August von Gerlach

Chronicle

1. 1830

   Born at Parsow, son of Carl Heinrich. In 1890 the Berliner Tageblatt sums up in its Reichstag directory: "born 28 August 1830 at Parsow in Pomerania; Landrat since 1858 and member of the Prussian House of Representatives 1866–1870; member of the House of Lords; 1871–87 member of the Reichstag for Köslin 3: Fürstentum" (13 April 1890).

2. 1830

   Born on 28 August at Parsow. The authority file of the German National Library lists him as "Gerlach, August Fr. B. von" – August Friedrich Bernhard – with the name forms "von Gerlach-Parsow" and the designations politician, deputy, farmer (GND 133202550).

3. 1847–1850

   Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin, then studies at Berlin and Bonn.

4. 1858–1872

   Landrat of the Fürstenthum district – the appointment of the "estate owner Friedrich Bernhard v. Gerlach of Drosedow" is reported by the Magdeburgische Zeitung on 30 March 1858; in 1867 the Staats-Anzeiger calls him "Landrat v. Gerlach of Drosedow". As Landrat he signs from 1860 to 1865 the drawings of the district bonds of the "estates' commission for road building in the Fürstenthum district" (Staats-Anzeiger 26 August 1860, 18 July and 1 December 1865). The obituary in the Schlawer Zeitung supplies the prehistory: he had read law and served his term with the Brandenburg Cuirassier Regiment before the appointment reached him, effective 1 April 1858.

5. 1861

   Marries Asta von Kleist (1840–1933), daughter of Karl von Kleist of Groß-Dubberow and Rosalie née von Kameke, at Groß-Dubberow on 22 February (Gotha).

6. 1866

   Advertises the Trienke manor with the Zauchram outlying farm (some 3,800 Morgen of arable land, 425 of meadow, 500 of pasture) and the Waldhof farm near Drosedow (some 800 Morgen) for lease (Staats-Anzeiger, January to April 1866) – the beginning of tenant farming on the Beyme estates.

7. 1866–1895

   Prussian House of Representatives 1866–1870; Reichstag 1871–1887 and 1890–1895 for the Kolberg-Köslin constituency (Conservative, 50 to 69 per cent of the vote; committees on military pensions, criminal procedure, bankruptcy and commercial law among others). In the new election of June 1895 he leads the first ballot with 7,087 votes against 4,663 for the Progressive privy building councillor Benoit, but loses the run-off with 7,363 votes – the press reports the "defeat of Herr v. Gerlach in Cöslin" (Der Wächter 21 June, Merseburger Korrespondent 3 July 1895). In the Reichstag election of January 1877 the results lists carry him as candidate of the German Reich Party, in 1878 and 1884 simply as "von Gerlach, Landrat" (Hamburgischer Correspondent 17 January 1877; Reichsanzeiger 5 August 1878, 3 November 1884).

8. 1872–1891

   Landrat of Köslin district. During the Emperor's visit to Pomerania in September 1879 the "Landrat at Cöslin" receives the Red Eagle Order third class with bow (Reichsanzeiger 16 September 1879). In the early 1870s the large Fürstentum district became the three districts of Kolberg-Körlin, Bublitz and Köslin; he stayed at the head of the last and led it until 1 April 1891 – thirty-three years of state service in all. The inhabitants of all three districts, the Schlawer Zeitung wrote, owed him above all the setting up of the savings banks.

9. 1873

   Founds the brewery in Köslin on what is now Spółdzielcza Street – first as a limited partnership, from 1883 as a joint-stock company whose shareholders are mainly landowners (the Kösliner Actien-Bierbrauerei); in 1923 it merges into Bohrisch AG, with 51 percent of the capital remaining with the farmers. So the catalogue of the Koszalin museum ("Koszalin od średniowiecza do współczesności"). A directory of the European brewing industry gives 1874 as the year of foundation instead and names Brauergasse 11 as the address.

10. 1876

    The Köslin veterans' association makes him an honorary member, a dignity he keeps until his death.

11. 1877

    What an election looked like in a village is shown by a circular note printed by a Pomeranian paper in 1877: the polling officer announces that he still has ballots to hand out "made out for Landrat von Gerlach-Parsow", and that he will see whether use is made of them; should he be prevented, the juror Rubow will step in. The note is to be passed on quickly.

