Karl Hermann Bitter

Karl Hermann Bitter ( born February 27, 1813 in Schwedt, † September 12, 1885 in Berlin) was a German statesman and writer on music.

Life

He was the son of the Prussian finance officers in Schwedt ( Oder) Ferdinand Bitter, which was soon called according to Karl Hermann Birth about 1814/15 as a Prussian Oberfinanzrat to Berlin. His brother was the 1880 collected in the Prussian nobility politician Rudolf von Bitter the Elder.

Bitter studied from 1830 at the University of Berlin, and later in Bonn jurisprudence and Cameralia. In Bonn, he became in 1831 a member of the Corps Borussia. After completing his studies he opened in 1833 in Berlin as Auskultator his official career, and was added in 1846 in Frankfurt Regierungsrat later to Minden. 1856-1860 he served as Prussian plenipotentiary member of the European Danube Commission in Galatz.

1858 appointed a Privy Councillor, he was appointed in 1860 as Chief Inspector of Navigation of the Rhine to Mannheim, 1869 appointed senior executive officer of the Finance Department in Poznan, 1870 entrusted during the war with France there with the prefecture of the Vosges department, 1871 Civil Commissioner in Nancy, 1872 President of the Government in Schleswig, 1876 in Dusseldorf.

In 1877 he was appointed Under Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, in February 1879 the Chairman of the Imperial Commission formed on the basis of socialist law and on July 7, 1879 Arthur Hobrecht point to the Prussian finance minister and a member of the Federal Council.

As such, he worked for the further implementation of the introduced with the customs legislation of 1879 tax reform plan of Prince Bismarck, came especially for the introduction of the tobacco monopoly and uplift the kingdom of revenue from the alcohol and the Braumalzsteuer one, brought about the introduction of exchange control and the conclusion of the contract with the city ​​of Hamburg for the occurrence of the same German into the customs territory and the inclusion of the lower Elbe in the Customs Union of the German Empire. The nationalization of the major private railways in Prussia found a working conveyor at him. In June 1882, he took his leave.

As a great connoisseur and lover of classical music Bitter called the Schleswig-Holstein music festival to life, of which the first was held in 1875, and published a number of tasteful writings in the musical field, including:

• Johann Sebastian Bach ( Berlin 1865 2 Tle, 2nd edn 1881, 4 vols );
• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and their brothers (Berlin 1868, 2 vols );
• About Gervinus ' Handel and Shakespeare ( Berlin 1869);
• Contributions to the history of the oratorio (Berlin 1872);

His collected works (Leipzig 1884) contain, besides musical essays essays about the year 1848, the Orient, Bismarck, among others He also gave Carl Loewe's autobiography (Berlin 1870) out.