Leopold Kaufmann

With his brother Alexander, he attended the grammar school of his native city, and in the autumn of 1840, through Ernst Moritz Arndt, who had shortly before been reinstated in his professorship, Kaufmann matriculated as student of law at the University of Bonn.

He worked for the artistic adornment of the cemetery of Bonn, of the tombs of Schiller's widow and his son Ernst, those of the composer Robert Schumann, and the poet August Wilhelm Schlegel.

On the question of reforming the army, he voted with the so-called constitutional deputies on 11 October 1862, for the budget as arranged by the Lower House.

In 1874, he was unanimously re-elected burgomaster for the third time by the town council of Bonn, for a term of twelve years, but he became a victim of the Kulturkampf.

At the end of 1876, Kaufmann was elected to the Lower House from the electoral district of München-Gladbach, joined the Centre party, and soon became a member of its governing committee.