Karl zu Leiningen
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Emich Prince of Leiningen (born September 12, 1804 in Amorbach ; † November 13, 1856 at Waldleiningen Castle near Amorbach) was the third Prince of Leiningen and came from the Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hartenburg line. He served as a Bavarian lieutenant general and first chairman of the Mainz noble association . In 1848 he was the first prime minister of the German government , which had been installed by the imperial administrator during the revolution .
family
Karl was the son of Prince Emich Carl zu Leiningen (1763-1814), who was a hunting writer and author of plays, and his second wife Victoire von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld (1786-1861).
He was the half-brother of the British Queen Victoria , because after the death of his father his mother married on July 11, 1818 in Kew Palace ( Surrey , England ) Eduard August, Duke of Kent and Strathearn , a younger son of King George III. of Great Britain. The only child from this second marriage was Alexandrine Victoria , who later became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India.
Karl married Countess Maria von Klebelsberg on February 13, 1829 in Amorbach (born March 27, 1806 in Dirna near Tábor , Bohemia ; † October 28, 1880 in Bonn ). The marriage had two sons:
- Ernst Leopold Victor Carl August Joseph Emich (born November 9, 1830 - April 5, 1904)
- Eduard Friedrich Maximilian Johann (January 5, 1833 - April 9, 1914)
Life
After taking private lessons at the family castle, Karl attended a private school in Bern . His widowed mother wrote in 1816: “In taking care of the proper upbringing of our children, we also paid special attention to the art education of the same. “From 1821 to 1823 Karl studied law at the University of Göttingen with Karl Friedrich Eichhorn . During these years he spent his holidays in England with his mother, who was a second marriage there to the Duke of Kent, and his half-sister Victoria. With his mother and later at the British court, his interest in art was aroused and encouraged by local artists and court painters.
During the years 1823 to 1842 he limited himself mainly to the administration of the Principality of Leiningen and took care of the construction of his new residence in Waldleiningen, among other things. Since 1831 he was represented as a hereditary member in the Bavarian Reichsrat , since 1820 also in the First Chamber of the Estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse and since 1818 in the First Chamber of the Estates Assembly of the Grand Duchy of Baden , where he held the rank of Grand Ducal Major General .
On April 20, 1842 he was one of the 21 founders of the Mainz Aristocracy Association, which set itself the task of promoting German emigration to Texas ( USA ). In the founding assembly he was elected chairman, but did not take particularly active care of the business of the aristocratic association. When the latter got into trouble and was finally converted into a stock corporation in 1844 , Karl accepted the office of President of the Bavarian Imperial Council in 1843. He held this post until 1848, at the same time with the rank of Bavarian Lieutenant General à la suite of the cavalry and owner of the 5th Chevaulegers Regiment , and traveled regularly between Amorbach and Munich . During this time several German settlements arose in Texas, one of them on the north bank of the Llano River ( Llano County ) was named Leiningen in 1847 in his honor as president of the Mainz Adelsverein .
Due to his various reforms as president of the Bavarian Reichsrätekammer and some political writings, Leiningen had the reputation of a liberal reformer and progressive free thinker in the revolutionary year of 1848 . He had pleaded for the introduction of parliamentarism and the abolition of the privileges of the nobility. Therefore, on August 6, Reichsverweser Johann von Österreich appointed him Prime Minister of the Provisional Central Authority . In the Frankfurt National Assembly he was supported by a majority from the left and right center (liberals).
A balanced proportional representation had been created with the Evangelical Prime Minister and the Catholic Reich Administrator. Through Karl zu Leiningen's close ties to the British royal family, it was hoped that the German central authority in Frankfurt would be recognized by Great Britain and British mediation in the Schleswig-Holstein conflict.
The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV , however, under pressure from foreign policy, especially from Russia, concluded the armistice with Denmark, as set out in the Malmö Treaty, without consulting the central authorities . Since the Prussian troops acted formally as the federal army, Prussia snubbed the central power and the national assembly. The Frankfurt National Assembly, or a spontaneous majority from right and left, rejected the treaty indignantly. Since Leiningen had no real position of power vis-à-vis Prussia and was therefore unable to enforce the will of parliament, all he had to do was resign on September 5, 1848. Leiningen then withdrew from political life, convinced that his efforts to unify Germany had been in vain. His successor as Prime Minister was Anton von Schmerling , who formed the Schmerling cabinet .
In February 1851 he finally resigned from his position as chairman of the aristocratic association . Hermann Fürst zu Wied was elected as his successor on May 12, 1851 .
On November 13, 1856, Karl zu Leiningen died of a heart attack at Waldleiningen Castle near Amorbach. The main heir was his son Ernst zu Leiningen .
See also
literature
- Karl Emich Graf zu Leiningen-Westerburg: Noble alliances of the count and prince dynasty. Verlag J. Sittenfeld Berlin, Rotenburg an der Fulda 1894.
- Karl Emich Graf zu Leiningen-Westerburg: Genealogical history of the primeval noble imperial count and imperial princely, noble house of Leiningen and Leiningen-Westerburg. Based on archival, handwritten and printed sources, edited by Eduard Brinckmeier. Sattler publishing house, Braunschweig 1891.
- Jochen Lengemann : MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 238.
- Hermann Nehlsen : Prince Karl zu Leiningen (1804-1856). In: Gerhard Köbler , Hermann Nehlsen (Hrsg.): Effects of European legal culture. Festschrift for Karl Kroeschell on his 70th birthday. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42994-7 , pp. 763f.
- Friedrich Oswald: Leiningen, Karl Emich Prince to. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , pp. 145 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Klaus-Dieter Rack, Bernd Vielsmeier: Hessian MPs 1820–1933. Biographical evidence for the first and second chambers of the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse 1820–1918 and the state parliament of the People's State of Hesse 1919–1933 (= Political and parliamentary history of the State of Hesse. Vol. 19 = Work of the Hessian Historical Commission. NF Vol. 29) . Hessian Historical Commission, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-88443-052-1 , No. 519.
Web links
- Biography in the Handbook of Texas (English)
- German-language biography of Gerhard-Hermann Kuhlmann
- Leiningen, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Emich Prince of. Hessian biography. (As of February 16, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
Supporting documents and comments
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Leiningen, Karl too |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Leiningen, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Emich Prince to |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prince zu Leiningen, first Prime Minister of the Frankfurt National Assembly |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 12, 1804 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Amorbach , Lower Franconia , Bavaria |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 13, 1856 |
| Place of death | Waldleiningen Castle near Amorbach , Lower Franconia, Bavaria |