Otto von Watzdorf (politician)

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Otto Friedrich Heinrich von Watzdorf (born November 7, 1801 in Wiesenburg , † March 24, 1860 in Schönfeld near Konstadt ) was a German lawyer and politician . He was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly and a member of the Saxon state parliament .

Live and act

The son of the Saxon Appellationsrat Adam Friedrich August von Watzdorf (1753-1809) and his wife Charlotte born von Oppen-Jütrichow (1767-1811) grew up after the early death of his parents in Zeitz . Between 1817 and 1821 he studied law and political science at the University of Leipzig . From 1822 onwards he worked as an accessist at the royal Saxon justice office in Dresden . In 1823 he was appointed chamberlain . In 1826 he became assessor at the state government in Dresden, from which office he was dismissed in 1830 after he advocated against the absolute monarchy and for a strengthening of the estates parliament in his book On the Necessity of Changing the Estates Constitution in the Kingdom of Saxony should have the right to control, legislate and tax sovereignty. As a result, proceedings were initiated against him, in the course of which he was reprimanded because his writing was seen as an " attack against the constitutional rights of the king ".

In 1827 he was entrusted with the family goods in Jößnitz and Röttis . From 1830 to 1832 he was one of the first manor owners in Vogtland , who had the feudal compulsory labor on his estates replaced. He was a member of the last parliament (1830-1832) of the Saxon estates , on which the Saxon constitution of 1831 was passed. Subsequently, in 1839/40 and 1842/43 he represented the Vogtland manor owners in the Second Chamber of the Saxon State Parliament , where he belonged to the liberal opposition .

In 1840 he had acquired the manor Leichnam in Upper Lusatia , which he chose as his place of residence. He sold Jößnitz and Röttis in 1842 to Johann Gottfried Opitz.

Between 1839 and 1847 he belonged to the Hallgarten circle . In 1848 he represented Saxony at the Frankfurt pre-parliament and was elected on May 14, 1848 in the 15th Saxon electoral district ( Annaberg ) in the first ballot with 41 out of 62 votes as a candidate of the Fatherland Association as a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly , where he joined the German court connected. Here he campaigned for a republican constitution based on the US model and, during the negotiation on the type of central power to be created in Germany, proposed that power be given to a president jointly proposed by the national assembly and the German state governments until the constitution was completed should be transferred. He refused the post of Minister of the Interior in the Saxon cabinet in Braun , which he had been offered in 1848 , but then accepted the election to the Saxon state parliament on December 16, 1848. In 1849/50 he was a representative of the 38th, 39th and 40th electoral district of the first chamber of the Saxon state parliament, where he was a member of the law and finance deputation.

From the failure of the March Revolution , the Dresden May uprising and the efforts of the Frankfurt National Assembly , he realized that political freedom ... could not be achieved through legal progress, but only through a victorious revolution . On April 17, 1850, the Saxon king asked him to return the chamberlain key , which he handed over broken. In 1852 he was sentenced to three months in prison after refusing to pay approved taxes.

Works

  • On the necessity of a change in the existing state constitution in the Kingdom of Saxony , 1830
  • Petition to the Estates Assembly of the Kingdom of Saxony on the draft law on the provisional determination of press affairs , 1833
  • Accountability report for his participation in the negotiations of the Saxon state parliament of 1839/40 , 1840
  • Biographical outlines of the members of the German constituent national assembly in Frankfurt aM , 4 booklets, Frankfurt / M., 1848

literature

  • T. Tonndorf: The Saxon Members of the Frankfurt Pre- and National Assembly , Diss. Dresden 1993, p. 255 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d T. Tonndorf: The Saxon Members of the Frankfurt Pre- and National Assembly , Diss. Dresden 1993, pp. 255 ff.
  2. ↑ Josef Matzerath : Aspects of Saxon State Parliament History - Presidents and Members of Parliament from 1833 to 1952 , Dresden 2001, p. 133
  3. ↑ From the story of Leichnam - from 1910 Spreewiese
  4. ↑ a b Josef Matzerath: Aspects of Saxon State Parliament History - Presidents and Members of Parliament from 1833 to 1952 , Dresden 2001, p. 53
  5. ↑ GA Pönicke (Ed.): Album of the Saxon manors and castles, V. Section Voigtländischer Kreis , Leipzig 1859, p. 40
  6. ↑ T. Tonndorf: The Saxon Members of the Frankfurt Pre- and National Assembly , Diss. Dresden 1993, p. 255 ff .; Otto von Watzdorf's membership in the Saxon Landtag, which met at the beginning of 1849, cannot be proven in Josef Matzerath's lists of representatives ( Aspects of the history of the Saxon Landtag - presidents and representatives from 1833 to 1952 , Dresden 2001).
personal data
SURNAME Watzdorf, Otto von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Watzdorf, Otto Friedrich Heinrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and politician, member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, MdL (Kingdom of Saxony)
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesenburg
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1860
Place of death Schönfeld near Konstadt