Ludwig Rüdt of Collenberg-Bödigheim

Ludwig Freiherr (since 1877: Count ) Rüdt von Collenberg (-Bödigheim) (born June 20, 1799 in Bödigheim , † August 14, 1885 ibid) was a Baden lawyer and politician.

Origin and career

Rüdt von Collenberg came from a noble family that was registered with the Imperial Knighthood in Franconia in the knightly canton of Odenwald until 1806 . He belonged to the Evangelical Church . At first he received private lessons in his father's house before he attended grammar school in Nuremberg from 1815 to 1818 . He then studied at the universities in Heidelberg and Göttingen . In 1824 he entered the Baden state service and in 1826 came to the Baden embassy to the Bundestag in Frankfurt . In 1827 he was promoted to legation secretary there. In 1830 Rüdt was appointed chamberlain and elected representative of the manorial nobility. On the basis of this mandate, he took part in the negotiations of the First Chamber of the Baden Estates from 1831 to 1837 . From May 1832 Rüdt belonged to the combined legation at the courts in Stuttgart and Munich and in January 1833 became the acting chargé d'affaires of the legation to the King of Württemberg . A little later, as legation counselor, he was also given the management of the legation to the King of Bavaria . In 1838, Rüdts was appointed Secret Legation Councilor and Minister-Resident in Württemberg and Switzerland . After he had succeeded in concluding a treaty to clean up the border between Württemberg and Baden in 1843, he moved to Munich as Minister-Resident . After the events of the March Revolution , all Baden embassies were abolished in October 1848, so that Rüdt was retired. In 1850 he was a member of the state house of the Erfurt Union Parliament .

Minister of State of Baden

In October 1850, Grand Duke Leopold appointed him as the successor to Friedrich Adolf Klüber as Minister of State of the Grand Ducal House and Foreign Affairs and thus de facto Chairman of the Rüdt government , although at the time there was no official title of Prime Minister of Baden . The reason for the change of government was the withdrawal of the Prussian troops from Baden in November 1850. Since Prussia had crushed the Baden Revolution in July 1849, the returned Grand Duke had leaned closely on Prussia and its occupation army. State Minister Klüber was considered a partisan of Prussia. Because of the danger of war between Prussia and Austria , Baden was threatened with dismemberment among its southern German neighbors who were on Austria's side in the event of a Prussian defeat. With Rüdt, a political friend of Austria was supposed to direct Baden's fate. At the Ministerial Conference on the reorganization of the German Confederation , which opened in Dresden on December 23, 1850 , Rüdt succeeded in restoring the trust in the reliability of his country that had been destroyed in Baden after the revolution. Further reform plans failed in Dresden, so that the German Confederation was restored to its old form. The Rüdts government was associated with a clear shift towards conservative politics. With the patent dated April 24, 1852, Rüdt, in his capacity as House Minister, regulated the question of regency that was necessary with the death of Grand Duke Leopold. Since Ludwig II , the eldest son of the Grand Duke, was unable to rule , Prince Friedrich , who later became the Grand Duke for many years, assumed the reign of his brother, which lasted six years. In autumn 1852 the martial law that had existed in Baden since the overthrow of the revolution in 1849 was repealed. On the question of the renewal of the Zollverein , Rüdt advocated cooperation between the southern German states at conferences in Darmstadt , Stuttgart and Munich. In the conflict that broke out in 1851 with the Catholic Church over the state's influence on the occupation of church offices, the harbingers of what would later become the Baden Kulturkampf . The conflict was led by Hermann von Vicari , the Archbishop of Freiburg . Rüdt tried to reach an agreement with Pope Pius IX by sending a diplomatic mission to Rome . get. In the summer of 1854 a so-called interim between Baden and the curia was concluded. This resolved the conflict for the time being, at least for Rüdt's term of office. Rüdt devoted himself with particular interest to the postal and railway system under his ministry. During Rüdt's reign, the Baden State Railways were expanded to include some important routes. Among other things, the connection to Basel was opened in 1855 and the Baden broad gauge of 1600 mm was adjusted to the standard of normal gauge .

Withdrawal from politics

In May 1856, Rüdt resigned from the government and became the Baden ambassador to the imperial court in Vienna . In the summer of 1861 he retired and was henceforth involved in local politics in his birthplace, Bödigheim. He was also president of the district assembly, chairman of the agricultural association and the agricultural school in Buchen . During the long years of his retirement he devoted himself to the management of the family estates and dealt with historical studies.

literature

• Baden biographies . Volume 2, Heidelberg 1875, pp. 224-227
• Jochen Lengemann : The German Parliament (Erfurt Union Parliament) from 1850. A manual: Members, officials, life data, parliamentary groups (= publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia. Large series, Vol. 6). Urban & Fischer, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-437-31128-X , p. 268.

Supporting documents and comments

1. ^ In many tables it is wrongly shown that Klüber held the office of Prime Minister of Baden from 1849 to 1856. The mistake probably appears for the first time in Bertold Spuler's book: Regents and Governments of the World, Part II, Volume 3: Modern Times 1492-1918 , Ploetz Verlag, Würzburg 1962, on page 68. The error has not been corrected in the English translation (Berthold Spuler: Rulers and Governments of the World. Volume two. 1492 to 1929 Bowker, London & New York 1977, ISBN 0-85935-009-6 , p. 61) and was for example also adopted in the following renowned works: Peter Truhart: Regents of Nations. Systematic chronology of states and their political representatives in past and present; A biographical reference book. Part III / 1 = Regents of the Nations Part III / 1 , KG Saur, Munich, London etc. 1986, ISBN 3-598-10491-X , p. 2379 as well as Eberhard Gönner and Günther Haselier: Baden-Württemberg, history of his countries und Territorien , Verlag Ploetz, Freiburg 1980, ISBN 3-87640-052-X , p. 144. Many pages on the Internet have also copied the error. Thus, Spuler's mistake can be found again and again during Klübers' tenure as head of cabinet (!) Supposedly until 1856, and it should be very difficult to get rid of the world. The correct facts, namely that Klüber resigned as Minister of State of the Grand Ducal House and Foreign Affairs on October 26, 1850 and his successor was Baron Ludwig Rüdt von Collenberg, is, for example, with Martin Furtwängler: Minister and Governments of Baden. In: Meinrad Schaab , Hansmartin Schwarzmaier (ed.) U. a .: Handbook of Baden-Württemberg History . Volume 5: Economic and social history since 1918, overviews and materials, complete index. Edited on behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-91371-2 , p. 480. It is also factually correct in Wolfgang Leiser: Minister of the Grand Duchy of Baden 1818-1918. In: Klaus Schwabe (Ed.): The governments of the German medium and small states. 1815–1933 (= German leadership classes in modern times. Volume 14 = Büdinger research on social history. Volume 18). Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1983, ISBN 3-7646-1830-2 , p. 226 or in the book by Frank Engehausen: Little History of the Grand Duchy of Baden 1806-1918 . G. Braun Buchverlag, Karlsruhe 2005, ISBN 3-7650-8328-3 , p. 118
2. ↑ The article in the Badische Biographien does not reveal the period in which Rüdt was president of the district assembly, so it is unclear whether the information refers to the Lower Rhine district that existed until 1864 or the Mosbach district formed afterwards, or both.