Adolf Friedrich VI. (Mecklenburg)

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Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. (1912)

Adolf Friedrich VI., Grand Duke of Mecklenburg [-Strelitz] (born June 17, 1882 in Neustrelitz ; † February 24, 1918 there ; full name: Adolf Friedrich Georg Ernst Albert Eduard ) was Grand Duke of Mecklenburg from 1914 to 1918 in the state of Mecklenburg- Strelitz .

Life path

Adolf Friedrich was born in Neustrelitz as the third child and eldest son of the future Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich V and his wife Elisabeth von Anhalt . His baptism was celebrated on July 19th, the birthday of his grandmother Augusta Karoline. For these celebrations the high nobility of Europe met in Neustrelitz. From 1891 to 1898, the young Adolf Friedrich was tutored at home by his tutor Carl Horn. After his home education, he made his Abitur in Dresden at the Vitzthumschen Gymnasium and from 1902 studied law in Munich . With the death of his grandfather Friedrich Wilhelm and his father's accession to the throne on May 30, 1904, Adolf Friedrich became Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg in the Mecklenburg-Strelitz region . From 1908 to 1911 the Hereditary Grand Duke served in Potsdam in the 1st Guard Uhlan Regiment of the Prussian Army . On September 30, 1911 he was promoted to Rittmeister here and ended active service in the same year. He was then placed in the regiment à la suite .

The grand ducal court in Neustrelitz was notorious in the first two decades of the 20th century for being "extremely formal" and "rigorous". After a visit in 1916, even Daisy von Pless , a close friend of the future Grand Duke, complained : “You can still understand the etiquette at large courts; but if a small court also strictly adheres to etiquette, I cannot tolerate it. ”Shielded by their parents and cared for only by governesses, the princely children grew up“ in total disregard for real life ”. This oppressive narrowness, ever new scandals and also the affairs of the father, who was "not a child of sadness", weighed heavily on the young heir to the throne. The death of his younger brother Karl Borwin , which doctors tried to explain to the family with heart failure and then again with leukemia (rumors, on the other hand, wanted to know of a forbidden duel with a fellow student because of insulting his older sister Marie ), should not be without effect the life planning of the Hereditary Grand Duke remain.

In order to escape the confines of his parental home, the Hereditary Grand Duke preferred to travel to Great Britain in the following years. As a representative of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, he took part in numerous celebrations of the British aristocracy. In 1912 and 1913 he also spent the summer months in the British Isles. Grandmother Grand Duchess Augusta Karoline , through her influence, aroused this lifelong interest in Great Britain. Her grandson was deeply affected by her death in December 1916.

With the death of his father on June 11, 1914, Adolf Friedrich became Grand Duke. As early as June 7, 1914, the Hereditary Grand Duke took over the affairs of government as a substitute, while his father was in Berlin at the time to receive medical treatment. Seven weeks later, the First World War broke out.

Initially with the rank of colonel, the Grand Duke served on the staff of the Mecklenburg 17th Infantry Division on the Western Front. In addition to being awarded the Iron Cross of both classes, the Grand Duke was promoted to major general in 1917. Since 1914, the Grand Duke was also the regiment chief of the 2nd (Strelitzer) Battalion of the Grand Ducal Mecklenburg Grenadier Regiment No. 89 , to which he had already been assigned as a lieutenant à la suite. During the war, the Grand Duke and his grandmother, Augusta Karoline von Cambridge, worked to clarify the fate of English officers in German captivity. This commitment was not welcomed everywhere in times of war and was sometimes deliberately misinterpreted. It so happened that a letter from the Grand Duke to Daisy von Pless was handed over to the Postal Monitoring Commission, the Grand Duke was at the time on the Western Front near Noyon . In this letter he asked for a list of English prisoners of war , to whose whereabouts he wished to contribute. Daisy von Pless was involved in the Red Cross at that time. In addition to staying in the command post of the 17th Infantry Division , the Grand Duke often visited the wounded in the hospitals , and the Neustrelitz home for the blind for those injured by the gas war also received special attention during the war. When food ran out during the war in 1917, the lord of the castle had the well-tended lawn in front of the Neustrelitz residential palace converted into arable land for growing potatoes. Such unconventional actions earned him the recognition of the population who suffered badly during those years.

