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Confessional policy and the limits of state action: Frederick William III and the Prussian Church Union 1817–40

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Christopher Clark
Christopher Clark
Affiliation:
St Catharine's College, Cambridge
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Abstract

The merging of the Lutheran and Calvinist (Reformed) confessions to form the United Church of Prussia was one of the most controversial policies pursued by Frederick William III after 1815. By the late 1830s it had provoked a large and well-organised movement of opposition, particularly among those ‘Old Lutherans’ in Silesia and neighbouring provinces who refused to abandon their liturgical traditions. This article examines the government's attempts to complete the process of unification through measures designed to atomize and silence Lutheran protest. Neither Prussian law nor Prussian law enforcement agencies, the article suggests, furnished an adequate foundation for Frederick William III's confessional policy. The unsuccessful campaign against Old Lutheranism exacerbated latent tensions between the executive and judicial branches of the administration and revealed the limits of government power and authority in the sensitive area of confessional policy. The aggressive and systematic confessional statism of the administration under Frederick William III was unprecedented in Prussian history; in this as in other areas of policy, the term ‘Restoration’ misrepresents political reality in post-Napoleonic Prussia.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 1996 , pp. 985 - 1004
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

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13 Cf. ibid. fo. 30: ‘it is not by the introduction of forms, that there can be effected a purification and revival of religion’.

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27 Frederick William to Altenstein and Rochow, Berlin, 2 June 1837, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 3, Bl. 103. Karl Sigmund Franz Freiherr vom Stein zum Altenstein was minister of church, health and educational affairs; Gustav Adolf Count von Rochow was interior minister.

28 Altenstein to Flottwell, Berlin, 7 April, 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 103–4.

29 See, for example, report by Councillor Strauß of the senior consistory on his journey to the separatist congregation in Züllichau, Berlin, 13 May 1837, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 4, Bl. 133–40.

30 Frankfurt/Oder government to Rochow, Frankfurt/Oder, 9 June 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 207–8.

31 ‘Nachweisung der im preußischen Staate im Jahre 1838 sich von der Kirchengemeinschaft entfernt haltenden lutherischen Separatisten zusammengestellt aus den namentlichen Verzeich-nissen der einzelnen betreffenden königlichen Regierungen’, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, vol. 7, Bl. 41. A survey of January 1841 of the 328 separatists who emigrated from the province of Silesia to North America and South Australia between 1836 and 1840 suggests likewise that apprentices, journeymen and artisans were statistically overrepresented in the committed ‘core’ of the movement. Ibid. fos. 195–209.

32 Huschke, Steffens, Grempler, v. Haugwitz, Willisch, Helling, Schleicher, Mühsam, Kaestner, Mage and Borne to Frederick William III, Breslau, 23 June 1830, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 15, Abt. XVII, Nr. 44, vol. 1. References to previous generations of ‘fathers’ are common in the Lutheran petition literature.

33 Ward, W. R., The protestant evangelical awakening (Cambridge, 1992), esp. pp. 67–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nixdorf, , Die lutherische Separation, p. 221.Google Scholar

34 See, for example, Revierförster Fiedler, for the Lutheran congregation in Klemzig, to Frederick William, Klemzig, 19 December 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 4, Bl. 146–8.

35 ‘Hamburg, 6 July’, Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung (supplement), 18 July, 1838.Google Scholar

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37 Neue Würzburger Zeitung, 22 June 1838, transcribed in GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XHIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 135.

38 Cited in Birtsch, G., ‘Friedrich der Große und die Aufklärung’, in Hauser, O. (ed.), Friedrich der Groβe in seiner Zeit (Zeue Forschungen zur Brandenburg-Preuβischen Geschichte, 8; Cologne, Vienna, 1987), pp. 31–46Google Scholar; here pp. 44–5.

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45 For examples of Lutheran petitions that cite passages from the General Code, see for example the transcripts in Scheibel, , Actenmässige Geschichte, II, 95–104, 106–7, 197–200, 208–10, 211–12.Google Scholar

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47 Silesian consistory to Altenstein, Breslau, 15 April 1834, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 15, Abt., XVII, Nr. 44, vol. 4.

48 Altenstein to Frederick William, Berlin, 6 July 1830, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XHIa, Nr. 5, vol. 1, Bl. 123–38; here Bl. 137.

49 Coeslin government to MGUMA, Coeslin, 27 Oct. 1835, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt., XHIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 67–9. The jurisdiction of the Prussian Lokalpolizeibehörden had been redefined and extended by an order of 23 May 1830 from the ministry of the interior.

