Education and Civilian Career
Meno Burg was born into a Jewish family of poor circumstances in Berlin, Margraviate of Brandenburg. After visiting Jewish schools, Burg entered in December 1802 the Berlin Municipal School (German: Berliner Stadtschule), a secondary school later known as Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. He left the school in 1804 to become an apprentice to his cousin Salomo Sachs, a royal building inspector. He visited the Berlin Building Academy (German: Berliner Bauakademie), where he finished in 1807 the exam as field-surveyor (German: Kondukteur und Feldmesser). Like his cousin who was the first Jew who had entered the Prussian civil service under Frederick William II, Burg became a civil servant under Frederick William III. In doing so, Burg had entered into a field which was outside of the professions Jews were allowed to enter in Prussia according to the prevailing regulations of the ‘Revised General Concession and Regulation’ (German: Revidierte General Privilegium und Reglement) dated 17 April 1750. It appears that due to the political circumstances, the regulations governing the Jews in Prussia were not strictly followed. According to the legal situation at the time, Burg should have been denied to enter his chosen profession. Burg was already a government employee, when the new Prussian civil rights legislation for Jews (German: Edikt vom 11. März 1812 betreffend der bürgerlichen Verhältnisse der Juden in dem Preußischen Staate) was enacted on 11 March 1812. This law naturalised Jewish inhabitants of Prussia as Prussian citizens, a franchise established in 1810 when doing away with the prior estates (nobility, serfs, burghers, Huguenots, etc.), but the admission to government positions was not called for and was reserved for future legislation.
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