One of the frist coins of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Minted only for two years!
Prussia
2 thaler 1841 A
Friedrich Wilhelkm IV
Minted from 1841-1842
Historical
Friedrich Wilhelm IV (1795-1861) was King of Prussia from June 7, 1840 until his death. He was descended from the Hohenzollern dynasty. After the death of his grandfather Friedrich Wilhelm II in 1797, his father Friedrich Wilhelm III ascended the Prussian throne, his mother Luise became queen, and the two-year-old was crown prince. During his education, his understanding of politics was particularly influenced by his educators. Global events also shaped his later understanding of rule; his earliest childhood fell during the time of the French Revolution, which resulted in the execution of Louis XVI. The questioning of dynastic tradition by the revolutionaries provoked Friedrich Wilhelms striving for historical continuity and tradition. The death of his mother in 1810, which he regarded as God's punishment, was also a major turning point. Afterwards, he saw it as his duty to pay off the guilt of his mother's death by living a life pleasing to God.
Another profound experience in Friedrich Wilhelm's youth was his participation in the wars of liberation in 1813/14, which he saw as a crusade against the ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution that had been imposed by force. The sight of the many fallen Prussian soldiers after the battle of Großgörschen led the later monarch to be anxious to avoid wars as a political means. Since his marriage to Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, contracted in 1823, remained childless after a miscarriage, Friedrich Wilhelm III designated his younger son to succeed his older brother during his lifetime.
When his father died in 1840, Friedrich Wilhelm IV ascended the Prussian throne. In his first years in power, the new king pursued a policy of reconciliation and made many concessions to national and liberal forces. For example, he relaxed censorship, pardoned politically persecuted persons and also tried to win over the Catholic population through religious measures, such as the continued construction of Cologne Cathedral. However, these actions only served to restore confidence in a medieval-feudal relationship of loyalty between the Prussian people and the monarch and to deprive the demand for a Prussian constitution of ground. This did not succeed, however, and many concessions were withdrawn even before the revolution of 1848 began.
One development that Friedrich Wilhelm IV welcomed was the growth of the Ruhr, Silesia and Berlin into centers of industrialization in Prussia. This led to an expansion of infrastructure, beginning with road and canal construction. Since the king wanted to transform Prussia from an agricultural to an industrial state, his construction projects were also intended to promote this development. With the industrial revolution, however, social problems arose that the monarch ignored. For example, there were no trade unions at that time and the workers were exposed to the arbitrariness of the factory owners. The king's reaction to the poor working and living conditions was simply to issue a ban on strikes.
In 1848 and 1849, the king used a strategy of initial restraint to regain his absolutist position. Thus, he had the barricade fights in Berlin bloodily put down. Afterwards, Friedrich Wilhelm initiated an apparent change of course by placing himself at the head of the revolution and announcing his support for the formation of an all-German parliament. This did not last, however, and several constitutional amendments transformed it into a so-called constitutional monarchy, which it remained until 1918. Further liberal uprisings as in the Kingdom of Saxony, in the Grand Duchy of Baden and in the Palatinate let Friedrich Wilhelm put down contributed decisively to the end of the revolution. He rejected the imperial crown, however, because a crown offered by representatives of the people did not fit into his absolutist worldview.
Between 1849 and 1858, Friedrich Wilhelm IV expanded the state territory to include the Hohenzollern lands and part of the Jade Bay. The aim of this last venture was to establish the Prussian war port of Wilhelmshaven. In the last years of his reign, the king had to struggle with a serious illness. In 1857, for example, he suffered several strokes that paralyzed his speech center. After his replacement by the Crown Prince had been extended three times, Friedrich Wilhelm IV finally signed the document transferring the regency to his younger brother in 1858. A year later, he died of a stroke.