12. 1879–1884

    Alongside the office of Landrat he heads the county's fire insurance: a notice of the Old Pomeranian Mobile Rural Fire Society of 28 July 1879, still reprinted by the Köslin district gazette in early 1884, is signed "the county fire society director von Gerlach". It urges owners to insure their movable property with the society as well as their buildings, because that would lower everyone's contributions. Official orders in the gazette of December 1883 he signs as "the Landrat, von Gerlach".

13. 1885

    Daughter Asta (1863–1948) marries Carl Baron von Pachelbel-Gehag, holder of the entail of Keffenbrink, Nehringen, Dorow and Rodde in Western Pomerania, at Parsow on 21 April (Gotha).

14. 1885

    For the second time within five years he acts as the builder of a village church: after Parsow in 1881, now Trienke, his mother's estate. Both churches were paid for out of his own pocket.

15. 1888

    Teachers and pupils of the Kolberg cathedral grammar school, on their outing to Lake Kämitz, find "through the liberality of the landowner, Landrat von Gerlach-Parsow, hospitable reception in the forester's lodge" (Colberg school programme 1888).

16. 1889

    Member of the Prussian House of Lords. Summoned "for the old and entailed landed property of the Duchy of Cassubia" (Hamburgischer Correspondent 16 January 1890). From December 1889 he sits on the supervisory board of the Köslin joint-stock brewery, next to Dedo von Schmeling, Leo von Gaudecker and Kleist-Retzow of Groß-Tychow (Reichsanzeiger 19 January 1892). Finally, in 1905, he chairs the brewery's supervisory board, with Kleist-Retzow as his deputy (Reichsanzeiger 18 December 1905). Already in 1887, as Landrat, he had wound up the predecessor firm, the Cösliner Bierbrauerei Commanditgesellschaft G. F. Goerke, as liquidator together with Eugen Ludendorff of Ratteick and Theodor von Blankenburg of Strippow (Reichsanzeiger 22 December 1887).

17. 1890

    By now at the latest a member of the Prussian House of Lords – summoned on presentation of the old and entailed landed property, for the family entail Parsow-Schwemmin; he belongs to it until his death (Stenographic reports of the House of Lords 1890; Janecki, Handbuch des preußischen Adels 1893; Handbuch für das preußische Herrenhaus 1911, no. 243 – his father Carl Heinrich appears there as no. 242). Which electoral body sent him is stated only by the official notice after his death: the association of old and enfeoffed landed property in the rural district of the Duchy of Kashubia, comprising the districts of Köslin, Kolberg-Körlin, Bublitz, Neustettin and Belgard.

18. 1890–1896

    He held a mandate in the church as well: the diocesan gazette lists him in 1890 as "Landrat von Gerlach of Parsow" and in 1896 as "Landrat retired" among the deputies of the district synods of Körlin and Kolberg, each time beside the superintendent of Körlin.

19. 1891

    Order of the Crown, 2nd class. As a member of the Reichstag he lives at Leipziger Straße 45, Berlin; he farms Parsow, Schwemmin, Trienke and Drosedow. In September he signs – as does his second cousin Jakob, Landrat at Gardelegen – Hans von Kleist-Retzow's appeal for the assembly hall of Adolf Stoecker's Berlin City Mission (Rhein- und Ruhrzeitung 18 September 1891). Already in January 1891 he belongs to the small circle around Count Bismarck-Bohlen, Kleist-Retzow, Count Krassow and General von Heydebreck that raises money for the hall with a confidential circular (Saale-Zeitung 27 December 1893). The award to "Landrat von Gerlach at Köslin" is reported by the Hannoverscher Kurier on 4 April 1891. On leaving office, as the obituary of 1906 records, came the Order of the Red Eagle second class and the honorary citizenship of the town of Köslin.

20. 1891

    Daughter Luise (1866–1947) marries Manfred von Richthofen (1855–1939).

21. 1891

    The Pomeranian Economic Society resolves to found a chamber of agriculture for the province; among those behind it the later account names "Gerlach-Parsow, Director General of the Landschaft von Kameke-Warnin" and others. Later the "Landrat (ret.) of Parsow" sits on the chamber's board of trustees, and an estate owner von Gerlach chairs the agricultural district commission for Köslin, Schlawe, Stolp, Rummelsburg and Bütow.

