August Moßdorff
August Moßdorff (* 1758 in Eckartsberga ; † 1843 in Mainz ) was a senior official and leading German Jacobin .
Live and act
August Moßdorff studied in Leipzig , Göttingen and Hanover . In 1784 he entered the service of the Counts of Leiningen-Westerburg and became councilor and clerk in Grünstadt in the Palatinate.
August Moßdorff sympathized with the ideas of the French Revolution and therefore left the Leiningen-Westerburg service in 1793 to represent Grünstadt at the National Convention of the Mainz Republic in Mainz. There he advocated the annexation of the Left Bank of the Rhine by France . He was appointed a member of the new government, the so-called "General Administration", by the Convention.
On February 14, 1793 he was appointed one of the German "sub-commissioners" who were to enforce the new order on behalf of the French. In this context, he was involved in looting, together with the French military. When he burned a picture of the emperor, Austria reported reservations about his continued employment in 1814.
As one of the few Jacobins who remained in the city during the siege of Mainz in 1793, he gained authority. After the town and fortress had been surrendered , he was arrested on July 23, 1793 and imprisoned at Ehrenbreitstein fortress . From 1794 to 1795 he was imprisoned by the Prussians in the Königstein Fortress .
After his release he became a French administrative officer on the annexed Left Bank of the Rhine . In 1801 he was appointed Deputy Prefect in the Département du Mont-Tonnerre . After the death of Jeanbon St. André on December 10, 1813, August Moßdorff was interim prefect until the department was handed over to the Allies. In the course of the sale of French national goods, he acquired the castle mill in Großkarlbach and the house on the fish market in Mainz, which he had previously only rented.
Despite his French-friendly attitude, the later victorious powers also valued his administrative experience. The Austrian-Bavarian joint state administration commission appointed him director of the département. He formally accepted the office, but then protected illness in order not to have to take it up. In 1816 he entered the service of the Grand Duke of Hesse and was appointed to the government. At the end of March he became a member of the Rheinhessen provincial government under Ludwig von Lichtenberg . In 1821 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown , combined with the personal title of nobility. Since 1829 he lived with the title "Privy Councilor" in retirement.
August Moßdorff was married to Philippine Jacobi from Grünstadt, daughter of the local crown innkeeper Johann Jakob Jacobi. Her sister Rosina Juliana Wilhelmina had married the revolutionary Karl Christian Parcus (1763-1819) in 1788 .
The museum in the old town hall of Grünstadt has an extensive collection of his original letters, mainly to his wife in Grünstadt, later in Heidesheim , and to his brother in Jena .
literature
- Heinz Engelhaupt: The introduction of the Hessian-Darmstadt administration in the northern part of the Donnersbergkreis. Diss., 1971, pp. 110-112
- Ernst, Friedrich: From the Grünstadt revolutionaries Moßdorf and Parcus. In: Neue Leininger Blätter 1927, pp. 82–88
Web links
- Biographical website
- Moßdorff, August. Collection of Palatine personalities, eberhard-ref.net
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grossherzoglich Hessisches Regierungsblatt , No. 44, Darmstadt, October 3, 1829, p. 426 of the year; (Digital scan)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Moßdorff, August |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French and Hesse-Darmstadt administrative officer and revolutionary |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1758 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Eckartsberga |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1843 |
| Place of death | Mainz |