Carl Heinrich von Gerlach

Chronicle

1. 1783

   Born, son of Ludwig Wilhelm August.

2. 1794–1801

   Pupil of the Ritterakademie at Brandenburg (no. 757); afterwards Referendar at the Kammergericht (Leers, Die Zöglinge der Ritterakademie, 1914).

3. 1801

   On 25 September he matriculated at Göttingen in law, coming from Halle. The register notes his father as "president of the Farther Pomeranian court of justice at Cöslin" (matriculation register of the Georg August University of Göttingen 1734–1837).

4. 1804

   The 1804 vassal roll of the principality of Cammin lists him, aged twenty, as a student at Halle; his father appears with Parsow A and B and Schwemmin, valued at 30,000 Taler (Klempin/Kratz 1863).

5. 1809

   First holder of the newly established Parsow-Schwemmin fideicommiss.

6. 1812–1839

   Landrat of Fürstenthum district. For his services in the Wars of Liberation he wears the Iron Cross on the white ribbon (Leers 1914). On his departure in 1839 the Privy Civil Cabinet keeps a file "Gerlach, von. Landrat" (GStA PK I. HA Rep. 89 no. 7634). How he came into the office is told by an article in the Baltische Studien drawn from the government files: on 1 June 1812 the previous Landrat, von Hellermann, resigned because of an eye complaint; in his place the ministry designated the Kurmark government assessor von Gerlach of Parsow, resident in the district, as interim Landrat. The district estates protested through their provincial representatives because their right of election had been passed over – he stayed all the same and was definitively appointed in 1818.

7. 1813

   What he wore the Iron Cross on the white ribbon for is explained by a study of the Pomeranian Landsturm: his district raised twenty-one battalions, the highest number in the whole province. Because it was so large and so drawn out, the government advised appointing a separate leader for groups of sub-districts; he accordingly divided it into the three "main or brigade districts" of Bublitz, Körlin and Köslin, each of six or seven sub-districts, and after long effort won three senior officers to command them. On 25 May he reported that Köslin and Kolberg had each raised one company of horse, two of riflemen and three of lancers, and wished "to form a battery out of cannon to be obtained from merchant ships".

8. 1813 (Abzeichen)

   A detail the historian criticises: for the Landsturm badges he grouped three sub-districts to a colour – numbers 1 to 3 black, 4 to 6 yellow, 7 to 9 white, 10 to 12 light green, 13 to 15 brown, 16 to 18 light blue, 19 to 21 red – but gave no distinguishing borders within the groups. The badge therefore no longer served to tell units apart: "it was nothing more than an ornament". For Kolberg the military government ordered specially on 21 May that the townsmen's existing duty to defend the fortress be taken into account.

9. 1814

   Marries Charlotte Wilhelmine von Beyme (Weittenhiller 1878); from 1817 her father, minister of state Beyme, writes to "his daughter Charlotte von Gerlach and his son-in-law Karl Heinrich von Gerlach, Landrat at Köslin" (letters 1817–1820 and 1837–38 in the von Winterfeld family archive, BLHA). The bride's parents announce the engagement from Stargard on 28 April 1814 – "of our only daughter to the Landrat of the Fürstenthum district von Gerlach at Cöslin", signed "Beyme, Royal Prussian Grand Chancellor and Civil Governor" and "E. C. E. Beyme, née Meyer" (Berlinische Nachrichten 3 May 1814).

10. um 1815

    A draft redistricting plan of the Pomeranian government, published from the files by the Baltische Studien in 1930, foresees him as district director of the sixth district directorate: Fürstentum district including Kolberg, 49,321 inhabitants, county town Köslin. The draft proposed no change to the contested shape of this unusually large district.

11. 1821

    Receives – according to Bagmihl 1843 – the Trienke estate with the outlying farm of Zauchram through his marriage.

12. 1824

    Member and deputy speaker of the Pomeranian provincial diet.

13. 1827

    The second Pomeranian provincial diet sits from 14 January to 24 February at Stettin; the chairman is von Arnim, his deputy a von Gerlach – by office and region very probably the Landrat of the Fürstenthum district. In the printed proceedings a "deputy von Gerlach" takes the floor.

