Wilhelm Grabow

Wilhelm Grabow

Wilhelm Grabow (Hermann Scherenberg, 1862)

Wilhelm Grabow (born April 15, 1802 in Prenzlau , † April 15, 1874 ibid) was a German judge in the Kingdom of Prussia . He wrote the electoral law for the Prussian National Assembly and was President of the Prussian House of Representatives .

Life

Grabow attended the Prenzlauer Gymnasium and studied law in Berlin from 1821-23. During his studies in 1821 he became a member of the old fraternity Arminia Berlin . He was initially a trainee at the Court of Appeal in Berlin, but soon Coroner commissions in Spandau and Perleberg and Assessor at the Berlin City Court . Raised a judicial and city judge, he was appointed court judge and university judge in Greifswald in 1836 .

Grabow was mayor of Prenzlau from 1838 until his death. From 1841 he belonged to the district assembly , the Brandenburg Provincial Parliament (this until 1848) and the First United State Parliament of 1847, of which he was an exposed member of the liberal party. In 1848 he was a member of the Second United State Parliament , where he was the main author of the election law for the Prussian National Assembly , of which he was President from June 27 to October 26. He voluntarily resigned the presidium and his mandate. In parliament he belonged to the constitutional right and played an important role there. Grabow was the only member of the congress of constitutional associations on July 22, 1848.

The Potsdam constituency 8 elected him to the Prussian House of Representatives in 1849 , and he was president of the first legislative period from February to April. Grabow joined the right center . Because of his opposition to the enforcement of the constitution of December 5, 1848, and especially to the question of the three-class suffrage , his election as Lord Mayor of Magdeburg in 1850 was not confirmed. Only after a long period of hesitation was his election as mayor of Prenzlaus approved, albeit for a limited period of 12 years and not for life.

In protest against the elimination of universal suffrage, the new electoral law and the restoration of the district and provincial parliaments, Grabow withdrew from political life for some time. He only belonged to the House of Representatives again at the beginning of the new era in 1858, where he was Vice President in 1860/61 and from January 1862 to February 1866, in the 6th – 8th Legislative period, was again president. As such, he led his own right-wing liberal parliamentary group named after him.

In 1866 he decided not to be re-elected as president to enable reconciliation with the government. In previous years he had repeatedly protested against the low budgetary power of the second chamber, which had led to mutual bitterness with the ministerial Otto von Bismarcks .

Honor

Wilhelm Grabow honored his hometown Prenzlau with a memorial that was ceremoniously unveiled on July 13, 1875 in the city park. The relief medallion on the base of the obelisk was created by the Berlin sculptor Fritz Schaper .

literature

• Klaus Herdepe : The Prussian Constitutional Question 1848 . Neuried 2002, ISBN 3-936117-22-5 , p. 174 f.
• Bernd Haunfelder : Biographical manual for the Prussian House of Representatives 1849–1867 (= manuals on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 5). Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5181-5 .
• Jürgen Theil: Prenzlauer Stadtlexikon and history in data. Prenzlau 2005, p. 66 f.
• Jürgen Theil: Carl Friedrich Grabow - Lord Mayor of the City of Prenzlau, President of the Prussian National Assembly and the Prussian House of Representatives, in: Communications of the Uckermärkisches Geschichtsverein zu Prenzlau, Issue 15, Prenzlau 2008, pp. 23–38.
• Klaus Grabow: Carl Friedrich Grabow. Announcements of the Uckermärkisches Geschichtsverein zu Prenzlau, No. 2 (1993), pp. 50–58.
• Olaf Gründel: Grabow. In: Friedrich Beck, Eckart Henning (Ed.): Brandenburgisches Biografisches Lexikon. Potsdam 2002, p. 149.
• Werner Pöls :  Grabow, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 701 ( digitized version ).
• Karl Wippermann :  Grabow, Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 542-547.
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 2: F-H. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0809-X , pp. 164-165.