Eduard von Simson

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Eduard von Simson portrayed by Fritz Paulsen in an oil painting 1880Signature Eduard von Simson.PNG

Martin Eduard Simson , from 1888 by Simson (born November 10, 1810 in Königsberg i. Pr. , † May 2, 1899 in Berlin ), was a German judge , university professor and parliamentarian in the Kingdom of Prussia . Through his collaboration on the ultimately failed Reich constitution of 1849 , he is regarded as the “first German constitutional father”. Simson was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly and its president from December 1848 to May 1849. He held the same office in 1850 in the Volkshaus of the Erfurt Union Parliament and from 1867 to 1873 in the Reichstag of the North German Confederation and the Empire . In 1879 Simson became the first president of the Imperial Court in Leipzig .

Life

Eduard Simson was baptized by his Jewish parents in 1823 . In March 1826, at the age of 15, he graduated from the Collegium Fridericianum . At the Albertus University in Königsberg he began to study law and camera science. Of his teachers he mentions only Heinrich Eduard Dirksen . In Königsberg he helped Johann Jacoby to found the third Littauer-Kränzchen within the fraternity community Königsberg on February 2, 1827. The Kränzchen became in 1829 the Corpslandsmannschaft Lithuania . Simson moved to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin and the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and served in the Prussian Army .

1829 doctorate he in Königsberg to Dr. iur. At the request of the faculty, he immediately received the Venia legendi . A scholarship enabled him to study trips to Berlin, Halle, Leipzig, Göttingen and Bonn. There he was particularly impressed by Barthold Georg Niebuhr . Shortly after the July Revolution of 1830 he arrived in Paris. He returned to Königsberg via Heidelberg and Berlin. Associated with the travel grant was the obligation to teach as a private lecturer for two years after returning from 1831 . It was unusual that he was allowed to read pandect science and was appointed associate professor in 1833 . On October 3, 1835, Simson applied for appointment to full professor because his "lectures in the local faculty are the most attended". The faculty objected strongly: with three full professors in Roman law, the need was covered and, given the falling number of students, five full professorships would be sufficient. In addition, another teacher of German law is needed and Heinrich Friedrich Jacobson has priority. Samson's teaching success tried to relativize the faculty; he lacks scientific penetration and publications . The curator passed this statement on to the Prussian Ministry of Spiritual, Educational and Medical Affairs , but spoke out in favor of Samson's appointment. At the faculty's request, he recommended “a thorough review of his two dissertations”. The Ministry had anticipated this request on October 22, 1835, by requesting an expert opinion on Samson's second dissertation from Carl Unterholzner in Breslau. Despite the rather unfavorable expert opinion, Simson was appointed full professor on May 22, 1836. Member since 1834, in 1846 he became Council of the Tribunal for the Kingdom of Prussia.

At the instigation of Johann Gustav Droysen and Christian Schüler , who, like him, had been members of the National Assembly, in 1852 he received a call from the University of Jena to its chair for pandect science . Samson refused him. From 1855 to 1857 he was rector of the Albertina.

Parliamentarians

Eduard von Simson, illustration after a daguerreotype by Hermann Biow made during the revolutionary year 1848/1849 , published in a publication

As a representative for Königsberg, Simson was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly from May 18, 1848 to May 20, 1849 , initially as a secretary on the entire board, from October 1848 as vice president and from December 1848 as president. In April 1849 he headed the Kaiserdeputation that brought Friedrich Wilhelm IV his election as German Emperor . When this broadcast failed, Samson refused to continue the presidium. In August 1849 he joined the House of Representatives in the Prussian state parliament as a member of the Königsberg parliament . In the Erfurt Union Parliament he was President of the Volkshaus.

It was not until 1858 that he turned back to political life. In 1860 he became the Vice President of the Appeal Court Frankfurt (Oder) appointed. In this and the next year he led the presidium of the House of Representatives, in 1867 he was president of the constituent Reichstag , which prepared the North German Confederation . He was also chairman of the ordinary Reichstag from 1867 to 1873 and also of the Customs Parliament .

Eduard von Simson as President of the Reichsgericht on a wood engraving by August Neumann

On October 3, 1867, he brought the Prussian King Wilhelm I the address of the North German Reichstag, which was elected in August, to Hohenzollern Castle . On December 13, 1870, he traveled to Versailles at the head of a deputation and brought Wilhelm the address of the North German Reichstag by which Wilhelm was asked to accept the imperial dignity that had been proposed to him.

In 1874 he had to refuse re-election due to illness. In 1877 he no longer accepted a seat in the Reichstag. President of the Frankfurt / Oder Court of Appeal since 1869, Simson was appointed President of the Court and the Disciplinary Court on October 1, 1879 when the Imperial Court was established in Leipzig . On February 1, 1891, he retired and took up residence in Berlin.

Death and grave

Honorary grave of Eduard von Simson in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Eduard von Simson died on May 2, 1899 at the age of 88 in Berlin. He was buried in a hereditary funeral in cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Churches in front of the Hallesches Tor . In the grave grave complex, only a small grave stone made of red-brown granite serves as a grave marker.

Honors

Memorial plaque for Simson in Frankfurt (Oder), Halbe Stadt 20

Friedrich III. awarded him the Order of the Black Eagle on March 18, 1888 in Charlottenburg Palace . With the coat of arms of May 28, 1888, Simson was ennobled and raised to the Prussian hereditary nobility .

