GAGERN, HEINRICH WILHELM AUGUST, FitEmEnit YON, was b. at Baireuth, Aug. 20, 1799, and educated at the military school of Munich. Ou Napoleon's return from Elba, G. entered the army of Nassau, and served as lieut. at Waterloo. After the peace, he devoted himself to the study of law at the universities of Heidelberg, Gottingen, Jena, and Geneva. On returning home in 1821, he entered political life under the government of grand-ducal Hesse, and after passing through several public offices, was elected a member of the second chamber in 1832, in which position he vigorously opposed the politics of the governnients and of the federal diet. In 1835, the government succeeded in obtaining a majority, but G. continued to be re-elected; until, at the close of the following year, seeing the fruitlessness of his opposition to the governmental politics, he declined re-election, and took a lease of his father's estate at Monsheim, with a view to the prac tical study of agriculture. In 1846, G. again appeared before the public in a work against the government of electoral Hesse, which had been legislating iu defiance of the constitution of the electorate. In the following year, he was elected into the camber again as representative of Worms, and his return to public life gave such a fresh impulse to liberal politics, that iu 1848 the elections returned more opponents of the government than they had done since 1832. The life of G. became now inseparably connected with
the memorable German movement of 1848. He took the lead on Feb. 27, by introducing a motion into the chamber to promote the representation of time German people in the Frankfort diet. When the preparatory convention of delegates (dasVorparlament) from the German states assembled at Frankfort on Mar. 31, G. took the most prominent part in its deliberations, and on the meeting of the parliament (May 28) (see GERMANY), he was appointed president, and continued to be re-elected every month till he was called to the perpetual presidency. Displaying more of the qualifications of a practical states man than were possessed by most of the leading men who joined in this movement, G. struggled on amid All the divisions into which Iris party separated, and all the difficul ties presented by the governments. But unable, on the one hand, to sympathize with the violence of the democratic party, and, on the other, to come to an understanding with the governments, he abandoned the movement altogether on May '20, 1849. In 1850, he served as maj. in the Slesvig-Holstein war, and when the campaign was over, retired to the Monsheim estate, which had now come into his possession by his father's death. In 1852, he removed to Heidelberg. In 1856, he published the life of his brother, gen. Friedrich von Gagern.