Werren, Joseph Christoph Otto

Lawyer, politician

Born: 27.03.1810 in Biebrich

died: 17.09.1881 in Wiesbaden

Werren studied law in Göttingen and joined the Nassau civil service in 1831. In 1848 he became a bailiff in Königstein, a government councillor in the state government and was a ministerial councillor from 1850.

In September 1848, the government put him in charge of the theater commission in Wiesbaden. During the Restoration period, he was instrumental in the repeal of the liberal laws passed after the March Revolution. From 1852-54 he was head of the police department. He then became chief military judge and was appointed Privy Government Councillor.

After the Nassau Progressive Party achieved a clear victory in the state parliamentary elections in December 1863, winning 17 of 24 seats in the Second Chamber and even all nine electoral mandates in the First Chamber, Duke Adolph zu Nassau was determined to meet this challenge with severity. In January 1864, he appointed the Catholic-conservative Werren as government director. He consistently represented the reactionary views of the government in parliament. Disagreeable civil servants were reprimanded, meetings of the liberal party were not permitted and the "Neue Frankfurter Zeitung" was temporarily banned. In August 1865, Werren was appointed Director of the Chamber of Accounts and a member of the State Council.

Immediately after the takeover of Nassau by Prussian troops, the Prussian civil commissioner Gustav von Diest suspended him in July 1866 and dismissed him in 1867. He ended his life by suicide.