Leipzig named a street, a bridge and the square in front of the Reichsgericht, today's Federal Administrative Court, after Simson . In Berlin's Tiergarten , a path by the Reichstag building to the Brandenburg Gate has been named Samson since 1977 . Today's Scheidemannstrasse by the Reichstag building bore his name from 1895–1938. Another in Berlin-Lichtenberg carried this name from 1905 to 1911. In Frankfurt am Main , a street on Parliament Square is named after him.

By resolution of the Berlin Senate , the last resting place of Eduard von Simson in Cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Churches (grave site 343-EB-256a) has been dedicated as an honorary grave of the State of Berlin since 1964 . The dedication was last extended in 2016 by the now usual period of twenty years.

family

His father, Zacharias Jakob (1785–1876), was a merchant and broker in Königsberg i. Pr. His mother, Marianne Sophie (d. 1866), was a daughter of the businessman Simon Joachim Friedländer. His brothers were August Simson (1812-1888), professor of theology, and the lawyers Georg Bernhard Simson (1817-1897) and John Simson (1823-1886).

Eduard von Simson married in Königsberg i. Pr. Clara Alexandrine (1814–1883), daughter of the banker Marcus Warschauer . The couple had nine children, including the lawyer August von Simson (1837-1927) and the historian Bernhard von Simson (1840-1915).

literature

  • Minutes of the election of Samson as the first President of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation in 1867. In: Stenographic reports on the negotiations of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation in 1867. Volume 1, Berlin 1867, pp. 37-38 ( digitized version ).
  • Hans Blum : The presidents of the German Reichstag. Memories and sketches . I. Eduard Simson . In: Westermannsmonthshefte. October 1896, pp. 18-27.
  • Dr. Eduard von Simson † . In: Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung. Volume 4, 1899, p. 210. (Obituary; online at MPIER ).
  • Hermann von Petersdorff :  Simson, Eduard von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 54, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1908, pp. 348-364.
  • Felix Hirsch: Eduard von Simson. The problem of the German-Jewish symbiosis in the shadow of Goethe and Bismarck . In: History in Science and Education . Volume 16, 1965, pp. 261-277.
  • Günther Meinhardt: Eduard von Simson. 1981.
  • Hildebert Kirchner: Eduard von Simson . Society for Cultural History Documentation, Karlsruhe 1985.
  • Bernd-Rüdiger Kern , Klaus-Peter Schroeder (ed.): Eduard von Simson (1810-1899). "Choir leader of the Germans" and first President of the Imperial Court . Nomos-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2001, ISBN 3-7890-7419-5 (Legal contemporary history: Department 2, Forum legal contemporary history, volume 10).
  • Genealogical manual of the nobility . tape 128 , no. XIII . Strong, 2002, ISSN  0435-2408 .
  • Michael F. Feldkamp : The forgotten president . In: Das Parlament , No. 46–47, November 15, 2010, p. 3 ( das-parlament.de ).
  • Andreas Thier:  Simson, Martin Eduard Sigismund von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 451-453 ( digitized version ).
  • Arndt Kiehle, Bernd Mertens, Gottfried Schiemann : Martin Eduard Simson . In: Bernd-Rüdiger Kern: The Königsberg Historical School of Law (Festschrift for Jan Schröder on his 70th birthday). Mohr Siebeck, 2013, pp. 387-390.
  • Handbook of the Prussian Nobility , 1892, Vol. 1, S.543 f.
  • Jürgen Manthey : The first German constitutional father (Eduard von Simson) , in ders .: Königsberg. History of a world citizenship republic . Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-423-34318-3 , pp. 486-492.

Web links

Commons : Eduard von Simson  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jürgen Manthey : Königsberg. History of a world citizenship republic . Munich 2005, pp. 486-492.
  2. ↑ a b c Kiehnle / Mertens / Schiemann (2013).
  3. ↑ a b c d Walter Passauer: Corp table of the Littuania zu Königsberg , p. 29 f., No. 35. Königsberg 1935.
  4. ^ 1. Dissertation: De J. Paulli manualium libris III .
  5. ↑ Dissertation in WorldCat .
  6. ↑ Peter Mast: E. v. Samson . East German memorial days. Bonn 1998, pp. 121-127.
  7. ↑ 2nd dissertation: Ad. Dig. de capite minutis (IV.5) legem II (alt.) exercitatio instituto .
  8. ^ Rector's speeches (HKM) .
  9. ^ President Samson † . In: Berliner Tageblatt , May 3, 1899, morning edition, p. 1.
  10. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , pp. 246–247.
  11. ^ Simsonstrasse (Tiergarten) . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  12. ^ Simsonstrasse (Lichtenberg) . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  13. ↑ Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, p. 83; accessed on March 30, 2019. Recognition and further preservation of graves as honorary graves of the State of Berlin . (PDF, 205 kB). Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 17/3105 of July 13, 2016, p. 1 and Annex 2, p. 15; accessed on March 30, 2019.
  14. ^ Eduard von Simson, German Biography , accessed on July 1, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Simson, Eduard von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simson, Martin Eduard Sigismund (full name at birth)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German judge and pundect scientist, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg i. Pr.
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1899
Place of death Berlin