Hans Daniel Ludwig Friedrich Hassenpflug

Hans Daniel Ludwig Friedrich Hassenpflug ( born February 26, 1794 in Hanau, † October 10, 1862 in Marburg ) was a Kurhessischer lawyer and politician.

Ludwig Hassenpflug joined a revolutionary anti - legitimist attitude with a strong mystical and pietistic religiosity and a romantic - organic state and legal opinion. He fought liberalism as ideology and advocated a monarchical absolutist dominated state.

• 6.1 works
• 6.2 secondary literature

Youth

Ludwig Hassenpflug in 1794 as the only son of five children of John Hassenpflug in Hanau and Marie Magdalena Dresen ( born September 28, 1768 in Hanau, in Kassel, Germany † December 19, 1840 ) born from a resident in Hanau Huguenot, upper middle-class immigrant family.

He studied from 1812 Law at the Georg -August- University Göttingen and became a member of the Corps Hassia Göttingen. In 1815 he became a member of Burschenschaft final compound Teutonia Göttingen. After taking part had 1813/14 studying interrupted at the wars of liberation, he finished in 1816 studying with the exam. In the same year he entered the civil service of the Electorate of Hesse. After 1821 he was Assessor Regent change at the Kassel Upper Court of Appeal held the rank of High Court Council; but his career came during the reign of Elector Wilhelm II not progressing right.

Policy

The political world of Louis Hassenpflug was influenced by Friedrich Julius Stahl, who provided the monarchical principle in the center of his political philosophy. He understood the monarch as the institution, rather than the actual incumbent. Here is also a significant difference between Hassenpflug and the Hessian Elector made ​​during his two terms as Prime Minister. All attempts hate plow to bring the elector to fill his role in the State in accordance failed.

A second major difference between the two was in their understanding of faith: While Hassenpflug is facing a romantic and mystical here, the text of the Bible appended conception of faith and this also held relative to the position of the elector as head of the national church a priority, was the Crown Prince and later Elector Friedrich Wilhelm at least in its religious conception - - influenced by the Enlightenment and church politics not willing to give up something because of some theological arguments of his sovereign position opposite the church of Hesse- Kassel. This conflict culminated in, among other accusations of government against the rulers that his marriage to Gertrude Lehmann was bigamy, since it had been already been married and divorced for marriage with the Elector only.

First time minister in Hesse-Cassel

Until the political change 1830/31 and the takeover of the government by the Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm - co-rulers brought forward Hassenpflug, because the Crown Prince and Hassenpflug knew about the Schoenfelder circle around the mother of the Prince Elector, Auguste of Prussia. Frederick William summoned Hassenpflug 1832, with the aim to overturn the relatively progressive Kurhessische constitution of 1831, the interior and justice ministers. Hassenpflug took it - without officially obtain a corresponding title - the de facto position of a prime minister -in.

Hassenpflug let it come to violent political confrontations with the largely liberal-minded Kurhessian assembly of the estates in the subsequent period. He survived four ministers charges. After personal as political strife with the sovereign, he joined back in 1837, although he had been asked by the regent to lead the Justice Department on. Hassenpflug hoping for a job in Prussia, but initially failed to.

Intermediate stations

So he had with management positions in German micro-states to make do, first as Secret functionary in the Principality of Hohenzollern -Sigmaringen (1838 /39). This corresponded to the local government. When he went there after a short time, was - well under his mediation - Hanauer Prosecutor William Schenck to pig mountain his successor.

Hassenpflug 1839 Head of Civil Administration of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (1839 /40), which was approximately the position of a Prussian baron.

It was not until 1840, when came to the throne in King of Prussia, Frederick William IV, he could enter into the Prussian service. Probably about Radowitz, advisor to the king and former officer of the Hessian artillery, with the Hassenpflug was a friend, he received the coveted appointment and was Obertribunalrat in Berlin and 1846 President of the Higher Court of Appeal in Greifswald. There he involved himself about the renovation of his official residence in several methods on forgery and embezzlement of state funds. In September 1850 he was therefore - now head of government in the Electorate of Hesse (!) - First instance sentenced to 14 days in prison, but acquitted after a third instance also legally complicated criminal trial.

Second Ministerial time in the Electorate of Hesse

On February 22, 1850, he followed the call of the now Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I to take over the government in Hesse-Cassel. After the revolution of 1848, the Elector had tried in vain to find another politician who was willing and able to eliminate him together with the achievements of the revolution again.

As Kurhessischer interior and justice ministers - at times also in the function of the finance minister - went Hassenpflug again relentlessly against all liberal movements in the country before and pursed his confrontation with the assembly of the estates to. This would overthrow the hated conservative Minister at any cost, and responded with a refusal to pay taxes, after which Frederick William I dissolved the national assembly on 12 June 1850. Trying to now bypass the Constitution by martial law and one-sided nationalistic promotion of the decrees, failed, first, that the officer corps was sworn both to the sovereign and to the Constitution. In order not to be eidbrüchig ranged 241 of 277 officers - including four generals and colonels seven - between the 9th and October 12, 1850 her dismissal requests a. This " general strike " of the officer corps, a singular event in German history, the Hessian military made incapacitated. To save the counter-revolution, the Elector called the Federal Assembly for help, which made ​​the decision on October 16, 1850 to send occupation forces after the Electorate of Hesse, in particular the so-called " criminal Bavaria " to bring about the " proper " state. Hassenpflug became the most hated man Hesse-Cassel and beyond and was shunned even in conservative circles.

