Paul Ludwig Le Coq

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Ludwig Le Coq (born March 23, 1773 in Berlin ; † August 24, 1824 ibid) was a Prussian civil servant , really secret legation councilor and police president and district president in Berlin.

Portrait of Paul Ludwig le Coq, engraver: Johann Friedrich August Clar , Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin , reproduction photographer: Oliver Ziebe, Berlin

Life

A portrait of Paul Ludwig Le Coq, engraved by the engraver Johann Friedrich August Clar , is in the Stadtmuseum in Berlin. It shows him in a uniform and describes him as the police chief, so it was created after 1810, when he was around 37 years old.

Origin and family

Paul was a Huguenot and a member of the Le Coq family , which originally lived in Metz . Grandfather Jean Le Coq came to Germany as a refugee . He is a direct descendant of Toussaint Le Coq, who married Jeanne Doron in Metz in 1565.

His parents were Charles Le Coq († 1814), a businessman and director of David Splitgerber's sugar boiling plant in Berlin, who made it prosperous through these activities, and Marie Charlotte Ermann (1739-1802), the sister of the German historian and Protestant Theologian Jean Pierre Erman (1735–1814). Her family was also of Huguenot origin and moved from Geneva to Berlin in 1720 .

Le Coq married Charlotte Elisabeth Le Fèvre (1766–1814) on March 4, 1794. A common son was  Charles Gustav (von) Le Coq (1799-1880), who also became a diplomat.

education

Le Coq attended the French grammar school in Berlin , where his uncle, the senior consistory counselor Jean Pierre Erman , held the position of headmaster . He studied the ancient languages, learned history, mathematics and philosophy and left high school after finishing school in order to prepare for the ministry at the French theological seminary at the request of his father.

However, he soon realized that he was unsuitable for the office of preacher and wanted a sphere of activity where he could be useful for the general public. He therefore decided to turn to the diplomatic subject that best suited his inclination and ability. He prepared himself for the chosen career by thoroughly studying the newer languages ​​combined with a reading of the newer literature. He did not complete a university course.

Worked in the State Chancellery

He entered the Prussian civil service as a secret secretary at the then Secret State Chancellery. As early as 1793 he received the post of a secret expeditionary secretary at the secret cabinet ministry. In 1794 he was appointed a council of war and a few years later a secret war council. He stayed in the Secret State Chancellery until 1806. After that, he moved to the Department (Ministry) of Foreign Affairs and became a lecturer council.

Activity in the Department of Foreign Affairs

In the battle of Jena and Auerstedt the Prussian army suffered a heavy defeat against the French troops. On October 14, 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte and his numerically superior main army defeated a Prussian- Saxon corps near Jena. Ten days later Napoleon occupied Berlin and within a short time advanced to the Vistula . The royal family had fled to Koenigsberg and Le Coq followed them with the Department of Foreign Affairs and other state authorities. In the following year, 1807, he was appointed Real Secret Legation Councilor.

The Peace of Tilsit ended in July 1807 the Fourth Coalition War between Prussia together with the Russian Empire on the one hand and the French Empire on the other. The Russo-French peace treaty divided Europe into a French and a Russian sphere of interest; the Franco-Prussian agreement downgraded Prussia to the status of a European middle power.

At the latest during his time in Königsberg, Le Coq had access to the king and advised him several times on diplomatic matters. He advised the king in particular on the question of the ratification of the Paris Convention of September 8, 1808, a successor treaty to the Peace of Tilsit . In the Königsberg follow-up agreement of July 12, 1807, France undertook to withdraw its troops from Prussia step by step in accordance with the compensation for the war contribution still to be determined. The amount was only set by Napoleon on September 8, 1808 in the Paris Convention.

Le Coq, who regretted the collapse of Prussia very much, said in the Freundeskreis:

"This Tilsit peace gnaws at my heart, but over a little one and the Prussian king this notch will tear away."

The king and the Prussian authorities returned to Berlin. In 1809, Le Coq was appointed State Councilor and Lecturer Council to the newly organized Ministry of Foreign Affairs .

