König von Preußen Friedrich Wilhelm IV

Friedrich Wilhelm IV, König von Preußen (Berlin, 1795-1861, Sanssouci), the son of Friedrich Wilhelm III, whom he succeeded in 1840. A man of humane outlook, he was not a clear political thinker and, though disposed to rule liberally, was not willing to accept a diminution of his powers. His thinking was in part shaped by the Romantic movement, which was dominant in his formative years (see Romantik). He was a man of intelligence, piety, and taste, but, like his father, was hesitant and given to temporizing. His reign began auspiciously for the Liberals, with the termination of the persecution of so-called ‘demagogues’ (see Demagogenverfolgung). Moreover he appointed the brothers J. and W. Grimm, Savigny, Schelling, and L. Tieck to professorships at Berlin University, and in 1842 put an end to the ecclesiastical quarrel involving K. A. Droste zu Vischering. In the matter of a constitution he hedged, and hoped to avoid radical changes. In the 1848 Revolution (see Revolutionen 1848-9) he was compelled to make an act of public mourning in the presence of the bodies of the revolutionaries who had been shot (19 March 1848). This act was bitterly resented by conservative forces in Prussia as a humiliation of the monarchy. Two days later Friedrich Wilhelm rode through the streets in a deliberate but unsuccessful attempt to appear as a popular leader and take over the Revolution. He sought German unity, but had no wish to exclude Austria from a new German state. He rejected the imperial crown (Kaiserkrone) offered to him by the Frankfurt National Assembly (see Frankfurter Nationalversammlung) on 3 April 1849, at first provisionally, and definitively on 28 April. Repelled by armed conflicts throughout, he gave way in the confrontation between Prussian and federal troops in Hesse. From 1857 onwards he was ailing, and his younger brother (see Wilhelm I) acted as regent.