Karl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey

Karl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey (1 September 1805 – 10 March 1856) was director general of police in Berlin under Frederick William IV. He was instrumental in shaping the crackdown on revolutionary activities during the reactionary era.

Biography

Origin

The Hinckeldey family received the imperial nobility through their grandfather Heinrich Hieronimus Hinckeldey (1720–1805) in 1754. He was born at the Sinnershausen Castle, near Wasungen, Saxe-Meiningen, the son of Karl von Hinckeldey (1760–1835) and his wife Christine von Cochenhausen (1775–1807), a daughter of the Hessian Major General Johann Friedrich von Cochenhausen (1728–1793) and Dorothea von Oberg. His father was a court councillor of Löwenstein-Wertheim and syndic of the knightly canton of the Middle Rhine.

Career overview

Hinckeldey entered the Prussian civil service in 1826 and first became a government assessor in Cologne and Liegnitz, later becoming a government councilor there. He was transferred to Arnsberg and, after serving as chief government councilor in Merseburg, he became police chief of Berlin in 1848.

Hinckeldey was conspicuously sponsored by Frederick William IV and eventually appointed director general of the police in Prussia. On behalf of the King, he observed the Kreuzzeitung, from which a personal antagonism soon developed. As police chief, he forcefully oppose the revolutionary forces. On the other hand, he rendered great services to the city and to many charitable institutions and organizations.

He became director general of the police and in 1853, as Geheimer Oberregierungsrat, head of the police department in the Ministry of home affairs. There he earned the full confidence of the King and was able to gain recognition among the citizenry. The nobility, on the other hand, did not get along with him, as Hinckeldey maintained a strict impartiality. In 1848, Hinckeldey ordered the numbering of constables in Berlin. The numbers were worn on their cylinder hats, which were part of the uniform.

Conflict with the nobility

Hinckeldey's position towards the nobility became more and more acute, so that in the circles of the courtly military it was arranged to challenge Hinckeldey to a duel, in which the police director had to meet certain death.

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense reports that the gentlemen von Rochow, von Prillwitz and another officer undertook to force Hinckeldey to make a demand by insulting him. The occasion was a festive event at which the Guard officers declared the presence of police officers unacceptable and demanded an "admission ticket" from Hinckeldey. A sharp exchange of words ensued between Hinckeldey and Hans von Rochow, who was an officer and member of the House of Lords. According to other accounts, he came into conflict with one of the members when he had an aristocratic gambling club closed down.

It is reported that Hinckeldey made the demand in the certain expectation that the King would forbid the duel to take place. Given the code of honor of the time, there was hardly any alternative left. Had he accepted the insults without contradiction or limited himself to a verbal protest, his position in the public eye would have become untenable.

Allegedly, Hinckeldey was still on the lookout for Frederick William's adjutant on the morning of the duel, who was supposed to forbid the duel. The King, however, remained inactive. In this regard, he wrote to his minister Ferdinand von Westphalen on April 2, 1856: "The reproach that I myself face is ever greater; for I had known for several days that Hinckeldey was to be killed, or at least had the excuse to believe it. But here a most tactful and delicate procedure was necessary in order not to establish irrevocably the already widespread suspicion that 'Hinckeldey could not smell powder'. This, I confess frankly, made me timid. Well, God has so ordained it. The thing is not to be made good, but — the victory of his enemies is to be lessened."

Duel and death

So things took the predictable course: Von Rochow shot Hinckeldey. The physician Ludwig von Hassel was a witness: "Rochow remained standing unhurt, Hinckeldey, on the other hand, made a semi-circular movement and then sank into the arms of Hassel and Münchhausen, who let him glide gently to the earth." Rochow was sentenced to four years' imprisonment at the fortress, which did not affect his honor or reputation. After one year he was pardoned.

Hinckeldey was buried with all honors. The funeral procession was joined by Prince Wilhelm and a hundred thousand citizens of Berlin. His grave is located in the St. Nikolai and St. Marien cemetery at the parish on Prenzlauer Allee. It has been dedicated as an honorary grave of the city of Berlin since 1994.

Legacy

A stone cross was located at the site of the duel 300 meters north of the forester's lodge Königsdamm since 1856, it stands at the eastern edge of the Volkspark Jungfernheide since 1956. Theodor Fontane mentions the memorial cross in his novella Irrungen, Wirrungen, where he has the male protagonist Botho von Rienäcker pass by this spot on a horseback ride, which the latter takes as an opportunity to ruminate in his mind about the duties of nobility. Fontane portrays Hinckeldey as a status-conscious but also arrogant nobleman who briefly and arrogantly dismisses his bourgeois subordinate's objections to the duel.

Hinckeldeybrücke, which was initially built for the Tegeler Weg across the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal, was adopted as the name for the Kurt-Schumacher-Damm highway bridge in Berlin-Charlottenburg-Nord. The deciduous colony Hinkeldey southeast of the junction Saatwinkler Damm of the A 111 was named after him — justified by the location of the dueling ground.

References

• Stephan M. Eibich, Polizei ‚Gemeinwohl‘ und Reaktion. Über Wohlfahrtspolizei als Sicherheitspolizei unter Carl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey, Berliner Polizeipräsident von 1848 bis 1856. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag: Berlin, 2004.
• Gerd Heinrich, "Hinckeldey, Carl von". In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). 9. Duncker & Humblot: Berlin, 1972, p. 175.
• Egon Erwin Kisch, "Hinckeldey, Liquidator der Achtundvierziger Revolution". In: ders., Mein Leben für die Zeitung 1926–1947. Aufbau: Berlin/Weimar, 1983, pp. 131–5.
• Karl Wippermann, "Hinckeldey, Karl Ludwig Friedrich von". In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). 12. Duncker & Humblot: Leipzig, 1880, p. 437.

External links

• Works by Karl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey at German National Library