March 9, 1898 after a long heart condition, there was great sorrow over the loss of the statesman; The Swabian Tagwacht , the organ of the Swabian social democracy, spoke of "a minister who enjoyed great sympathy in the broadest circles of the people and of whom even his opponents will only speak with respect in the future".

Family and personal life

Theophanie Riecke, daughter of Carl Friedrich Haug in a portrait photo by Friedrich Brandseph around 1862

Original cover: Carl Friedrich Haug: Communications from his life and his estate, printed as a manuscript for relatives and friends . Edited by Karl von Riecke. Stuttgart. Printed by IB Metzler'schen Buchdruckerei in 1869.

Contents = overview. Communications from his life and his estate, printed as a manuscript for relatives and friends. Stuttgart. Printed by IB Metzler'schen Buchdruckerei. 1869. Edited by Karl von Riecke

Frontispiece and title page of the family stories from the estate of Karl Friedrich Haug . Edited by Karl von Riecke. Proverbs Solomonis 10: 7. With the picture of Haug and 5 family tables. Stuttgart. Printed and published by W. Kohlhammer. 1886.

Karl Viktor von Riecke married Theophanie Emilie Mathilde Haug (1835–1901) in Tübingen on May 4, 1861 . Theophany was the second daughter and third child of the historian Carl Friedrich Haug.

In the last decade of their lives together, the Riecke couple lived in a country estate above the Stuttgart valley basin . Quote Julius von Hartmann: "His wife, the gifted daughter of the Tübingen historian Haug, with whom he had been happily married for 38 years, but without children, has followed him into eternity after two years."

Karl Viktor von Riecke supplemented the biographical and genealogical documents on the family of his father-in-law Carl Friedrich Haug, edited them ready for printing and wrote and edited two publications on Haug's person, his work and his family relationships. Illustrations for two of Riecke's publications are attached to this text.

Karl Viktor von Riecke published the genealogical research of his father-in-law on the history of Württemberg family and the state, also published by W. Kohlhammer in 1886, under the title: Altwirtembergisches from family papers to the best of the Lutherstift, an educational institution for pastors ' sons. This edition was provided by Google in a fully digitized form.

Riecke also carried out research on his own ancestors. Thanks to this work, publications about the origins of his ancestors are known today, especially interesting insights into the genealogy of the Reyscher family .

honors and awards

• 1876 ​​Awarded an honorary doctorate , Doctor Oeconomiae Publicae ( Dr. oec. Publ. ) From the University of Tübingen
• 1870 First Class Knight's Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown . This was associated with the Württemberg personal nobility ( ennoblement ).
• 1888 Commentary Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown
• Grand Cross of the Order of Frederick
• 1897 Prussian Red Eagle Order, 1st class

Works

During his time as head of the State Statistical Office, Riecke was the editor of the following ongoing and periodic publications:

• "Wuerttembergian yearbooks for statistics and regional studies", to which since 1878 the "Wuerttemberg quarterly books for regional history" appeared
• Description of the country according to regional offices (1824–1886, resumed in 1893)
• The comprehensive work The Kingdom of Württemberg (1882 to 1886)
• The map system of the State Statistical Office

The directory of his publications in scientific journals and newspapers, compilations and independent writings, attached to the Nekrolog Rieckes in the “Württembergische Jahrbücher”, takes up five large-format printed pages. The following list is only a small cross-section of his oeuvre:

• My years of wandering and hikes , printed as handwriting, Stuttgart 1877 (commemorative writing)
• Statistics from the University of Tübingen , 1877
• Customs duties and beet sugar tax in four editions of Schönberg's Handbuch der Politische Ökonomie , 1882 ff.
• Constitution, administration and state budget of the Kingdom of Württemberg (as a special edition in two editions, 1882 and considerably expanded in 1887). This was the fourth volume of the country description published by Riecke.
• Memories from old and new times by AL Reyscher , 1884 (memorial to his uncle's life).
• Old Württemberg table from family papers by K. Fr. Haug , 1886 (memorial to the life of his father-in-law).
• International Financial Statistics , 1886
• Karl Viktor von Riecke:  Reyscher, Ludwig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 360-368.
• Financial situation, budget issues and the status of the tax reform in Württemberg , in Schanz's financial archive 1891

Notes and individual references

1. ^ Family association Feuerlein, Stamm Conradi, http://familienverband-feuerlein.de/
2. ↑ Altwirtembergisches from family papers to the best of the Luther Foundation of an educational institution for pastors' sons , written and edited by Karl Viktor von Ricke.
3. ↑ Court and State Manual of the Kingdom of Württemberg 1886, p. 27.
4. ↑ Court and State Handbook of the Kingdom of Württemberg 1894, p. 30.

literature

• H. Zeller: Nekrolog im Schwäbischer Merkur , 1898, No. 122.
• Julius Hartmann:  Riecke, Karl Viktor . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 53, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1907, pp. 356-359.
• Frank Raberg : Biographical handbook of the Württemberg state parliament members 1815-1933 . On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-016604-2 , p. 724-726 .
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 5: R – S. Winter, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-8253-1256-9 , pp. 69-70.

Web links

Wikisource: Karl Viktor von Riecke  - Sources and full texts

• Family stories of Riecke's father-in-law Carl Friedrich Haug, written and compiled by Karl von Riecke: Carl Friedrich Haug: Mittheilungen from his life and from his estate. Metzler, Stuttgart 1869, limited preview in the Google book search.