Christoph Wilhelm von Koch

Christoph Wilhelm von Koch (from 1777 Edler von Koch; 9 May 1737, Strasbourg - 24 October 1813, Strasbourg) was a Protestant diplomat, politician, librarian and writer from Alsace, who also taught constitutional law and history. His pupils included Klemens von Metternich and Louis-Guillaume Otto.

Life

In academia

Schools

Diplomacy and politics

Death

Funerary monument in the église Saint-Thomas de Strasbourg (by Landolin Ohmacht)

After giving up political office aged 70, Koch spent his last years exclusively studying science. In summer 1813 he fell ill and died on 24 October that year, five days after the battle of the Nations, aged 76. His neo-classical memorial is in St Thomas's Church, Strasbourg - it was designed by Landolin Ohmacht and constructed in 1816, three years after Koch's death. The city's archivist and historian, Louis Schneegans (1812–1858), described it:

“

At the base, on a kind of altar, is a bust of the scholarly professor, more than life size. At the base of the pedestal, on a rock, sits a personification of the city of Strasbourg as a young and vigorous woman, [ancient] Greek in proportion and costume, who is presenting a civic crown of oak leaves to the citizen, the distinguished and honest scholar and the civil servant, whose loss was mourned by all[1].

”

Sources

• Friedrich Buech: Christoph Wilhelm Koch (1737–1813). Der letzte Rechtslehrer der alten Straßburger Hochschule. Ein Bild aus dem elsässischen Gelehrtenleben. In: Schriften des Wissenschaftlichen Instituts der Elsaß-Lothringer im Reich an der Universität Frankfurt. Neue Folge, Band 17, Frankfurt 1936.
• Koch, Christoph Wilhelm Edler von
• Bernhard Koerner (Ed.): Genealogisches Handbuch Bürgerlicher Familien. Band 9, Berlin 1902.
• Eberhard Weis: Montgelas. 1759-1799. Zwischen Revolution und Reform. München 1971.
• Stadtarchiv Teublitz, Briefe Conrad Reinhard von Kochs.
• Koch's grave monument

1. ^ Louis Schneegans, « Du monument de Koch », L' église de Saint-Thomas à Strasbourg, et ses monuments : ornée de cinq gravures, 1842 [1]