Wilhelm Leverkus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Leverkus (born February 13, 1808 in Wermelskirchen , † November 30, 1870 in Oldenburg (Oldb) ) was a German state councilor , archivist and politician . Under his leadership he made a decisive contribution to the Oldenburg State Archives (today's name: Lower Saxony State Archives (Oldenburg location) ).

Life

Education and early years

Leverkus was the son of the pharmacist Wilhelm Johann Leverkus (1776–1858) and Alexandrine Anna Catharine, born. Hunter. From 1822 to 1826 he attended grammar schools in Kreuznach and Düsseldorf and from autumn 1826 studied history and philology at the universities of Bonn and Heidelberg . In 1826 he became a member of the Old Bonn Burschenschaft , in 1828 he also joined the Old Heidelberg Burschenschaft . As a leading and, according to his friend Maximilian Heinrich Rüder, also a doctrinal member of this fraternity, he was punished by the Heidelberg university authorities in September 1828 with more severe relegation . only after a long stay in his hometown was he able to continue his studies at the University of Berlin and obtain a doctorate . However, as a former fraternity member during the time of the demagogue persecution as a political suspect, he could not find a job in Prussia . In the spring of 1836, on the recommendation of his Berlin professor Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg , who came from Eutin and had contacts with senior officials in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg , he was given the post of assistant teacher at the Eutin grammar school . As the royal seat of the Prince Diocese of Lübeck, Eutin was part of the Grand Duchy from 1803. However, Leverkus' ambition for a scientific career was too great for school lessons and so he pursued intensive regional history studies in his free time. During these studies he came across the half-forgotten archives of documents of the Diocese of Lübeck and urged the Eutin government in 1837 to entrust him with the order of the inventory. Leverkus accepted the activity with great enthusiasm and soon completed the work.

Activity in Oldenburg

As a result of this activity, Leverkus recommended himself to the grand ducal government, which had been looking for an archivist in charge of the planned establishment of an Oldenburg central archive in place of the old state archive, which only related to the Duchy of Oldenburg. In 1838 Leverkus was appointed archives secretary in Oldenburg and entrusted with the establishment of the house and central archives . In 1839, after a brief familiarization phase, he took over the management of the archive, which he held until his death, having been promoted to archivist (1846), archivist (1856), secret archivist (1862) and state council (1866). Under his direction, the archives of the principalities of Lübeck and Birkenfeld were transferred to Oldenburg and he was able to begin viewing and organizing the existing holdings, which were housed in the new archive and library building on the dam in 1846. In order to facilitate practical scientific use, he often combined files of different origins according to content-related aspects, regardless of the provenance principle. This turned out to be a mistake and had to be at least partially corrected at the end of the century under Georg Sello by reorganizing according to the principle of origin.

Political commitment

After the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 , Leverkus turned to politics. In the elections to the National Assembly , he received the second highest number of votes in his home district of Lennep , making him deputy to the elected MP. After his departure, he represented the constituency of Lennep as a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly from October 17, 1848 to May 20, 1849. He belonged first to the casino faction and then to the Augsburger Hof faction , which, as a small German and moderately liberal group, belonged to the large majority block of the center . Leverkus did not stand out in the plenary or in his parliamentary group and, like most liberal MPs, resigned his mandate on May 20, 1849 after the left's vote and returned to Oldenburg. In June 1849 he still took part in the Gotha post-parliament of the former hereditary imperial deputies, but after the failure of the Prussian attempt at union he withdrew from political life and concentrated on his professional tasks.

Founding of the antiquity association

In order to advance regional historical research and to create an organizational framework, Leverkus called for the establishment of an association for the research and preservation of local antiquities in 1850 . He designed an extensive work and publication program for the association, which, however, soon ceased its activities due to a lack of resources and resources and a lack of interest.

Activity in later times

As early as 1846, the Oldenburg Grand Duke August I. had commissioned Leverkus to search for materials to justify dynastic claims of the House of Holstein-Gottorp on Schleswig and Holstein . From 1853 he played an important role as advisor to Grand Duke Peter II on this dynastic question. After investigations into the complicated constitutional position of the two duchies, Leverkus developed the generally questionable thesis that after the Danish royal family had died out, the Holstein-Gottorp family was primarily entitled to inheritance in the duchies. He compiled the material for the memorandum that the Grand Duke presented to the German Bundestag in 1864 to justify his claims .

With the exception of the Lübeck document book Codex diplomaticus Lubecensis published in 1856 , in whose conception he played a key role , Leverkus did not publish any major scientific work due to the heavy workload involved in setting up the archive and the Schleswig-Holstein special task . Furthermore - apparently out of a lack of self-confidence - he revised his manuscripts again and again and did not find the strength to complete them for publication.

However, as a historian and archivist, Leverkus had a decisive influence on the Oldenburg State Archives. Through the painstaking development and scientific provision of the sources, he created the prerequisites for developing the institute into a “research institute for regional history”.

family

Leverkus married Wilhelmine Friederike Propping (* 1820), the daughter of the Oldenburg businessman Carl Johnn Friedrich Propping, on June 4, 1841 in Oldenburg. The couple had four daughters and four sons.

Wilhelm Leverkus' brother Carl Leverkus is the namesake of the city of Leverkusen and the founder of the chemical plant there, which still exists today as the headquarters of Bayer AG .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Leverkus, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archivist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Wermelskirchen
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1870
Place of death Oldenburg (Oldb)