Falk

Falk, Dr. Paul Ludwig Adalbert, the son of a Lutheran pastor, at Metschkau, Silesia, was born in 1827. He graduated at the university of Breslau, embraced the profession of the law, and was gradually promoted from one judicial post to another until in 1868 he was appointed councillor to the Ministry of Justice in Berlin. Having previously sat in the Prussian House of Deputies and the North German Reichstag, he became a member of the first Imperial Parliament, and was chosen by Bismarck in 1872 as Minister of Public Worship. His policy aimed at diminishing the power of the Romish Church in North Germany, and with that end in view he framed a series of repressive enactments known as the Falk Laws. These measures brought upon him great unpopularity, and he resigned in 1879.