Moritz Klotz (6 August 1813 – 11 August 1892) was a Berlin

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

who became a politician in

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

and, after

1871 Events January–March * January 3 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Bapaume – Prussians win a strategic victory. * January 18 – Proclamation of the German Empire: The member states of the North German Confederation and the sout ...

, in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. His unusually long political career provides a line of continuity between the idealistic liberalisms of 1848 and the

political liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mut ...

that manifested itself in

after

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Life

Klotz was born into a Protestant family in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

during the closing years of the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

. He attended secondary school (''Gymnasium'') in Potsdam and then went on to study

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

at the university in nearby

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

between 1831 and 1834. He was articled in 1836, and in 1840 he had was appointed a junior judge (''Kammergerichtsassessor'') in the second Berlin district court, later becoming a Special Commissioner with the Berlin General Commission. In

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 ...

Moritz Klotz was one of the members of the short-lived

Prussian National Assembly The Prussian National Assembly () came into being after the revolution of 1848 and was tasked with drawing up a constitution for the Kingdom of Prussia. It first met in the building of the ''Sing-Akademie zu Berlin'' (later the Maxim Gorki Th ...

in Berlin. Following the end of the reactionary period that ensued, in 1860 he became a member of the

Prussian House of Representatives The Prussian House of Representatives () was the lower chamber of the Landtag of Prussia (), the parliament of Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia from 1850 to 1918. Together with the upper house, the Prussian House of Lords, House of Lords (), it formed ...

till 1866, and then again between 1869 and his death in 1892. Between 1877 and 1879 he served as the first vice-president of the parliament. Initially he was a member of the faction headed up by

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, which subsequently came to be identified as the "Old Liberal" (''Altliberale'') grouping. Moritz himself later joined the Progressive Party, founded in 1861, then switching in the 1880s to the short-lived Free-minded Party (''Deutsche Freisinnige Partei''). Between 1871 and 1884, and then again between 1886 and 1890, he also served as a member of the National Reichstag.Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: ''Die Reichstagswahlen von 1867 bis 1903. Eine Statistik der Reichstagswahlen nebst den Programmen der Parteien und einem Verzeichnis der gewählten Abgeordneten.'' 2nd edition., Verlag Carl Heymann, Berlin 1904, pp. 24f, 29 und 24.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Klotz, Moritz 1813 births 1892 deaths People from Potsdam People from the Margraviate of Brandenburg German Protestants German Progress Party politicians German Free-minded Party politicians Members of the Prussian House of Representatives 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 Members of the 4th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 5th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 7th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the Prussian National Assembly Jurists from the Kingdom of Prussia