22. 1. April 1891

    His last day in office can be fixed to the day. In the Kösliner Kreisblatt the notice of 1 April still bears the signature "Der Landrath. von Gerlach"; from 6 April onwards it is signed "Der Landrathsamts-Verweser. von Eisenhart-Rothe, Landrath". Between the two lies the end of thirty-three years in office – first in the Fürstenthum district, then at Köslin. In January and February von Kameke had already been signing in his stead.

23. 10. April 1891

    Nine days after his farewell the district assembly brought him back. The deputies of the flat country amended the statute of the district savings bank: its board of trustees was in future to consist of the Landrat of the day as director and of three assessors instead of two. Subject to the approval of the Oberpräsident, they elected "Herr Landrat von Gerlach a member of the board". He thus stayed with the bank he had directed ex officio – now as one of three.

24. 1892

    On 23 May, as a Reichstag deputy – alongside Oberpräsident von Puttkamer, State Secretary Baron von Maltzahn and Regierungspräsident Count Clairon d'Haussonville – he attends the funeral of Hans von Kleist-Retzow at Kieckow (Thorner Presse, May 1892).

25. 1892

    Appointed an honorary knight of the Order of St John – together with his second cousin Jakob – on the proposal of the Herrenmeister Prince Albrecht of Prussia (Reichsanzeiger 31 August 1892).

26. 1892

    Delegate to the congress of the German Conservative Party on 8 December in the Berlin Tivoli, which with the "Tivoli programme" adopts antisemitism into the party platform. As "v. Gerlach (Köslin)" he is one of the 21 Reichstag deputies around Helldorff-Bedra whose declaration, read out to the congress, holds to the programme of 1876 and treats the new draft merely as a statement on current questions – the assembly answers with heckling. In the debate, according to the Freiberger Anzeiger, "deputy v. Gerlach" asks that the sentence on the excesses of antisemitism be struck and speaks out against a new anti-socialist law; the Dresdner Nachrichten attribute a similar remark to a "Pastor von Gerlach" (Neue Bonner Zeitung and Freiberger Anzeiger 10 December, Saale-Zeitung 9 December, Dresdner Nachrichten 10 December 1892).

27. 1893

    Re-elected to the Reichstag for the Köslin constituency without a run-off (results list in the Reichsanzeiger 20 June 1893). In May the Conservatives of the Köslin constituency had again nominated "the previous representative, Landrat (ret.) v. Gerlach-Parsow", the Social Democrats the grocer Lotz as a token candidate (Thorner Presse, May 1893); the election was afterwards scrutinised in the Reichstag because on some ballots his name had been struck out and replaced by Liebermann von Sonnenberg (Stenographic reports 1894/95).

28. 1894

    In August 1894 he chairs an extraordinary meeting of a branch of the Pomeranian Economic Society which discusses the questions put by the minister on the new chamber-of-agriculture law – seat of the chamber at Stettin, franchise from 50 marks of net land-tax yield (Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 24 August 1894).

29. 1898

    The Berlin directory lists him as "v. Gerlach-Parsow, A., Landrat retired" at Leipziger Straße 45 – he kept the Berlin flat after leaving the Reichstag in 1895, since the House of Lords continued to sit. The membership list in the same volume gives two addresses: "of Parsow near Cratzig and at Köslin". In the town whose honorary citizen he was, he kept a second home.

30. 1899

    For an agricultural district show at Köslin, planned to precede the exhibition of the German Agricultural Society, two representatives of the county took the preparatory steps: he and the estate owner Villnow of Kothlow. A large horse race was even considered, should the town council contribute (Stralsunder Tageblatt).

31. 1900–1907

    A member of the Pomeranian Forestry Association: its printed proceedings list him from 1900 as "Landrat retired von Gerlach-Parsow of Parsow". At the 1907 meeting the chairman named him among six members lost that year, and those present rose from their seats.

32. 1902

    Before the chamber of agriculture he reported on boarding places, free places and scholarship funds at the agricultural winter schools. The meeting adopted a resolution: anyone newly acquiring a smallholding must put every means into it – the sons still need an agricultural education, so the counties should provide for it (Stralsunder Tageblatt).

