29 Facts About Karl Ledderhose

Karl Heinrich Ludwig Ledderhose was a German lawyer, politician and university rector.

Karl Ledderhose was the son of Gustav Ledderhose and Sophie Susanna.

Gustav Karl Ledderhose was a legislator in the city of Hanau, then part of the Electorate of Hesse.

Karl Ledderhose received his education at the Collegium Carolinum in Kassel, but there is no evidence that he attended any institute of higher education.

Karl Ledderhose worked initially as a secretary for the Lutheran consistorial government in Hanau, but eventually rose to the rank of senior civil servant.

Karl Ledderhose graduated from Heidelberg on 9 May 1840, under tutelage of Karl Ullmann.

Karl Ledderhose first appears in professional life in 1844, as a legal intern at the Hanau District Court.

In 1848, Karl Ledderhose was transferred to the high court in Kassel, where he worked as an assessor until 1851.

The years from 1856 to 1861 found Karl Ledderhose working as a magistrate in the judicial office at Bockenheim, and by 1862 his appointment to Chief Finance Councillor and Member of the Upper Mines and Salt Works Directorate saw him and his family back in Kassel.

From 1863 to 1866, Karl Ledderhose held the position of Lecturing Council in the Ministry of Finance.

From that point until 1867, Karl Ledderhose was the Head of the Ministry of Finance, as well as a member of the State Treasury Directorate.

On 10 April 1853, Karl Ledderhose married Wilhelmine Justine Charlotte, known as Minna.

Karl Ledderhose was the daughter of Kassel merchant and banker Johann Georg Heinrich Pfeiffer and his wife Susanna.

Minna Karl Ledderhose's uncles included Burkhard Wilhelm Pfeiffer, Carl Jonas Pfeiffer and Franz Georg Pfeiffer, while her cousins were Louis Pfeiffer and Friedrich Pfeiffer.

Karl Ledderhose's grandfather was the eminent theologian and dean of the University of Marburg's philosophy faculty Johann Jakob Pfeiffer.

On 25 October 1893, Karl Ledderhose was married to Emilie Henriette Charlotte, the widow of the composer Friedrich Bachfeld and mother of Minna Bachfeld, wife of Hermann Karl Ledderhose.

The second Mrs Karl Ledderhose was the daughter of the Hessian politician Ludwig Thudichum.

Karl Ledderhose was a protege and close collaborator of Eduard von Moller, particularly during the transition to Prussian rule, at which time von Moller was named Oberprasident of the newly formed Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau.

Consequently, Karl Ledderhose was elevated to the position of District President, which position he held until 1879, when Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel was appointed the first Imperial Lieutenant of Alsace-Lorraine.

In 1875, Karl Ledderhose was dispatched to Paris to assist a group of Bishops to re-negotiate the borders of the various bishoprics and dioceses in the state of Alsace-Lorraine.

Shortly after being reassigned to the role of, in 1880, Karl Ledderhose was involved in the overhaul of Strasbourg's urban center.

In one, the government proposed to do away with certain subsidies from forestry income that went to support vocational carpentry schools in the region, which Karl Ledderhose believed to be a grave mistake, and he so impressed his colleagues with statistics and data about the breadth of benefit these schools provided for the poor of their region that the motion was tabled.

Karl Ledderhose was replacing Franz von Roggenbach in this role, and the latter's resentment would make Ledderhose's first several years in the post somewhat difficult.

Karl Ledderhose realized that support from the Alsatian government would be insufficient to build and staff the new university to the standard expected by the Kaiser, so he argued and won an additional 5.9 million marks from the Prussian government.

In dealing with the pushback from Roggenbach loyalists at the early days, Karl Ledderhose came into direct conflict with Friedrich Althoff, who, while a competent educator, possessed fewer skills than were desired as an administrator, which often left him at odds with both his faculty and his colleagues.

Karl Ledderhose, it was noted, had a much softer touch when it came to dealing with the faculty, who quickly grew to appreciate his style, and with whom he would enjoy a very close and productive relationship for the years of his curatorship.

In particular, one change that Karl Ledderhose instituted which forever ingratiated him with his faculty, was that he would not appoint anyone to the university faculty without first having the applicant vetted and approved by that body, to avoid any conflict of interest or personality on campus.

The cover of the 1887 parliamentary election was used to disguise the dismissals, and Karl Ledderhose was replaced by the longtime mayor of Strasbourg, Otto Back, while von Mayr was replaced by the Regierungsprasident of Konigsberg, Conrad von Studt.

Karl Ledderhose died in Strasbourg on 2 January 1899, having outlived his wife and his youngest son.