Police President and District President in Berlin

Since Le Coq had shown his duties as a reliable civil servant over several years and his Huguenot origin enabled him to deal with the French on a trusting basis, he was given the difficult office of police chief in Berlin in 1810. With political and diplomatic skill he carried out his duties to the satisfaction of the government. As a result, he qualified for higher tasks and was therefore nominated as a candidate by the government in the election of the Berlin mayor in the late summer of 1813, but could not be enforced against the candidate Johann Stephan Gottfried Büsching . Nevertheless, he enjoyed the trust of the government, so that in 1816 he was appointed district president and director of the newly established government college in Berlin. He was given the title of "Chief President".

Voltz, Johann Michael, “The new European barber shop”, Leipzig City History Museum

Cartoon dispute

In March 1813 the French had evacuated the Berlin they had occupied. The French and Prussian censorship, which was incumbent on the police chief, was abolished. The Russians had marched into Berlin as allies. The Russian headquarters insisted, as Le Coq complained to the Prussian Higher Government Commission on March 8, 1813, that all pamphlets directed against France, even if they contained insults, must be published and distributed .

After that, mock images of Napoleon were very popular in Berlin, which were given the character of political mass graphics through high editions and achieved a print run of 20,000 copies within a week. This was in the interests of the Prussian reformers who planned the uprising against Napoleon, which then led to the Wars of Liberation .

In December, a cartoon with the title Die neue Europaeische Barbierstube by Johann Michael Voltz was published , which showed a frequently varied motif that the monarchs of Russia, Austria and Prussia forced Napoleon to shave and cut him. In a letter, the Berlin police chief Le Coq wrote:

"Only from one [...] piece," The European barber shop and presenting 3 figures in officer's uniform without further designation, neither in degree nor in any personal resemblance, I learned that the very highest figures of the allied monarchs themselves are included in the public believe to understand. This mere presumption was enough for me, however, to issue an order immediately upon questioning them that all copies found in stock should be confiscated from all employers and immediately burned. ”Le Coq adds a brief description of the new European barber shop:“ Napoleon was sitting on a chair, soaped, on the white napkin you can read the names Culm, Katzbach, Leipzig, Dennewitz, spotted with blood. Friedrich Wilhelm [of Prussia] shaves - on the knife it says 1813 - the word Holland on the soaped cheeks is removed by holding Napoleon by the tip of his nose. Alexander (of Russia) stirs the foam basin on the edge of which 1812 is written. Franz (of Austria) holds Napoleon from behind on the seat. ""

The cartoons became more and more aggressive. So French soldiers were z. B. represented as monkeys, under the whip of a tamer a dressage aufführten.

Le Coq's letter not only sheds light on the practice of censorship, which was directed against the instructions of the Russians, but also specifies the criterion for state intervention: the monarchs must in no way be disrespectfully included in the criticism. In a letter to the Prussian Foreign Minister GoltzKarl Heinrich von der Goltz on December 24, 1813, the police director said that the pictures should not appear because the idle onlookers were looking at these caricatures and on the features of the main characters with a comfortable smile Believe to find similarities with clergy living here and many of the (caricatures) ... offend the morals and moral dignity .

Nevertheless, the appearance of further caricatures could not be completely prevented.

(Prussian) Kurmärkische Landwehr 1813

Landstorm discussion

The basic conception of the Prussian defense against Napoleon, which the reformers Gerhard von Scharnhorst , August Neidhardt von Gneisenau and Carl von Clausewitz, as the main proponents of the land storm in 1808, 1811 and 1812, proposed four elements. In addition to the regular army, a national militia, the Landwehr , was to be introduced. The third element should be parties to the dispute that would motivate the people to resist the French. The fourth and final element was a guerrilla: the Landsturm .

The way of organization and tactics of the Landsturm was described in detail in 85 paragraphs in the king's edict of April 21, 1813. Le Coq, an opponent of the reformers, whom he had met from Gneisenau in Memel and Königsberg at the king's court after his flight from the French, was in his capacity as police chief in May 1813 chairman of the committee for the formation of the Landwehr and Landsturm and On the basis of the Edik, Le Coq issued several resolutions, instructions and regulations for Berlin, who was skeptical of the establishment of the Landsturm and the reformers , but already on June 26, 1813 demanded that the Landsturm should not put any guards. It is not possible to distinguish the country striker who is actually on duty from everyone else. Obedience would be refused to the police with reference to the Landsturm membership. The Landsturm was so poorly organized and so imbued with a false spirit of equality that even its officers failed to achieve obedience. It was generally feared that the militants would wean themselves more and more of their bourgeois subordination to the authorities .