14. 1839

    On 13 July the "Landrat von Gerlach at Steglitz" applied, in the name of his wife, who had taken over her father’s inheritance the year before, for the regulation of manorial and peasant relations against the ten Lassiten farmers of Schmargendorf. On the same day the ten applied for a special separation, that is the dissolution of the intermixed strips of their fields, and for the redemption of the sheep-pasturing right that the Wilmersdorf estate held over their land. The names have come down: Gerike, Tübbecke, Grüneberg, Donner, Dahlmann, Christoph Schmidt, Johann Schmidt, Georg Balz, Michel Balz and Hersprung. The settlement was not reached until 1856, long after the sale: the manor gave up all services and dues, and in return the farmers ceded a third of their land, 467 Morgen and 20 square rods (directory of the western Berlin suburbs, 1904, after Willy Spatz).

15. 1840

    His wife Charlotte acquires the neighbouring Drosedow estate.

16. 1841

    In a list of names printed identically by the Stettin and Stralsund papers in 1841 – marshal of the diet, Landräte, district deputies and estate owners of the province – tenth place is held by "Landrat v. Gerlach, of Parsow", between the estate owner von Flemming of Bassentin and the rural councillor von Hagen of Premslaff.

17. 1843

    Has the family arms entered in Bagmihl's Pomeranian Armorial and supplies the account of the family estates; he is among the subscribers to the work.

18. 1845

    He went into print. Proposal number 30 laid before the district assembly on 17 December wanted the district divided; against it he wrote eight pages: "The Cammin principality district in Farther Pomerania. Dedicated to the estates of the district." He set out the district’s history from the twelfth century – the bishopric of Cammin, the Peace of Westphalia, the incorporation by the diet settlement of 11 July 1654, the first Landrat Jacob von Heydebreck – and closed with four reasons: indivisibility had been laid down by settlements and royal declarations, and the name stood in the royal title and in the arms; the defence of Colberg needed a district able to bear it; a second Landrat’s office would cost the state at least two thousand talers; and in 1845 still less than in 1816 was it the moment to call up separations, and through them discord, "discord such as already exists in the Church and in the political affairs of Germany, without any need to bring it into one’s own household as well". Signed: "Parsow near Cörlin, in the month of December 1845. von Gerlach, formerly Landrat and at present deputy of the knighthood." The district was divided all the same, in 1872, and the Kolberg-Körlin district came into being.

19. 1847

    Member of the First United Diet in Berlin: on 17 April the Kölnische Zeitung lists him among the deputies of the Province of Pomerania as no. 97, "Landrat (ret.), at Parsow, Fürstenthum district".

20. um 1850

    He belonged to the Society for Pomeranian History and Antiquities, which publishes the Baltische Studien. Its fourteenth volume lists him among the members who left "by their own free decision" – from the very society whose journal today supplies the most exact information about him.

21. 1854

    Member of the Prussian House of Lords until his death. As its oldest member he opens the sessions of the House of Lords in 1855 and 1858 as president by seniority (Altonaer Mercur 2 December 1855; Magdeburgische Zeitung 13 January and 27 October 1858). His death is announced in writing by his son Bogislav to the president of the House of Lords, Prince zu Hohenlohe; the House commemorates its "highly revered" member (Stenographic reports of the House of Lords 1860). The "Chronicle of the Prussian House of Lords" of 1885 gives the dates exactly: born 1 March 1783, called for the rural district of Kashubia by royal decree of 24 November 1854, taking his seat on 30 November 1854, died 12 April 1860. The same district was later represented by his son August; the district's second seat belonged to Theodor von Kleist of Schmenzin, who lost it in 1867 on selling the estate that qualified him.

22. 1860

    Death; succeeded in the fideicommiss by his son Bogislav. He dies at Parsow on 12 April; the Kölnische Zeitung honours him as a member of the House of Lords "for the old and entailed landed property of the principality of Cammin" who "acted as president by seniority of the House" (18 April 1860).

23. Kinder

    Carlos Ludwig (1815–1837), second lieutenant in Hussar Regiment no. 5, dies at Parsow on 3 July 1837; Henriette (b. Parsow 1820, d. Köslin 1876) marries cavalry captain Gustav von Plötz in 1838 at the Beyme estate of Steglitz; Bogislav (1822–1874) succeeds to the entail; Anna Emilie Adelheid (b. Parsow 1825) marries Major August Gneomar von Bassewitz at Parsow in 1842; August (1830–1906) becomes Landrat and member of the Reichstag (Leers 1914; Gotha; Wikipedia).

Sources and literature