Hermann von Mallinckrodt

Hermann von Mallinckrodt (5 February 1821, Minden – 26 May 1874) was a German parliamentarian from the Province of Westphalia.

His father, Detmar von Mallinckrodt, was vice-governor at Minden (1818–23) and also at Aachen (1823–29); and was an Evangelical, his highly accomplished and pious mother (née Berhardine von Hartmann) was a Catholic, and the children followed her creed. Hermann von Mallinckrodt attended the gymnasium at Aachen and studied law at Berlin and Bonn. He became auscultator in the district court of Paderborn in 1841, referendar at Münster and Erfurt in 1844, and government assessor in 1849. As such he worked at Minden, Erfurt, Stralsund and Frankfurt (Oder). At Erfurt he was also for a time commissary to the first burgomaster, and in recognition of his services he received the freedom of the city. In 1859 he was appointed assistant in the Ministry of the Interior, and in 1860 was appointed government councilor at Düsseldorf. In 1867 he was sent to Merseburg against his will, and was pensioned off at his own request in 1872.

As early as 1852 the Westphalian constituency of Beckum-Ahaus had elected him to the Prussian House of Representatives, and he took part in the founding of the "Catholic Fraction" for the defense of the rights and liberties of the church, which from 1859 was known as the Centre Party. When the House of Representatives was dissolved in 1863, owing to the debate on the military law, Mallinckrodt lost his mandate. In 1867, however, he was elected to the Constituent Diet of the North German Confederation, and in 1868 returned to the Prussian Lower House.

In the North German Diet he was the leading member of the federal constitutional union. In 1837 he made a speech condemning the war against Austria (1866) and the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover and the Electorate of Hesse, and attacked the idea of substituting a single (federal) government for the confederation of states. From 1870 until his death he stood at the head of the Centre Party, in both the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag, that party gaining strength during the Kulturkampf. He shared leadership with the brothers August Reichensperger and Peter Reichensperger, and, after 1872, also with Ludwig Windthorst.

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