The reformers had to adjust their expectations to reality. Perhaps it was not their fault. Ultimately, the difference between a high idea and a small human reality became evident here . The organization of the land storm ultimately failed. The Berlin Landsturm did not come into contact with the enemy at all. On March 4, 1814, the royal order was issued to suspend all exercises of the land storm.

Friedrich Schleiermacher

Controversy with Schleiermacher

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) was a Protestant theologian , classical philologist , philosopher , publicist , state theorist , church politician and educator who lived in Berlin for several years and died there.

For Schleiermacher, Le Coq was the person with whom he had to deal with issues of press law, also because of his censorship activities.

In 1808 Schleiermacher began to be politically active in practice. He was in Königsberg, where the king had fled after the occupation of Berlin by Napoleon, and there he made the acquaintance of and there made the acquaintance of Stein and consulted with Gneisenau and the way of agitation and not of conspiracy to counter the goal of the popular uprising Reaching Napoleon. He wanted the implementation of Stein's reforms , but also a constitutional monarchy with a constitution and a parliament, as the king had promised. The country was deeply divided. The conservative forces who wanted to avoid liberalization viewed him with suspicion after he worked as a journalist, editor and director in 1813 for the newspaper Der Prussische Korrespondent , founded by Niebuhr , which appeared four times a week. In an article dated July 25, 1813, he criticized Prussian policy as insufficiently determined and spoke out against an early peace agreement with Napoleon.

Although he was not, as he was later accused, a member of the Tugendbund , an association that settled in Königsberg i. After the battle of Jena and Auerstedt and the battle of Friedland in spring 1808 . Pr. But was close to him. The association was the seed of the Prussian reforms and the Wars of Liberation . In a police report to the king dated October 7, 1812, he was reported as a man deserving the attention of the state police. Schleiermacher, along with his friend Johann Gottfried Eichhorn , historian and theologian, who is counted among the group of supranaturalist rationalists of the time, and his brother-in-law, the legal scholar Friedrich Carl von Savigny , belonged to the committee for the formation of the Landwehr and Landsturm in 1813 Berlin, whose chairman was the police chief Le Coq. Schleiermacher was accused by him that, according to the content of the files, he was the one who, in a very revolutionary sense, had drafted the illegal Landsturm justice regulations by hand. It was not possible to determine how the signature of the Council of State Le Coq got under the copies. Le Coq denounced Schleiermacher, Savigny and Eichhorn as Jacobins and expressed himself to the king in an immediate report of July 1, 1813, in which he stated about Eichhorn, Schleiermacher and Savigny that the relationship of the Landsturm Committee is all the more dangerous than the use of it in the In the hands of young men who, in their attitudes, adhere to the current political conditions of the young state and the ardent enthusiasm, but who are so far removed from all moderation and the guilty concepts of obedience and subservience under Your Majesty's supreme sovereign decisions, that if the latter deviate from their views, they may be ready to act in the opposite direction . He referred to Schleiermacher and Eichhorn as demagogues who had found their way into the State Chancellor (Hardenberg) . After he criticized Prussia's hesitant behavior in the newspaper article of July 25, 1813 mentioned above, he came into conflict with the censorship that was the responsibility of the police chief. He was accused of high treason. He was reprimanded. Le Coq continued to hinder Schleiermacher in his journalistic work, so that he finally resigned at the end of September. Le Coq also made life difficult for his successors in the editorial office. The newspaper ceased to appear at the end of 1814.

