Julius Dickert (25 June 1816 – 12 August 1896) was a teacher from

West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and from 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonweal ...

who later entered into politics. After the

Unification Unification or unification theory may refer to: Computer science * Unification (computer science), the act of identifying two terms with a suitable substitution * Unification (graph theory), the computation of the most general graph that subs ...

, he served as a Progressive member of the

national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

Reichstag between 1871 and 1878.

Life

Julius Dickert was born in Neuteich,This is the birth location according to the "Album amicorum", Wilhelm Schmiedeberg's album of portraits of his friends. Other sources give Dickert's birth location as Elbing, roughly 25km (16 miles) to the east of Neuteich. a small town then in

. He attended the protestant Gymnasium (secondary school) at Elbing, a short distance to the east, before progressing to the

University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg () was the university of Königsberg in Duchy of Prussia, which was a fief of Poland. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant Reformation, Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke A ...

where, starting in 1837, for three years he studied

Protestant Theology Protestant theology refers to the doctrines held by various Protestant traditions, which share some things in common but differ in others. In general, Protestant theology, as a subset of Christian theology, holds to faith in the Christian Bible, t ...

then moving on to include

Philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

. There is a water-colour portrait of Dickert included in the contents listing Pages of Memory, a compilation of student portraits by Wilhelm Schmiedeberg who was a contemporary at Königsberg, although the portrait itself is now missing. For some time after this he taught at the city's prestigious Burgschule (Castle School). In 1859 he became a city councillor: he then served as leader of the council for the ten years between 1861 and 1871. Julius Dickert participated in the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

which opened the way for German political unification after 1870. Dickert was a founder member of the Progressive Party, established in 1861 to try and preserve the hopes for political liberalism that had been disappointed after the revolutionary stirrings of

1848 1848 is historically famous for the wave of revolutions, a series of widespread struggles for more liberal governments, which broke out from Brazil to Hungary; although most failed in their immediate aims, they significantly altered the polit ...

. The first general election of a united Germany was held in March 1871 and Dickert was elected as the member for Königsberg with nearly 55% of the constituency vote. The Progressive Party ended up with 45 of the 382 seats in the Reichstag and Dickert served on the 7th parliamentary committee during the lifetime of the parliament, which lasted till the start of 1874. He was re-elected for his

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

seat in the 1874 general election, this time with more than 56% of the constituency vote, although nationally the Progressive Party's share of the vote was barely changed. He won the seat again in the

1877 Events January * January 1 – Queen Victoria is proclaimed Empress of India by the Royal Titles Act 1876, introduced by Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom . * January 8 – Great Sioux War of 1876: Batt ...

, now aged 60, with a further increase in vote share. However, the life of the 1877 parliament was cut short at the instigation of the

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

, and after the 1878 general election

was represented in the Reichstag not by a Progressive but by Otto Stellter of the

Free Conservative Party The Free Conservative Party (, FKP) was a Liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative political party in Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia and the German Empire which ran as the German Reich Party (, DRP) in the federal elections to the Reichstag (Ger ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickert, Julius 1816 births 1896 deaths People from Nowy Staw People from West Prussia German Protestants German Progress Party politicians Members of the 1st Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 2nd Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 3rd Reichstag of the German Empire German schoolteachers Educators from the Kingdom of Prussia 19th-century German educators