Albrecht Riedesel zu Eisenbach (1882–1955)

Albrecht Georg Theodor Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach (born June 17, 1882 at Stockhausen Castle ; † October 2, 1955 in Sassen ) was a German officer and visual artist .

Life

Albrecht Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach, who came from an old noble family in Hesse , was born as the 2nd son of August Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach and his wife Anna Elisabeth Edle and Freiin von Plotho at Stockhausen Castle. Albrecht spent his childhood and youth here and in Darmstadt , where the father held the court office of a chamberlain to the Grand Dukes Ludwig IV and Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt . From 1892 he attended the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt. During his school days he discovered his artistic talent. Because caricatures of his teachers Albrechtsried donkey had shortly before his high school that in 1903 school leaving.

Stockhausen Castle, view from the castle park

He went to the military, completed his training as an ensign in Berlin and then joined the Prussian hussar regiment Landgrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Homburg (2nd Kurhessisches) No. 14 in Kassel . During his military service, he took part in hunting and riding tournaments with great success. He was adjutant of Duke Georg II. Of Sachsen-Meiningen . In 1910 Albrecht married the Darmstadt officer's daughter Susanne Margarethe Antonie von Kleinschmit in Freiburg im Breisgau . In the same year he was transferred as a teacher to the cavalry telegraph school in Berlin . Here he met the painter Leo von König and tried his hand at copperplate engravings , stone prints , etchings , pen drawings , caricatures and bookplates . In the spring of 1914 he was transferred back to his regiment in Kassel. During the First World War he led an intelligence department of his regiment in France and Belgium . At rheumatism ill Riedesel was established in early 1915 by the front set back to Kassel, where he remained until the war commander of a replacement squadron of his regiment was. With the outbreak of the November Revolution in the German Reich , Riedesel left the military as Rittmeister in 1918 and retired to the family seat in Stockhausen.

In the following years Albrecht Riedesel was able to devote himself fully to his artistic ambitions. He concentrated entirely on pen drawings and published his first postcards in 1919 with a Lauterbach publishing house . Further publications of his works followed in 1920, 1922, 1924 and 1927. The well-known painter Otto Ubbelohde , who frequented the Riedesel house, became Albrecht's role model and advisor.

On behalf of the regional historian and in-house archivist of the Riedesels, Eduard Edwin Becker , Albrecht traveled to the country from 1921 to draw motifs from the family history. He drew ancestral and genealogical tables of his family. Later he also engaged in wood carving. First he made figures from his family, later from the Hessian knighthood and other subjects. He made stencils for craft toys to, after the stick Hausener craftsmen then manufactured figures under the logo arze ( A lbrecht R iedesel z u e sold Isenbach). In 1925 Albrecht Riedesel moved into a mansion built according to his plans in Sassen near Lauterbach. There he built an angora rabbit and nutria breed . For his sons he wrote the two-volume novel Hermann Riedesel der Brackenburger , which dealt with the genesis of the Riedesel family. The first volume appeared as a private print in 1927, the second volume remained unpublished. From 1931 Albrecht designed the front pages of the Heimatblätter for the Lauterbach district and the church newspaper Heimat-Glocken . He was an avid patron of local history and art and a co-founder of several societies. He also campaigned for the restoration of Wartenberg Castle .

With increasing age, the trembling of his hands forced him to give up pen drawings. He now devoted himself increasingly to watercolor art and mainly painted real and fictional landscapes, city and town views as well as buildings and still lifes. In 1933 he was able to perfect his watercolor technique under the guidance of the Munich landscape painter EA Höber. Riedesel did not publish any of his paintings, but rather gave them away, sold them or kept them himself. Riedesel was hostile to the National Socialists . When after 1933 they wanted to force him to join a Nazi breeders' association because of his rabbit and nutria breeding, he gave up breeding and released the nutrias.

After the Second World War , Albrecht Riedesel took over the management of the forest company of the Riedesel Freiherren zu Eisenbach and the family business Industriebetriebe OHG in 1946 . In this function Albrecht made great contributions to the industrialization of Lauterbach. As a result, he hardly found time for his painting.

After a long illness, Albrecht Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach died in Sassen in 1955 and is buried in the Riedesel family's cemetery there.

Grave of Albrechts Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach near Hofgut Sassen (Lauterbach)

After the Second World War, Albrecht Riedesel zu Eisenbach was a legal knight of the Order of St. John and head of the knightly foundation in Kaufungen .

Honors

• 1952: Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany

Source and literature

• From the long gone times of Upper Hesse . Publishing house Degener & Co, 1969.

Web links

• Literature by and about Albrecht Riedesel zu Eisenbach in the catalog of the German National Library