Wilko Levin from Wintzingerode

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Wilko Levin Graf von Wintzingerode-Bodenstein, 1900

Wilko Levin Graf von Wintzingerode (born July 12, 1833 in Göttingen , † July 18, 1907 at Bodenstein Castle ) was a German politician .

Life

Wilko Levin was the son of Heinrich Levin Graf von Wintzingerode and the Aeone Freiin vom Hagen (1800–1835). He first studied law and political science at the University of Göttingen , then moved to the universities in Munich and Berlin . During these years, the very musical Wilko Levin had a close friendship with what would later become the most important violinist of his time, Joseph Joachim , which also brought him into close contact with Johannes Brahms . Joachim and Wintzingerode traveled through Germany as students and performed together as violin and piano players.

After the death of his father, he took over the management of the family property in Eichsfeld and served as an officer in the Prussian army. In 1859 he married Countess Marie von Keller (1836–1924), the older half-sister of the later court lady of the Empress Auguste Viktoria , Countess Mathilde von Keller . After he took on Hanoverian officers as a Prussian captain in his castle Bodenstein after the battle of Langensalza in 1866 and thus escaped capture, he left active military service but took part in the campaign against France in 1870/71. In 1876 he was elected regional director by the newly constituted provincial parliament of the province of Saxony , to which he himself belonged. In this office, the name of which had since been changed to governor , he was confirmed in 1888 for a further twelve years.

From 1867 to 1876 and from 1879 to 1882 Wilko Levin was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives as a member of the Free Conservative Party . In 1873 he was briefly a member of the German Reichstag .

From its founding on October 5, 1886 until his death, Wilko Levin Graf von Wintzingerode was president of the “ Evangelical Association ”, which quickly developed into the largest Protestant and third largest association in Germany. As such, Wintzingerode was very committed to the construction of the Memorial Church in Speyer , both ideally and financially . There he is shown in one of the glass windows under a medallion with his coat of arms as the biblical captain of Capernaum. As a denominational politician, he aroused the displeasure of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1898 when the Evangelical Union publicly criticized the attitude of Otto von Bülow, the Prussian ambassador to the Holy See , which in his eyes was too friendly to Rome . The emperor instructed the Prussian interior minister Freiherrn von der Recke von der Horst to punish Wintzingerode "with an energetic tear". There was no legal basis for this, but the process led to an alienation between the leadership of the Evangelical League and Wilhelm II as summus episcopus .

In 1894 he became a member of the Academy of Non-Profit Science in Erfurt . On his 70th birthday, the Theological Faculty awarded him Jena University the doctorate honoris causa .

Works

  • Opening speeches, in: Pamphlets of the Evangelical Federation. Hall / S. from 1887.
  • On the reform of personal taxation. In: Prussian year books. Volume 30.
  • Count Heinrich Levin Wintzingerode, a statesman from Württemberg. Gotha 1866.
  • Count Hoensbroech, his trial and public opinion. Leipzig 1899. ( digitized version )

literature

  • Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 1: Social politicians in the German Empire 1871 to 1918. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86219-038-6 , p. 175 ( online , PDF; 2.2 MB).
  • Friedrich Nippold : The first two decades of the Evangelical Union and its leadership by Count Wintzingerode. Leipzig 1906.
  • The same: Count Wintzingerode. In: Leading personalities at the time of the founding of the German Empire. Berlin 1911, pp. 400-487.
  • Theodor Leuschner: In honor of Count v. Wintzingerode-Bodenstein: A festive address on the occasion of his 70th birthday - July 12, 1903. Leipzig 1903.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mann, Bernhard (edit.): Biographical manual for the Prussian House of Representatives. 1867-1918 . Collaboration with Martin Doerry , Cornelia Rauh and Thomas Kühne . Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1988, p. 420 (handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties: vol. 3)
  2. ^ Stenographic reports on the negotiations of the German Reichstag. I. legislative period, IV. Session 1873. Volume 1, Berlin 1873, p. XXVII ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Wintzingerode, Wilko Levin from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wintzingerode, Wilko Levin Graf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1907
Place of death Bodenstein