Further diplomatic activity

After the authority was dissolved, Le Coq worked in the Neuchâtel NE department. The Principality of Neuchâtel, located in Switzerland, returned to Prussia in 1814, and although it remained as the 21st canton in Switzerland , the Prussian king retained sovereignty until 1848. From 1822 Le Coq was again active in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin , photo library (online).
  2. ^ Richard Béringuier : Family trees of the members of the French Colonie in Berlin , 1885, p. 31 (digitized version)
  3. ↑ Carl Maria von Weber Complete Edition. Digital Edition (Version 4.0.0 from January 20, 2020) Last change of this document on December 16, 2017 (digital) .
  4. ↑ Carl Maria von Weber Complete Edition. Digital Edition (Version 4.0.0 from January 20, 2020) Last change of this document on December 16, 2017 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ a b c d e Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 558 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Friedrich August Schmidt (Ed.): New Nekrolog der Deutschen , 1824 2nd volume, issue 2, p. 1126 ff. (Google books)
  7. ↑ Historical news from the foundation of the French colonies in the Prussian states: published on the occasion of the centenary which is to be celebrated on October 29, 1785, 1785. p. 66 (on Google Books).
  8. ^ A b c d e f g h Matthias Wolfes: Public and civil society: Friedrich Schleiermacher's political effectiveness. Schleiermacher Studies, Volume 1, p. 495 ff., (Google books)
  9. ↑ Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann: King in Prussia's great time. Friedrich Wilhelm III. the melancholic on the throne. 1992, ISBN 3-88680-327-9 , p. 292 f, quoted from Matthias Wolfes, Public and Civil Society: Friedrich Schleiermacher's political effectiveness. Schleiermacher Studies, Volume 1, p. 497 footnote 326 (at Google Books).
  10. ↑ a b c d Bettina Brandt: Germania and her sons: Representations of nation, gender and politics in the modern age. , ISBN 978-3-525-36710-0 , p. 172. (digital) with further examples for the caricatures.
  11. ↑ a b c Karen Hageman: Contested memory: The Antinapoleonic Wars in German memory. 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-70748-2 , p. 81. (digital e-book)
  12. ↑ Image at Zeno.org (digital)
  13. ↑ quoted from Schulbuchzentrum Online, accessed on April 21, 2020 with reference to G. Langemeyer u. a. (Ed.): Means and motives of the caricature. Munich 1984, p. 182. (digital) There is also a picture there.
  14. ^ Aloys Apell: Johann Christoph Erhard, painter and Radirer. 1866, p. 109 no.191 (description). (digital)
  15. ↑ Gisold Lammel: Caricature of the Goethe time. 1992, p. 13 (snippet view)
  16. ↑ Gisold Lammel: German cartoons: from the Middle Ages to the present. 1995, p. 136. (Snippet view)
  17. ↑ Marius Luszek: The militia 1813-14. Between psyche, military performance and political controversy. Housework (advanced seminar). University of Potsdam (Institute for History) 2018, Chapter 2.1 (at the beginning) (digital)
  18. ^ Johann Jakob Otto August Rühle von Lilienstern: The German people armament. 1815, pp. 41 ff, 54 ff, 58 ff, 65 ff (e-book) (reprint of publications)
  19. ↑ Marius Luszek: The militia 1813-14. Between psyche, military performance and political controversy. Housework (advanced seminar). University of Potsdam (Institute for History), 2018, Chapter 4.2 at FN 113, (digital)
  20. ↑ Marius Luszek: The militia 1813-14. Between psyche, military performance and political controversy. Housework (advanced seminar). University of Potsdam (Institute for History), 2018, Chapters 3.3 (at the end) and 3.4 according to FN 88 (digital)
  21. ^ A b Gunter Scholtz: Schleiermacher, Friedrich. In: New German Biography. Volume 23, 2007, pp. 54-57 [online version]; (digital)
  22. ↑ a b Martin Redeker: Friedrich Schleiermacher: Life and Work (1768 to 1834). 2019, p. 133 ff. (Digital e-book)
  23. ↑ What is probably meant is the instruction on the investigation and punishment of the Landsturm offenses of June 25, 1813 (Johann Jakob Otto August Rühle von Lilienstern: Die deutsche Volksbewaffnung. , 1815, p. 61 ff. (E-book) )
  24. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Schoeps: Documents from the demagogue persecution. In: Journal of Religious and Intellectual History. Vol. 18, No. 4 (1966), pp. 349-369 (357f) with footnotes 14 and 15 (jstor digital)
  25. ↑ Kurt Metschies (Ed.): Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage, Part II: Special Administrations of the Transitional Period 1806–1815, Central Authorities from 1808, Prussian Parliaments 1847–1933, Prussian Army (until 1866/1867), Provincial Traditions, Provincial and Local Authorities, Non-Governmental Provenances u. Archival collections. 2014, p. 4127 (at Google Books).
personal data
SURNAME Le Coq, Paul Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian civil servant in the foreign service and police president
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1824
Place of death Berlin