Anna Sydow

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Anna Sydow, the "beautiful caster"

Anna Sydow (also Anna Sidow , married Anna Dieterich ; * around 1525; † 1575 in the Spandau Citadel ) was the lover of the Brandenburg Elector Joachim II. She was popularly known as the "beautiful foundress" because she was the wife of the witness master and Gun founder Michael Dieterich was. She is one of the archetypes of the white woman , the "house ghost " of the Hohenzollern .

Life

Anna Sydow was the daughter of Andreas Sydow and Gertraud Schneidewind. A younger sister Elisabeth was married to the preacher Joachim Pasche .

Elector Joachim is said to have taken Anna Sydow as his lover after his wife suffered an accident in 1549 in which she was injured in the abdomen and from then on could only walk on crutches, which damaged both the elector's marriage and hunting pleasure. Anna Sydow lived for many years in the Grunewald hunting lodge , which Joachim had built, and gave birth to two children. The elector seems to have shown himself in public with the “foundress” and her children, which led to audible grumbling (for him too) from the subjects. However, he is said to have left nothing to be seen and merely said to the “foundress”: “Can't you go to Seyte?” One daughter was even ennobled by Joachim and was named Magdalene von Brandenburg, Countess von Arneburg (1558–1610). A son Andreas, born in 1562, died in 1569 at the age of seven. The husband, who died in 1561 and was last head of the electoral foundry in Grimnitz in the Schorfheide , was apparently able to come to terms with the relationship. Three children came from his marriage to Dieterich, including a son, Nicolaus, who was enfeoffed with a village by Elector Joachim.

Joachim's son and successor Johann Georg had expressly promised his father in 1561 to spare and protect the mistress after his death. In 1562 Joachim ordered him to do it again and in 1570 Joachim arranged the care of his daughter Magdalene in an open letter. Magdalene was married by Johann Georg to the court pension clerk Andreas Cohlen, whereby the elector is said to have asked the tax officer the question "Do you want to be my brother-in-law?" Contrary to all promises and her father's orders, Anna Sydow was imprisoned in the Spandau Citadel immediately after Joachim's death in 1571 and held there in the Juliusturm until her death in 1575 , whereby the blackmail she was accused of was probably a pretext and she, as well as the one at the same time imprisoned court Jew Lippold Ben Chluchim , a victim of a judicial crime. On January 1, 1598, eight days before Johann Georg's death, she is said to have appeared to him as a “white woman”.

During the renovation of the Berlin City Palace in 1709, a female skeleton is said to have been found that was attributed to the "white woman" and was honestly buried in the hope of ending the ghost. According to another version of the legend, Anna Sydow is said to have been walled up alive in the Grunewald hunting lodge.

literature

  • Johann Georg Theodor Grasse : The legend of the white woman. In: Book of legends of the Prussian state. Volume 1. Glogau 1868/71, p. 18, zeno.org
  • Paul Joachim Heining: Princely concubinate around 1500 between custom and deviance. In: Andreas Tacke (Hrsg.): "... we want to give space to love" Cohabiting ecclesiastical and secular princes around 1500. Lectures of the III. Moritzburg Conference (Halle / Saale) from March 31 to April 2, 2006. Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, p. 22 f.
  • Gisela Griepentrog (ed.): Berlin sagas. vbb, Berlin 2010, p. 46 u. 123
  • Heinrich Lohre: Märkische sagas. Gohlis, Leipzig 1921, p. 15f
  • Friedrich Nicolai : News from the builders, sculptors, copper engravers, painters, plasterers, and other artists who have been around Berlin from the thirteenth century until now, and whose works of art are still partly there. Appendix to: Description of the royal residence cities Berlin and Potsdam . Berlin / Stettin 1786, p. 13 f.
  • Johann Carl Conrad Oelrichs : Contributions to the Brandenburg history. Berlin, Stettin and Leipzig 1761, pp. 209–220, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10012610-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Oelrichs: Brandenburg history. 1761, p. 211
  2. ^ Nicolai: Message , p. 13f. After Nicolai, the husband's first name was Matthias. Nicolai wrongly names him as the founder of the tomb of Johann Cicero in the Berlin Cathedral . Nicolai is apparently confusing Johann Cicero and Joachim I.
  3. ^ Heining: Prince concubinate around 1500 . 2006, p. 22 f.
  4. ^ Oelrichs: Brandenburg history. 1761, p. 209
  5. The accident happened in the hunting lodge in Grimnitz.
  6. ^ Oelrichs: Brandenburg history. 1761, p. 211ff
  7. Herbert Schwenk: The madness had a method. The cruel criminal court against mint master Lippold in 1573 . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 3, 1999, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 4–10 ( luise-berlin.de ).
  8. ^ Nicolai: Message , p. 13 f.
  9. Griepentrog (Ed.): Berlin-Sagen . 2010, p. 123