Friederich von Coesfeld

Doktor Friederich Wilhelm August Liutger, Ritter von Coesfeld (1818 - 1904) was a German Chancellor, politician and traitor. He was a member of the PKW from 1875 to 1880 and founded the Liberale Partei Germania in 1880. He held several positions, including as Minister of Education (1875-1880) and as Reichskanzler (1880-1882). In 1882, he fled to Switzerland in the aftermath of the von Coesfeld Incident.

Early life
Doktor Friederich Wilhelm August Liutger, Ritter von Coesfeld, was born in 1818. His father was a minor Westphalian knight who joined the Prussian Civil Service when Westphalia was annexed to Prussia in accordance with the Treaty of Vienna. The von Coesfeld family was an old albeit unnoteworthy noble house in the Prince Bishopric of Münster. Although they had been Catholic for as long as anyone could remember, Friederich’s father Leopold converted to Lutheranism in order to advance his career two years before Friederich was born; he was even named for the reigning Prussian King. The third son and fifth of nine children, Friederich had a passion for history, eventually earning a Doctorate from Friederich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin.

Life in the civil service
However, pressure from his family resulted in Friederich joining the Prussian Civil Service. He became a career official in the Ministry of Culture. At the same time, he continued to write on historical matters, writing numerous articles on old Germanic history for the Historische Zeitschrift and made regular contributions to the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. A moderate liberal, Friederich has long been sympathetic to the cause of German unification. Friederich’s dream is to see the unification of all continental Germanic peoples, from Scandinavia to Switzerland, into a Germanic Federation based on the principle of constitutional monarchy. However, he was careful to steer clear of the 1848 Revolution and stayed loyal to the Prussian regime.

Life in politics
By 1875, Friederich was a prominent figure in German academic circles and was a senior member of the Ministry of Education. However, he has personally grown more critical of the direction of the German Empire. He finds it too authoritarian, far too limited in geographic scope, and far, far too anti-semitic. In order to push Germany in a more positive direction, he joined the PKW in 1875. Although he did not agree with everything the party stood for, he broadly agreed with their agenda and believed them to be the party most amenable to his hopes for a Pan-Germanic Federation. He also had political aspirations of his own: he felt that he would make an excellent Minister of Education. His hopes would quickly be achieved when in the wake of the coalition agreements in 1875, he was appointed as Minister of Education to serve under Karl von Birnbaum's Chancellorship.

In 1880, he felt dissillusioned with the PKW, as did many others. When the party split into several new factions, including the Freisinnige Vereinigung, Friederich von Coesfeld founded his own party; the Liberale Partei Germania. The LPG was a liberal pan-German party and included former PKW members such as von Coesfeld and Fynn Vogt. The LPG was easily elected into the Reichstag in 1880. After the 1880 elections, von Coesfeld was dragged into the coalition talks between the NLP and the DkP by Kaiser Friedrich III. As a compromise figure between Karl von Birnbaum and Heinrich Hartmann, he was elected as Chancellor. However, following heightened tensions after the New Chartist Protest of '82, Friederich von Coesfeld initiated a plan which would result in the von Coesfeld Incident.

In a meeting with the Kaiser and Hans Friedrich von Röhm, he manipulated the Kaiser into letting von Coesfeld draft up a bill that would substantially increase the Chancellor's powers to the detriment of the Reichstag. After his meeting with the Kaiser, he invited prominent politicians, including Karl von Birnbaum, Ernst Krüger, Konstantin Brenner, Fynn Vogt and Karl Jürgen von Krieger to meet with him. In this second meeting, he claimed that the Kaiser had ordered him to work on a bill that would turn the Reichstag into a mere advisory body. Karl von Birnbaum, who had known the Kaiser for a very long time, did not believe von Coesfeld's claims and left the meeting. Krüger, Brenner and von Krieger soon followed his example. Krüger then informed the Kaiser via letter and von Birnbaum, Krüger and Brenner were summoned to the palace to inform the Kaiser in more detail about what had occurred. Feeling the storm hanging above his head, von Coesfeld fled to Switzerland and soon after, his picture would be spread throughout the Kaiserreich as he was wanted for High Treason. Subsequently, Ernst Krüger was elected as the new Chancellor and the LPG was disbanded following a decision by the Constitutional Court.

Life in exile
Friederich von Coesfeld spent the rest of his life in exile in Switzerland, where he connected with the German-speaking population and set up a local branch of his pan-German organization. In 1895, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would start putting pressure on Switzerland to extradite von Coesfeld, to no effect.