Ludvig Nicolaus von Scheele (14 October 1796 – 1 January 1874) was a Danish statesman, serving as Danish Foreign Minister between 1855 and 1857. A political conservative, he also held several senior government positions in Schleswig-Holstein.
Life
Provenance and early years
Scheele was born in Itzehoe, at that time in Holstein. His father was a customs officer who rose to become a Lieutenant Colonel, Benedict "Bendix" Ferdinand von Scheel (1749–1827). An uncle was Lieutenant General Heinrich Otto von Scheel (1745–1808). After several years at school in Hamburg he enrolled as a student at Kiel in 1816, emerging in 1821 with a Glückstadt law degree. In 1822 he took an internship in government service, by 1824 employed as a trainee. In 1827 he was sent as a regional administrator to Hütten, promoted in 1831. Meanwhile, in 1829 he became a chamberlain and in 1845 a Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog, having won the favour of King Christian VIII as an evidently loyal government official opposed to separatist tendencies in Schleswig-Holstein.
Price Frederick, the king's cousin, had been removed from his governorship of Schleswig-Holstein as an consequence of his active separatist involvement, and von Scheele was installed as regional head of government. In 1847 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog. However, his approach made him unpopular, notably with ethnic Germans who made up the majority population in much of the region, and in March 1848 he had to flee in the face of the uprising that became the First Schleswig War. He was able to make his way through to Copenhagen where the new king, Frederick VII, who was already a personal friend, made him a privy counsellor. During 1850/51 he published a book under the title "Fragmente in zwanglosen Heften", advocating a modern constitution for Denmark and backing "civil liberties" ("kommunalfrihed"). In July 1850 was invited by Prime Minister Fritz Tillisch to take on administration of a region of Schleswig-Holstein embracing Gottorp, Husum and Hütten, which at that time were occupied by Danish troops, but after careful consideration von Scheele rejected the offer. Despite his conservative anti-separatist record he was highly critical of the language reform proposals of Fritz Tillisch, calling for equal treatment of German and Danish in linguistically mixed districts. In 1852 Scheele was appointed regional governor ("Landdrost") for Pinneberg, and the next year royal commissioner to the Holstein parliament, strongly opposing Schleswig-Holstein separatism.