| Burkhard Wilhelm Pfeiffer | |
| Honorific Suffix: | Dr. jur. |
| Birth Date: | 5 July 1777 |
| Birth Place: | Cassel, Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel, Holy Roman Empire |
| Death Place: | Cassel, Electorate of Hesse, German Confederation |
| Other Names: | Burchard Wilhelm Pfeiffer, Burchhardt Wilhelm Pfeiffer, Burghard Wilhelm Pfeiffer |
| Occupation: | Lawyer, Jurist, Politician |
| Alma Mater: | University of Marburg |
| Years Active: | 1799-1852 |
Burkhard Wilhelm Pfeiffer (7 May 1777 – 4 October 1852) was a German jurist and liberal politician. He is best remembered to students of German legal history as the author of Praktische Ausführungen aus allen Teilen der Rechtswissenschaften, Mit Erkenntnissen des Oberappellationsgerichts zu Kassel or "Practical Explanations from all Parts of Jurisprudence, with Findings of the High Court of Appeal in Kassel," and for his years-long rivalry with the Hessian prime minister Ludwig Hassenpflug.
Pfeiffer was the son of the evangelical preacher, theologian, and University of Marburg professor Johann Jakob Pfeiffer and his first wife Lucie Rebecke (née Rüppel).[1] Among his siblings were Franz Georg Pfeiffer and Carl Jonas Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer grew up in Kassel, where his father served as the parish priest in evangelical parish of Oberneustadt, and Burkhard was training to follow in his footsteps and become a preacher.[2] After about a year at the University of Marburg, his father died, and he subsequently transferred to the faculty of Politics and Jurisprudence in 1792. It was here that Pfeiffer became acquainted with Friedrich Carl von Savigny, who would remain a friend for decades.[3] Pfeiffer received his doctorate in law from the University in 1798, and was quickly made an archivist for the Hessian government, a position he held until 1803. From 1803 to 1805 he was a public prosecutor, but in 1805 he was again appointed as state archivist. In addition to his duties as archivist, he was also named procurator fiscal to the court of William I, Elector of Hesse. This position lasted until the invasion of Hesse by Napoleon and its annexation into the Kingdom of Westphalia. Under the rule of King Jérôme, Pfeiffer worked as the Assistant Procurator General for the Court of Appeals in Cassel, and for his service, was awarded the Order of the Crown of Westphalia. During this time, Pfeiffer also published extensively, on subjects as varied as Roman law, patrimony and jurisdiction, civil code, and the Westphalian constitution.[4]
It was during this period of intense publication that Pfeiffer and von Savigny fell out over politics, with Pfeiffer’s liberal views placing him at odds with Savigny as they worked with Thibaut to help reform and restructure the outdated laws and civil codes that plagued all of the German states at this time.[4] [5] After the defeat of Napoleon and the reestablishment of the Electorate of Hesse, Pfeiffer again took offices as a government councilor and legal advisor. In 1817, he was made a senior appellate judge at the Electoral Court of Appeals in Hesse, whose law-code he revised from its previous 1771 version. He was offered a position on the court of appeals in Berlin, but his attachment to his homeland saw him decline the offer. In 1820, Pfeiffer came into direct conflict with the Elector William, over an expert opinion drawn up to the disadvantage of the Elector on the legality of debt repayments to the war chest during the Napoleonic period.[6] This decision, and the subsequent backlash from the court, prompted him to leave his position, move to Lübeck, and take up a position on the newly formed German: [[Oberappellationsgericht der vier Freien Städte]], or “High Court of Appeal of the Four Free Cities,” which held jurisdiction over the free imperial cities of Lübeck, Bremen, Frankfurt and Hamburg.[7]
William I, Elector of Hesse died in 1821, and Pfeiffer was quickly summoned back to court by the new Elector, William II.[8] Among his duties at court was to oversee the legal and political education of William’s son Frederick William, who would go on to be the third and final Elector of Hesse. in 1824, Pfeiffer received an offer from Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach to take up a teaching position at the University of Jena, as well as a senior role in the court of appeals there, but yet again, he declined the offer. In a letter to his son, he recorded his internal turmoil: "Even if there are many, many things I would wish otherwise, it would not be any better if I selfishly avoided them. I would also have to recognize myself guilty of ingratitude against the prince to whom I owe my honorable return to my sorely missed fatherland, if I wanted to leave it again without any cause for displeasure with my situation here."[9] Despite his high position at court, Pfeiffer’s liberal views were well-known and over the next decades, he published an assortment of essays and treatises outlining all that was wrong with the German political system and how it needed to change. Among other things, he proposed the establishment of a German Supreme Court, and severe controls on sovereign powers wielded by the rulers of constituent states. Chief among his published works was his eight-volume magnum opus German: Praktische Ausführungen aus allen Teilen der Rechtswissenschaften, Mit Erkenntnissen des Oberappellationsgerichts zu Kassel or "Practical Explanations from all Parts of Jurisprudence, with Findings of the High Court of Appeal in Kassel," which was published between 1825 and 1846. It contains 98 essays, drawing from Pfeiffer’s decades of experience in the legal profession, and addresses problems with laws in all of the German states. The immense size of the work earned Pfeiffer the nickname German: der praktische Pfeiffer, or "the Practical Pfeiffer" for the rest of his life.[10]