33. 9. Februar 1906

    The Landrat von Eisenhart-Rothe had it published in the Kösliner Kreisblatt that his predecessor would be "away for some time" from 9 February; his deputy Gutknecht-Warnin would meanwhile conduct the business. On 28 April the same paper reported his return. Eleven weeks away, dead seven months later – the special issue of 20 September speaks of long and agonising suffering. Where he went neither notice says. They do disclose an office not previously recorded: after leaving the district office in 1891 he headed the administrative district in which his own estate lay.

34. September 1906

    A fortnight before his death the name still stood in an official list. Under paragraph 107 of the district ordinance half the deputies of each electoral group left the Köslin district assembly at the end of the year. In the group of the larger landowners there were six, in fourth place "von Gerlach-Parsow", between von Rhade-Funkenhagen and von Kameke-Varchmin. The by-elections were set for November. He did not live to see them.

35. 1906

    Dies early on 20 September at Parsow (Berliner Börsen-Zeitung of 21 September); succeeded by his son Carl August. The House of Lords honours his memory in its session of 9 January 1907 by rising from the seats (Reichsanzeiger). His seat in the House of Lords passes, by decree of 18 February 1907, to the landowner Richard von Blankenburg of Schötzow – the estate that had belonged to the Gerlachs from 1781 to 1796 (Berliner Börsen-Zeitung 5 March 1907). The Schlawer Zeitung gives the hour – a quarter to eight in the morning, at the age of seventy-six – and records that even political opponents held him to be sincere and benevolent. The chamber of agriculture for the province of Pomerania devoted a separate obituary to him: he had belonged to it since its establishment, worked on the committees for agricultural associations and for forestry, and chaired the board of trustees of the agricultural winter school at Köslin. The chairmanship of the Köslin agricultural society passed to Landrat von Eisenhart-Rothe.

36. 20. September 1906

    On the very day of his death his district printed a special edition: number 74 of the Kösliner Kreisblatt, a single sheet with a mourning border. "On the 20th of this month, early, the royal Landrat retired, Herr August von Gerlach-Parsow, was released by death from long and agonising suffering." For thirty-three years he had stood at the head of the Köslin district; under his administration the old Fürstenthum district had been divided in 1868 into the districts of Köslin, Kolberg-Körlin and Bublitz. When he left office in 1891 his relation to the inhabitants remained unchanged, "but the veneration and admiration for this rare man grew from year to year". The obituary is signed by the district committee and by his successor in office, Landrat von Eisenhart-Rothe.

37. 22. September 1906

    Two days later the next regular issue carried the city’s obituary, signed by the magistrate and the city councillors: there had died the "royal Landrat retired, estate owner Herr August von Gerlach-Parsow, member of the House of Lords and honorary citizen of the town of Köslin". The sentence on the conferring of the honorary citizenship runs across the mourning border in the print and can only partly be read.

38. 1925

    The Köslin local history book lists him among the town's notable men – beside the physicist Rudolf Clausius and the poet Hermann Grieben – as "Landrat of the Fürstentum and Köslin districts, honorary citizen of the town of Köslin". His date of death is misprinted there as 27 September; the newspapers of September 1906 prove the 20th.

39. Kinder

    Asta (1863–1948) m. 1885 Carl Baron von Pachelbel-Gehag; Luise (1866–1947) m. 1891 Manfred von Richthofen; Hertha (1871–1958) marries in 1907 Adolf Friedrich Count von der Schulenburg (1855–1925), a forester, 1897–1905 head forester at Walsrode, reserve cavalry captain in the Gardes du Corps and from 1911 holder of the entail of Beetzendorf and Osterwohle in the Altmark – a memorial stone in the manor cemetery at Beetzendorf commemorates the couple (Leers 1914 no. 1274; Wikipedia); Carl August (1883–1945) succeeds to the entail.

40. Der Sohn Klaus

    Klaus (1875–1955) – the familiar form of Nikolaus, under which the Rohrbeck chronicle lists him as Landrat – became the family's memory. From 1910 to 1938 he assembled the files that make up the family archive today, corresponding for them with the Stettin state archivist Georg Kupke, with Melle Klinkenborg of the Privy State Archive, with Herman von Petersdorff, Erich Wentscher and Albrecht von Houwald. In 1910 the district assembly at Bütow proposed him as Landrat; from 1918 he sat on the supervisory board of the Kolberg light railway. In 1954 he brought the archive to Erlangen.

Sources and literature