Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach

Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach (7 March 1795 – 18 February 1877) was a conservative Prussian judge, politician, and editor. He was the son of Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach and the brother of Ludwig Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach.

Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach

Gerlach was born in Berlin, Brandenburg. From 1813–15, he fought in the War of the Sixth Coalition, and later pursued a judicial career. Gerlach became Judge of the High Court, or Oberlandesgerichtsrat, in the city of Naumburg in 1823. In 1829, he became Agricultural and Municipal Court Director in Halle.

Gerlach also took a deep interest in theological matters, opposing the rationalist trends of his time. In 1830 he authored an anonymous article in the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, then edited by the staunchly orthodox Ernst Hengstenberg. It charged philologist Wilhelm Gesenius and theologian Julius Wegscheider with infidelity and profanity, and advocated the interposition of the civil power, thus giving rise to the prolonged Hallische Streit. Ultimately neither professor lost his position, but the conflict ruined the reputation of Wegscheider and the health of Gesenius.

By 1835, Gerlach was the Vice President of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt (Oder). During the revolutions of 1848, Gerlach was involved in the founding of the Neue Preussische Zeitung, a conservative newspaper. The paper became the main artery for the Prussian Conservative Party's ideas and opposed Otto von Bismarck's plans for German unification during the 1860s and 1870s. [1]