Adolf Friedrich VI. was considered one of the richest bachelors of his time. His acquaintances included the opera singer Mafalda Salvatini and Daisy von Pless . The Grand Duke maintained a friendly relationship with both of them, as evidenced by the intensive correspondence with both of them. The Grand Duke had a special relationship of trust with the latter, but this never went beyond the friendly relationship, as Daisy von Pless explained in her later (sometimes disgraceful) notes. A Hungarian woman named Margit Höllrigl, living in Berlin, who spoke up with an alleged marriage promise of the Hereditary Grand Duke, later also provides for the rumors of alleged homosexuality of the Grand Duke. A wedding with Princess Benigna Reuss zu Köstritz was never initiated. The Grand Duke was a coveted object of the German tabloid press during his lifetime, and after his death the level of speculation increased again. The Australian daily press also reported on the circumstances of his death. For many of the alleged "truths" presented, however, there are no reliable documents or evidence. Lately the life and work of the Grand Duke have become the subject of a crime novel.

Circumstances of death

On February 23, 1918, the Grand Duke went for an evening walk with his dog. That was when he was last seen alive. When the Grand Duke did not return after dark, a search was started. Military units of the Neustrelitz garrison and parts of the population were involved in this. They finally found his dog, a mastiff , and his cap on the Kammer Canal. On the afternoon of February 24, the body of the Grand Duke was found with a gunshot wound in the chest in the chamber canal near Neustrelitz. The gun was never found despite intensive search. The autopsy report assumed the time of death to be the evening of February 23, 1918, and the cause of death was determined to be " drowning " on the assumption that the shot was not immediately fatal. In the autopsy report of the medical officer Dr. Wilda is said to have been "hit, fell over into the water and drowned." Today, however, reference works mostly give the date the body was found (February 24) as the date of death. The Grand Duke's depressive mood was reported from those around him, including later in the memoirs of Daisy von Pless. The exact circumstances of his death or suicide are still unclear and remain the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories .

According to his will from the spring of 1917, which is kept in the Schwerin State Main Archives, Adolf Friedrich VI., The last Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was buried not far from the family crypt on the Mirow Castle Island . The will already contained a draft of the tomb.

Funeral service

The funeral service took place in the Neustrelitz castle church. In addition to the ducal family, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia , Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , Prince Julius Ernst zu Lippe and Minister of State Bossart took part. The funeral speech was held by the Neustrelitz regional superintendent Gerhard Tolzien .

At the end of the funeral, the Grand Duke's coffin, led by the ducal court marshal of Yorry, was brought to the hearse by his servants. The subsequent mourning procession led through the streets of Neustrelitz. Afterwards, the funeral procession went on the road towards Mirower Island. The burial took place here as stipulated in the Grand Duke's will.

Tomb

Tomb of Adolf Friedrich VI. on the Mirow Castle Island

The tomb shows a broken column around which a larger than life snake is wound. The broken pillar symbolizes life that ended too early. This form of symbolism is mostly found in the tombs of those who died early. On the profiled pedestal there are rose festoons that rest on rams' heads.

The actual burial place was closed with a profiled grave slab. A cross with Christ's monogram is incorporated into the grave slab . At the foot of the cross there is also the inscription “God is love” ( 1 Jn 4,16  LUT ).

The symbolic expressiveness of the tomb leaves room for interpretation. In relation to this tomb, the Mirow Castle Island is also known as the "Love Island".

aftermath

Within the regional church there was a need to clarify how to deal with the supposed suicide of the Grand Duke. Therefore, one felt compelled to report in the quarterly church report of April 4, 1918 under the title “Retroactive effects of the death of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. on the ecclesiastical order of our homeland ”to discuss the topic.