50 Altenstein to Coeslin government, Berlin, 15 January 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt., XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 67–9, 73. Similar complaint in Merseburg government to MGUMA, Merseburg, 12 July 1835, Bl. 56–9.

51 Liegnitz district government to Altenstein, Liegnitz, 18 Oct. 1835, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt., XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 64.

52 Frederick William to Altenstein, 15 February 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt., XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 73. Less than one month later, on 10 March 1836, this decision was revised. The costs for the punishment of impecunious separatists were to be borne by the ‘state police budget’, since separatist offences were delicta publica under the cabinet order of 9 March 1834. See Alvensleben to Rochow, Berlin, 10 march 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 153.

53 See Meuß(?) Report on separatists in the Züllichau district, 26 Aug. 1836; GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 4, Bl. 41–68, esp. 41–2.

54 See Frederick William to Altenstein and Rochow, Teplitz, 20 July 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIHa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 219.

55 Frankfurt/Oder government to Rochow, Frankfurt/Oder, 9 June 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 207–8.

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60 Ancillon to Rochow, Berlin, 17 Aug. 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 268–70.

61 Altenstein to Rochow, Berlin, 3 Oct. 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 3, Bl. 46.

62 Rochow to MGUMA, Berlin, 8 October 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 3, Bl. 73.

63 Silesian consistory to Altenstein, Breslau, 28 Dec. 1831, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 15, Abt. XVII, Nr. 44, vol. 2.

64 Altenstein to Miihler, Berlin, 32 July 1832, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 15, Abt. XVII, Nr. 44, vol. 3.

65 See Koschützky to Rochow, Militsch, 27 Oct. 1835; GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 15, Abt. XVII, Nr. 44, Bd. VIII. Koschützky remained in prison throughout these altercations.

66 Flottwell to Altenstein and Rochow, Posen, 21 Oct. 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt., XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 3, Bl. 97–8.

67 Neue Würzburger Zeitung, 22 June 1838, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt., XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 6, Bl. 135.

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70 Rochow to Altenstein, Berlin, 30 Nov. 1837, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. Xllla, Nr. 5, vol. 5, Bl. 108–10.

71 Koch, Hanke, Fritze, Auersbach, Müller, Hoffmann, and Naumann to Breslau Magistral (City Magistrates' Court), Breslau, 4 Dec. 1830. transcribed in Scheibel, , Actenmässige Geschichte, I, 146–8Google Scholar; here p. 147.

72 See, for example, Frederick William to Altenstein, 15 February 1836, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 75.

73 On the publication of the cabinet order of 9 March 1834, see, for example, Altenstein to Rhenish consistory, Berlin, 12 August 1834; Altenstein to Prussian consistory (Königsberg), Berlin, 17 August 1834. For complaints relating to this policy, see Brandenburg consistory to Altenstein, Berlin, 15 September 1834, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIHa, Nr. 5, vol. 2, Bl. 25, 27, 28–30.

74 Frederick William III to ministers v. Thulemeyer and v. Massow, Charlottenburg, 18 July 1798, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1, Abt. XIV, No. 4a, Bl. 1–2.

75 On the importance of avoiding the appearance of Gewissenszwang, see Altenstein to Frederick William III, Berlin, 6 July 1830, GStA Berlin, HA I, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. I, Abt. XIIIa, Nr. 5, vol. I, Bl. 123–38; here Bl. 128. For public responses to Prussian policy in the other German states, see for example, Neue Würzburger Zeitung, 22 June 1838 and ibid. 10 September 1838; Beilage zur Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 199, 18 July 1838; all in Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 1 Abt. XIIIa, vol. 6, Bl. 135, 136, vol. 7, Bl. 8. For the planting of leader articles refuting the claims of critical journalists outside Prussia, see, for example, Altenstein to foreign minister Ancillon, Berlin, 22 Jan. 1835, GStA, Rep. 76 III, Sekt. 15, Abt. XVII, Nr. 44, vol. 5.

76 For Frederick William's views on the relationship between Gewissensfreyheit and the ‘spirit’ of protestantism, see his cabinet order to Massow of 23 February 1802 regarding the necessity of a law to enforce the baptism of Christian children within six weeks of birth. This is transcribed and discussed in Foerster, , Die Entstehung, I, 101–03.Google Scholar

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78 Eylert, Charakter-Züge, III, pt. 2, 133.

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