The term hate plow was also marked by confrontations with his sovereign. Both - Hassenpflug and Friedrich Wilhelm I - were prone to arrogance and hubris and defined the role of leading minister in different ways. Among other things, it came to a crisis, because the elector of the expansion of Frankfurt- Hanau Railway financing towards Aschaffenburg Hanauer Bank Bernus du Fay a bribe of 100,000 thalers expected before he signed the corresponding license. Hassenpflug wanted to withdraw then, but the elector refused the resignation.

After five years of the Second Ministerial period Hassenpflug left in October 1855 - again in dispute with the regent - his office. Occasion this time was the question of the influence of the elector should have on the Local Church, sparked by the election of August Vilmar as General Superintendent ( Bishop ). Hassenpflug and Vilmar, both marked by religious and romantic notions wanted to mitigate this impact, which Frederick William I of course would not suffer, and underlined by his rejection of the election Vilmars.

Retirement

Hassenpflug withdrew from politics and lived for about seven years as being finely deterministic pensioner in his self-imposed " exile " in Marburg. Here he worked with tireless energy to his memoirs, which are to be understood as a defense statement against the still ongoing attacks on his controversial policies and his person. With 68 years, he died on October 10, 1862 probably due to a series of successive strokes.

Family

Ludwig Hassenpflug was a friend from his youth with the brothers Grimm and married on July 2, 1822 her sister Charlotte ( Lotte ). Politically, the Grimms and Hassenpflug were adjusted contrary, but on a personal level, they came to the mid-thirties from each other. Lotte and Ludwig Hassenpflug had six children together:

• Karl Hassenpflug, sculptor, died childless
• Agnes ( born December 11, 1825; † October 29, 1829 )
• Friedrich ( * September 10, 1827; † January 23, 1892 in Breslau). High Court Judge in Wroclaw, married to Anna Wolmar, daughter of his father a ministerial colleague
• Bertha (* April 27, 1829, † June 9, 1830 )
• Louis Werner, called Louis ( * December 1, 1831; † October 11, 1878 in Malta ), an officer of the Austrian Navy, childless married to Frances Eleanor "Ellen" Whitehead, a daughter of the engineer Robert Whitehead
• Dorothea (* May 23, 1833; † January 24, 1898 in Munich )

Lotte Hassenpflug never recovered from the birth of her youngest daughter, and died shortly afterwards. The ratio between the Grimms and Hassenpflug cooled down then, especially after the declaration of Göttingen Seven and during the constitutional conflict of 1850 came the break.

His second wife Ludwig Hassenpflug married on May 11, 1837 Agnes von Munchausen ( born November 30, 1819 in Rinteln, March 23, 1899 in High Walde / Neumark ), daughter of the Hessian Oberland forester Wilhelm v. M. on Rinteln and the Christiane v. Loßberg. ( Her sister Hedwig was married to Otto von Scholley since 1845. ) From this marriage eight children were born:

• Elisabeth ( * 1839 in Luxembourg, † 1878 in Bremen)
• Maria ( * 1840 in Luxembourg, † 1841 in Luxembourg )
• Anna (* 1843 in Berlin, † 1921 in Marburg)
• Berthold (* 1844 in Berlin, † 1905 in Vienna Waehring )
• Otto ( * 1848 in Greifswald, † 1919 in Marburg)
• Hans (* 1851 in Kassel, † 1900 in Marburg)
• Maria ( * 1853 in Kassel, † 1932 in Oelde )
• Walter ( * 1855 in Kassel, † 1921 in Koblenz ), since 1911 curator of the University of Marburg.

Amalie Hassenpflug (1800-1871), the youngest sister of Louis Hassenpflug, was a close friend of Annette von Droste- Hulshoff.

Discount

Hate plow estate in the Hessian State Archive Marburg (stock 340 Hassenpflug ) contains fragments of memory, personal correspondence and writings THE SERVICE. In addition, there are numerous memorabilia in the Brothers Grimm Museum Kassel as well as in the private possession of his descendants.

Rating

Hassenpflug is one of the most controversial politicians of the first half of the 19th century. Since he vehemently pushed against the zeitgeist, liberalism fought and so did the enemy of the ultimately victorious bourgeoisie, its historical assessment largely negative. Even by the standards of the years around 1830, he must be regarded as reactionary.

" Hesse curse" - as he was called - was since the 1830s goal of sharp attacks on the part of liberal journalism, including the Kladderadatsch. After 1850 he was one of the most notorious German politicians. The historian Heinrich von Sybel shortened his first name to defamatory intention to " Hans Daniel" and let the nickname Ludwig completely fall away to burden him with prejudice with respect to a peasant- Jewish nature. In the vernacular, he was assigned the nickname " Hesse curse."