Succession

The death of the last Strelitz regent plunged the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz into an existential succession crisis. The only possible successor according to the house law of the Mecklenburg dynasty, Duke Carl Michael , a grandson of Grand Duke Georg , had served in the Russian army until 1917 and was on the run during the Russian civil war. He had already accepted Russian citizenship in 1914 with Adolf Friedrich's approval and declared that in the event of a succession to the throne, he would renounce his right to the throne in Mecklenburg-Strelitz. There was still a male relative, Carl Michael's nephew, Georg, Graf von Carlow . His father, Carl Michael's brother Georg Alexander , had already renounced the succession to the throne for himself and his descendants when he morganatic marriage in 1890 to Grand Duke Friedrich Wilhelm and only reserved the right of an agnatic regency. There was a brief dispute over the question of succession, as Carl Michael was officially recognized as the presumptive heir to the throne. Finally, Friedrich Franz IV. Of Mecklenburg- Schwerin took over the government on February 27, 1918 and acted as administrator of Mecklenburg-Strelitz until the end of the monarchy . The outcome of the November Revolution of 1918, which also eliminated the monarchy in Mecklenburg, rendered no solution to the Strelitz question of succession to the throne . Carl Michael's formal renunciation of his right to heir to the throne in January 1919 was only a family affair without any political significance. Due to constitutional and property law consequences, there was a legal dispute between the two Mecklenburg Free States before the State Court for the German Empire .

Adolf Friedrich left his fortune (approx. 30 million marks) to the second-born son of Friedrich Franz IV., His godchild Christian Ludwig , on the condition that a new dynastic agreement would come about that he would follow and his as Grand Duke in Mecklenburg-Strelitz Would reside in Neustrelitz. Otherwise the inheritance would be reduced to 3 million marks. This wish contradicted the then valid house laws, which provided for the relapse of the part of the state to the line Mecklenburg-Schwerin and thus the reunification of the two Mecklenburg parts of the country in the event of the Strelitz line becoming extinct. Whether and what consensus the princely family would have found in this situation under other circumstances and whether these regulations would have found the approval of the old parliamentary bodies of the Mecklenburg corporate state is speculatively and historically meaningless due to the developments that have occurred. In 1934, Duke Carl Michael, the ruling line of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, capable of succeeding the throne, ended. In the same year, the free states of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Mecklenburg-Schwerin are reunified . Descendants of the family today bear the name Herzog zu Mecklenburg .

Awards

Source: Mecklenburg-Strelitz's Court and State Handbook 1915

Grand ducal car park

On behalf of the Hereditary Grand Duke, the “Grand Ducal Parkhaus” (also called “Parkvilla” or “Grand Ducal Palais”) was built in Parkstrasse on the wooden courtyard of the Neustrelitz Palace Park from 1913 to 1916. The neoclassical car park was built according to a design by the Ministerial Building Councilor Paul Schondorf . Builder Adolf Friedrich VI. however, had a significant influence on the design of the building, which was designed as a country house .

The car park has the basic architectural shape of a rectangle. While the front long side is divided into two short side risals , the rear long side is divided by a central risalit and the two protruding polygonal side porches. A hipped mansard roof closes the building off at the top.

The stately home is divided into the basement, the two main floors and the top floor. The staff lived in the basement. The kitchen and other utility rooms were also located there. The ground floor and the upper floor housed the living and working rooms of the Grand Duke. The rooms for the guests and the apartment of the lady-in-waiting, however, were in the attic.

Immediately behind the multi-storey car park, the park extending to the east. The main part of the park was designed as an English garden. Until the 1930s, the splendid rose plantations and the well-tended English lawn shaped the ornate appearance of the park. Even today there are noble trees and various small architectures in the former park.

Also worth mentioning is the stable and residential building that is only a few meters south of the property.

After the accession to the throne, Adolf Friedrich VI. his mother, Grand Duchess Widow Elisabeth , opened the car park in which she died on July 20, 1933. It was then used as a teaching house by the SA and the Reich Ministry of Education . The parking garage is now a listed building . At the end of 2016, the house was to be transferred back to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania by a private owner. A pending court case regarding the amount of the buyback price ended in 2019.

See also

literature

  • Human things from the life of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich . ( Necrology ). In: Mecklenburger Zeitung of March 3, 1918, Sunday supplement.
  • Daisy v. Pless : dance on the volcano. Memories of Germany's and England's turning point. 2 volumes. Carl Reissner Verlag, Dresden 1930.
  • Daisy v. Pless: Which I would have preferred to keep quiet. From European history before the war. 2 volumes. Carl Reissner Verlag, Dresden 1932.
  • Gerhard Voss : The suicide of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. on February 23, 1918 and its legal consequences. In: Michael Bunners, Erhard Piersig (Hrsg.): Yearbook for Mecklenburg Church History - Mecklenburgia Sacra. Volume 3. Redaria, Wismar 2000, pp. 157-167.
  • Helmut Borth: Deadly Secrets. The Princely House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. End without glamor. Verlag Steffen, Friedland 2007. ISBN 978-3-937669-97-7 .
  • Andreas Frost: New details on the death of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher. Ed .: Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. 124th volume, 2009, pp. 239–282.
  • Sandra Lembke: Highnesses, diplomats and saviors of honor. Guests at the Mecklenburg-Strelitzer Hof. Verlag Steffen, Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-942477-60-4 .
  • Sandra Lembke: Majesties, Generals and Heartbreakers. Guests at the Mecklenburg-Strelitzer Hof. Verlag Steffen, Berlin 2014. ISBN 978-3-942477-97-0 .