In 1830, Pfeiffer's lifelong dedication to Hesse and its people was rewarded when the Elector, William II, invested him as a Commander, 2nd Class in the House Order of the Golden Lion. Pfeiffer’s aforementioned gratitude to both the Elector and his family forced him to accept the honor, but he deeply wished to decline, fearing that this recognition by the State would, in his own words, cause him “to lose the confidence of the estates, which he had earned so far, and thus to be disturbed in his desired participation in the great constitutional work.”[11] At his request, the announcement of his investment was left out of the official government circular, allowing him to continue his political career for the time being. In 1831, he took part in the conference that drafted the new constitution for the Electorate of Hesse, which was later described by Karl Marx as "the most liberal constitution [...] that has ever been promulgated in Europe."[12] The new Elector was not pleased with the liberal stance of the new constitution, particularly the controls on his powers, but he nevertheless appointed Pfeiffer as president of the Landtag of Hesse. Concerned with Pfeiffer’s perceived closeness to the electoral family and court, despite his liberal credentials, the other members of the Landtag declared the election invalid, which led to a conflict with Ludwig Hassenpflug that would last the rest of his life.[1] The next decade consisted largely of political maneuvering on Pfeiffer and Hassenpflug's parts, each working to outwit the other. In 1834, Hassenpflug's manipulation led to Pfeiffer being passed over for the role Landtag President, despite having held the position provisionally for over a year, in favor of a younger and less qualified colleague.[13] In the wake of this derailment of his political career, and feeling his own age, he submitted a formal request to retire in 1842, but was refused by the Landtag with two simple words: German: nicht genehmigt (not authorized). After a year of hearing cases in absentia due to his ill health, Pfeiffer was permitted to retire in 1843. He continued to publish until 1851, but his influence and position in Hessian politics was finished.[14] [15]
In Cassel, on December 20, 1801, Burkhard Pfeiffer married Louise Susanne Arnoldine Harnier (12 June 1778 – 22 December 1847), daughter of Johann Caspar Harnier (1739–1811), the Hessian Minister of War, and his wife Susanna Henriette (née Dupré; 1748 – 1837).[2] Other prominent members of her family included her brothers, the doctor and the politician ; Her nephew was the painter, and her great-nephew was the African explorer . The Harnier family were Huguenots of Walloon descent.[16] The Pfeiffers had four children:
Karl Pfeiffer's life was a short one, but in that short life he accomplished much, and left behind an unexpected legacy. His professional life was that of an assessor, or magistrate's assistant, but he was also something of a firebrand, publishing articles in the liberal political newspaper Der Verfassungsfreund alongside Karl Bernhardi and Ludwig Schwarzenberg.[17] Karl also served in the Kassel German: Bürgergarde, or municipal watch, whose members financed his tombstone and organized his funeral.[2] Karl Pfeiffer's private life proved just as interesting as his public one. By all accounts an accomplished poet, singer, and songwriter, Pfeiffer was particularly known during his life for composing German: Polenlieder, that is, songs in support and celebration of Polish freedom, which was a hot-button issue at the time.[18] He maintained close friendships with Kassel's rising musical stars, including Friedrich Curschmann and Louis Spohr.[19] The latter was the German: [[Kapellmeister|Hofkapellmeister]] at the Electoral court, with whom he both worked and performed, alongside his younger brother Louis, a talented lyric baritone in his own right.[2] Their first collaboration was on an operatic retelling of Ludwig Tieck's novel German: Pietro von Abano. Originally, Pfeiffer had planned to compose the opera himself, but upon realizing the breadth and labor involved, asked his friend Spohr to take over he remaining musical composition aspect of the project, to great acclaim.[20] One of Pfeiffer's poems, entitled German: Die Weihe der Töne, meaning "The Consecration of Sound," was Spohr's avowed favorite, and after Karl's death, the composer took the text of the poem and used it to create his Symphony No. 4. The poem was later translated into English as The Power of Sound by the Gresham Professor of Music Edward Taylor.[21] Karl Pfeiffer's untimely death took a great toll on the artistic and political communities in Kassel; the pages of German: Der Verfassungfreund were edged in mourning black and the German: Bürgergarde wore black armbands. The dirge for his funeral service was composed by Spohr, who also arranged a version of Selig sind die Toten to be sung by Kassel's St. Cecilia Society at the dedication of Pfeiffer's memorial.[20] The inscription thereon was composed by his friend Karl Bernhardi, and reads as follows:
Soon after Pfeiffer's death, at the insistence of his friends who survived him, his father and sisters published a volume of his poetry entitled simply German: Gedichte, or Poems.[23] Spohr would remain close with his family, connected as they were by grief and love of the deceased and his poetic legacy. Eventually, in 1836, after the death of his first wife, Spohr would marry Pfeiffer's younger sister Marianne, who would be instrumental in sustaining Spohr's legacy as a composer for generations to follow.[24]
The untimely death of Burkhard Pfeiffer's son Karl at the age of 28 from cholera had profound effect on both him and his wife. Pfeiffer found himself an outspoken advocate for public health and the treatment of disease, as well as a critic of war in general, which he believed responsible for the spread of disease.[2] Louise Pfeiffer spent the years after her son's death in near-isolation, and her death in 1847 went almost unnoticed by the outside world, who had not seen or heard her in over a decade. After the death of his wife, Pfeiffer emerged somewhat from retirement, having seen the great work of his Hessian constitution begin to erode, and the rights of the people begin to wane, so he began writing newspaper articles challenging the men in power to return to their principles and reinforce the constitutional rights of the Hessian people.[2] Despite this, and despite his lifelong efforts, in 1850 the Hessian constitutional crisis tore into his homeland, and in 1852 Burkhard Wilhelm Pfeiffer died.[4]