Ludwig Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach

Ludwig Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach ( born September 17, 1790 in Berlin, † January 10, 1861 in Berlin) was a Prussian general and conservative politician from the circle around the cross newspaper. His father Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach was 1809-1813 Lord Mayor of Berlin.

Leopold von Gerlach entered very young into the military service in 1806 and took part in the Battle of Auerstedt. In the same year he was taken prisoner. Then he studied at Göttingen and Heidelberg Jura. 1813-1814 he took in the wake of Blucher and 1815 in the General Staff of the wars of liberation in part. In 1826 he became adjutant of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (later Kaiser Wilhelm I ), whose pietistic and conservative views he shared. 1838 Gerlach Colonel and Chief of Staff of the 3rd Army Corps, Major-General in 1844, 1849 Lieutenant General and Adjutant General of King Frederick William IV was in this position of trust, he worked in the sense of religious and political reaction. In the rank of general of infantry Gerlach retired from the military service.

With his brother Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, he was a member of the Christian- German dinner party, then the successor movement, the so-called " Maikäferei ", and finally the Conservative Party. The brothers were among Gerlach 1848 the most influential founders of the party and to the court party, the so-called cabal to Friedrich Wilhelm IV Their goal was a Christian order of estates in Prussia and Germany. The radicality with which the brothers aspired to this ideal Gerlach, led to the rapid decomposition of the conservative movement, in the course of which averted among others, Otto von Bismarck of the Gerlach 's line.

Leopold von Gerlach died as a result of a cold, which he had at the funeral of Frederick William IV suffered.