Web links

Commons : Adolf Friedrich VI. (Mecklenburg)  - Collection of pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Andreas Frost: New details on the death of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher. Ed .: Andreas Röpcke on behalf of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology . Volume 124 (2009), pp. 239-282.
  2. ^ A b c d Sandra Lembke: Highnesses, diplomats and saviors of honor: guests at the Mecklenburg-Strelitzer Hof . Verlag Steffen, Berlin 2013, pp. 79–90.
  3. ↑ a b c W. John Koch: Daisy von Pless: Eine Entdeckung , (Ed.) Books by W. John Koch Publishing, 2006, p. 244.
  4. ↑ a b c Elisabeth Hochbaum: Memories of the Grand Duke , CLN historical-literary magazine, volume 66, no. 128, Göttingen 2002, pp. 34–38.
  5. ^ W. John Koch: Daisy von Pless. A discovery . Self-published, Edmonton 2006, ISBN 978-0-973157-93-2 , pp. 205, 244, 279, 283 f.
  6. ^ German Grand Duke's Suicide. In: The Argus (Melbourne). February 27, 1918, p. 7, ( digitized version ).
  7. ↑ Frank Pergande: Right in the heart . Historical detective novel. Publishing house Thomas Helms, Schwerin 2008. ISBN 978-3-940207-18-0 .
  8. ^ A b Hans-Werner Hardow: Mirow in old views . European Library Publishing House, Baarn 1992, ISBN 978-90-288-5426-0 , p. 15.
  9. ↑ Mecklenburg-Strelitzsche Landeszeitung: Funeral ceremony, memorial speech, burial in Mirow, thanks from Grand Duchess Elisabeth and Duchess Marie February 24–12. March 1918.
  10. ^ Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. from Mecklenburg-Strelitz . In: Rostocker Anzeiger from February 26, 1918, inventory: Rostock UB, Rostocker Anzeiger, MK-191, Film F-29.
  11. ^ Mourning speeches after the departure of His Royal Highness the Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. from Mecklenburg-Strelitz . Verlag Otto Wagner, Neustrelitz 1918.
  12. ↑ In memory of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. from Mecklenburg-Strelitz . In: The Mecklenburg homeland . 11th year (1918), pp. 33-38.
  13. ^ Wiegand: Church quarterly report: Mecklb. News from April 4, 1918, 1st Supplement. - repercussions of the death of the major Adolf Friedrich VI. on the ecclesiastical order of our homeland .
  14. ↑ a b c Antje Strahl: Rostock in the First World War: Education, culture and everyday life in a seaside town between 1914 and 1918 , Volume 6, Small City History, LIT Verlag Münster, 2007, p. 154.
  15. ↑ Court decides: Parkvilla belongs to the land . In: Nordkurier . Retrieved January 22, 2017.
  16. ↑ From the story: A new stele commemorates Paul Schondorf. In: Carolinum . No. 139, Volume 71, Winter 2007, p. 39 ( PDF; 4.2 MB ( memento from January 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive )).
  17. ↑ Expert opinion, dispute about the park villa: The end is not yet in sight . In: Nordkurier . October 14, 2016.
  18. ^ Judgment on the repurchase of the Neustrelitz Parkvilla is final , Nordkurier dated April 3, 2019, accessed on April 7, 2019
predecessor Office successor
Adolf Friedrich V. Grand Duke
of Mecklenburg [-Strelitz]
1914–1918 		Friedrich Franz IV. Of Mecklenburg [-Schwerin]
(as imperial administrator )
personal data
SURNAME Adolf Friedrich VI.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adolph Friedrich VI.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, ruling prince in Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1914-1918)
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Neustrelitz
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1918
Place of death Neustrelitz