Ludwig von Koehler

Ludwig von Köhler (also Louis Ferdinand Köhler, born October 20, 1868 in Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal ); † September 26, 1953 in Ludwigsburg ) was a German civil servant and university professor. In 1918 he was the last Minister of the Interior of the Kingdom of Württemberg.

Life

Ludwig Koehler was from the time the Kingdom of Prussia associated Bergisch Land . He was the son of Louis Ferdinand Köhler of the same name , the founder and director of the Patriotic Transport Insurance Company . Köhler's mother was Juliane Christine Therese geb. Shepherd.

After attending grammar school in Elberfeld (1874–1886) and A levels there, Köhler studied political science from 1886 to 1890 at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen , the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin . In 1886 he became active in the Corps Rhenania Tübingen . In May 1890 he passed the first higher service examination at the Württemberg Department of the Interior. In November 1890 he was promoted to Dr. rer. pole. PhD. After a legal clerkship at the Tübingen Oberamt from 1890 to 1891, he completed the second higher service examination in the Department of the Interior. In 1891 he did a clerkship with the government of the Neckar District in Ludwigsburg. After working as a deputy bailiff in Ulm in 1892 and as a bailiff in Heilbronn from 1892 to 1893, he began his service in the Department of the Interior in autumn 1893 and was soon appointed as a government assessor. In the government of the Black Forest district in Reutlingen , he acted as a councilor. In 1904 he was promoted to lecturing council in the Department of the Interior. On January 18, 1908, he was appointed deputy federal councilor in Berlin . In this position he was permanently transferred to Berlin in June 1909. On February 25, 1911 he received the rank of Ministerialdirektor and in 1914 was Württemberg chargé d'affaires in Berlin. With the outbreak of the First World War , Köhler was called up as a captain in the Landwehr and came to Liège as the commander of a Landsturm battalion . From the summer of 1915 to the spring of 1918, Köhler was entrusted with the management of the trade and commerce department of the civil administration of the General Government of Belgium in Brussels , which is why his name was put on a list of persons of the Entente , which was to serve for extradition and prosecution after the war. For lack of evidence, however, after the war there was never an actual extradition request by the victorious powers in the Köhler case.

Württemberg Minister of the Interior

King Wilhelm II (Württemberg) called Köhler back to Stuttgart as Karl von Fleischhauer's successor to head the Department of the Interior . On March 20, 1918, Köhler joined the Weizsäcker government as Minister of State . Some members of the Democratic People's Party in the Second Chamber of the Estates , including Conrad Haußmann and Johannes Fischer , objected to this appointment of a “Prussian” as minister, which was made without the approval of the Landtag. As a result of the inadequate fulfillment of the southern German delivery obligations, Köhler had to defend himself against the appearance of Prussian commissioners who controlled the Württemberg supplies to Berlin. Another problem arose from the increased allocation of foreign workers to the war-important industrial zones of Württemberg such as Friedrichshafen . This led to bottlenecks in the accommodation and caused displeasure among the population. At the beginning of November 1918, Köhler received the spokesmen for the radical wing of the working class to discuss their demands. On November 6, 1918, the previous Prime Minister of Württemberg, Karl von Weizsäcker, resigned. Köhler remained at the head of the Interior Ministry to maintain internal order and was to join the Liesching government, which was to be formed . On the morning of November 9th, the ministers gathered for the swearing-in at the King's in the Wilhelmspalais and witnessed the storming of the palace by revolutionary workers and soldiers who had taken part in the Stuttgart demonstration to end the war that was scheduled for the same day. With the declaration of the republic and the formation of the Social Democratic Cabinet Blos that afternoon , Köhler resigned as Minister of the Interior.

University professor

Köhler completed his habilitation on April 12, 1919 at the political science faculty in Tübingen and became a private lecturer at the same university. On March 2, 1920, he was appointed full honorary professor for public law and social sciences. On July 4, 1921, Köhler became an associate professor with the rights of a full professor. Administrative law formed the focus of his teaching and research activities. From 1923 to 1924 Köhler was dean of the law and political science faculty, and from 1925 to 1926 rector of the University of Tübingen. In 1936 he retired. In 1940 the University of Tübingen celebrated its 50th anniversary as a doctor.

Private

Ludwig von Köhler was Protestant. He married into a Catholic family. His wife Josefine (Fina) Creszentia geb. Hofmeister was the daughter of a Tübingen lawyer. The marriage of Ludwig and Fina Köhler produced three daughters, the two older of whom died at an early age. The remaining younger daughter became headmistress at the grammar school in Feuerbach. For this reason, Köhler chose his retirement home in nearby Ludwigsburg, where he finally died after a serious illness. He was buried in the Tübingen city cemetery.

Honors

Dr. iur. hc from the University of Rostock
Commander of the Order of the Württemberg Crown
Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Order of Frederick with Swords
Red Eagle Order IV class
Commander of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown
Order of Olga
Honorary member of the Corps Rhenania Tübingen (1933)

literature

Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 1: Social politicians in the German Empire 1871 to 1918. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86219-038-6 , pp. 88 f. ( Online , PDF; 2.2 MB).
Wilhelm Kohlhaas : Ludwig von Köhler. Last royal Württemberg interior minister. In: Life pictures from Baden-Württemberg. Volume 18, W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, pp. 471-485. (with picture)
150 years of doctorate at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tübingen. Biographies of doctors, honorary doctors and post-doctorates from 1830 to 1980. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, pp. 33, 615 and 684. (Figure)

Individual evidence

↑ Elberfeld School Program 1886/1887, p. 43.
↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 128/302
↑ Dissertation: The Württemberg Commercial Law from 1805 to 1870 .
↑ Helmut Marcon, Heinrich Strecker, Günter Randecker: 200 years of economics and political science at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen: Life and work of the professors: the economics faculty of the University of Tübingen and its predecessors (1817–2002). 2 volumes. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 428.

personal data
SURNAME	Koehler, Ludwig von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Koehler, Louis Ferdinand von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German legal scholar, Minister of the Interior in Württemberg
DATE OF BIRTH	October 20, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH	Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH	September 26, 1953
Place of death	Ludwigsburg

[1] Elberfeld School Program 1886/1887, p. 43.

[2] Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 128/302

[3] Dissertation: The Württemberg Commercial Law from 1805 to 1870 .

[4] Helmut Marcon, Heinrich Strecker, Günter Randecker: 200 years of economics and political science at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen: Life and work of the professors: the economics faculty of the University of Tübingen and its predecessors (1817–2002). 2 volumes. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 428.