August Wilhelm (Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel)

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August Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (born March 8, 1662 in Wolfenbüttel ; † March 23, 1731 ) was one of the dukes of Braunschweig and Lüneburg and from 1714 Prince of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel .

Duke August Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern in armor, with sash and ermine coat; Oil painting by Christoph Bernhard Francke , around 1720

Hereditary Prince

His parents were Duke Anton Ulrich , Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1633–1714) and Elisabeth Juliane of Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg (1634–1704). He was her third son.

At the age of fifteen August Wilhelm studied at the University of Geneva (from May 1677 to December 1678). On his cavalier tour he toured Switzerland , France and the Netherlands and then returned to Wolfenbüttel, where he lived in seclusion, as his father did not allow him to participate in the government.

In 1681 August Wilhelm was adopted by his uncle, the ruling Duke Rudolph August von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and thus officially made Hereditary Prince . August Wilhelm's older brothers had died, so that he had come first in the line of succession. Duke Johann Adolf von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön , however, believed that as the husband of the older daughter Rudolph August, he had more rights to a succession.

Duke Anton Ulrich disliked the solidarity between his son August Wilhelm and his brother Rudolph August, which led to constant friction between father and son. Then August Wilhelm went on trips to Italy , France and Schleswig-Holstein to avoid these conflicts. Nevertheless, he asked a confidante to inform him about what was going on at court. Whenever he was in the country, he often withdrew to Langeleben im Elm , where in 1686 he had received the hunting lodge as an allodial property . There he had a small castle built between 1689 and 1707, presumably by master builder Hermann Korb .

Despite all arguments with his father, August Wilhelm went on diplomatic trips abroad for him. Among other things, he helped him to cover up his lucrative relations with France from Rudolph August. In its dispute with Hanover , Prussia tried to win Wolfenbüttel on its side by offering the Hereditary Prince Halberstadt . In Sweden , August Wilhelm promoted Wolfenbüttel's policy and in Denmark he received the Elephant Order from the Danish King Christian V in 1699 .

A few days before his death on March 22nd, 1714, Duke Anton Ulrich wrote a letter entitled “Project of the father's admonition and instruction for the Erbprintzen” . August Wilhelm's younger brother Ludwig Rudolf was married to Christine Luise von Oettingen and had received the county of Blankenburg by family contract in 1690 . This contradicted the Primogenitur contract , but Anton Ulrich now explained in his "fatherly admonition" what had moved him to do so. Probably out of regret about his own quarrels with his brothers, he wanted to create a balance for Ludwig Rudolf with August Wilhelm's possessions so that there would be no envy. But he also hoped that this would result in Ludwig Rudolf behaving well towards his brother. August Wilhelm had agreed to this procedure at the time, but in Anton Ulrich's letter the fear becomes clear that August Wilhelm could reverse this process - which seemed a bit unreal. After all, in 1707 , Emperor Joseph I elevated the county to a principality under imperial control.

Langeleben Castle in the Elm was built by Hermann Korb for August Wilhelm from 1689

Governing Duke

In 1714 Duke Anton Ulrich died and August Wilhelm became the reigning Duke.

The first birthday, which August Wilhelm celebrated in Braunschweig in 1715 as the ruling duke, was also celebrated splendidly in Jena. There was no real relationship between the city and Duke August Wilhelm. But 16 students from Braunschweig - among them aristocrats - celebrated their national father's day of honor. They arranged speeches, in which the university took part, and a torchlight procession that had the festively decorated market square as its destination. The windows of the buildings on the market square were decorated with paintings by Duke August Wilhelm and his wife Elisabeth Sophie Marie. Praise and hopes for a fruitful government could also be read on the paintings. The special hope of fertility was not to be fulfilled. The duke couple remained childless.

He completed the buildings planned and started by his father in the principality.

Brunswick Castle before 1830

The master builder and construction director Hermann Korb was commissioned by the duke to do this. In Wolfenbüttel he had the castle and the castle square expanded. From 1717 the Graue Hof was converted into a representative palace in Braunschweig . During August Wilhelm's lifetime, however, the castle in Wolfenbüttel remained the residence. The magnificence of his court was underlined by the collection of expensive furniture and silver purchases. In 1727 he founded the Wilhelmshütte , an ironworks in Bornum am Harz near Bockenem .

religion

August Wilhelm's motto “Parta tueri” - preserved what has been acquired - was primarily aimed at preserving the Protestant creed. In order to remove the irritation that his father had caused when he switched to the Catholic faith, August Wilhelm ordered immediately after taking office that all preachers in the country had to preach about the Augsburg confession . So every Wednesday they should explain the basics of traditional Lutheranism. When that was done, it went on with the justification of this doctrine, then with the other confessions of the Brunswick Church. The Reformation jubilees were celebrated at great expense, and with an extensive decree in 1725, catechism instruction and sermons were reorganized.
Shortly after taking office, he provoked the Catholics by buying land in the vicinity of the Catholic Nicolaikirche in Braunschweig. He had hussar barracks built there to restrict the view of the church.

Knight Academy

The knight academy that Duke Anton Ulrich had once set up in Wolfenbüttel, at which young nobles were given academic training, was soon closed by August Wilhelm. The high maintenance costs of the University of Helmstedt and the equally high costs of an elaborate court did not allow this educational establishment to continue to be maintained. The nobles who were to study at this knight academy did not really need to devote themselves to training for their future tasks. Their future was predetermined by birth, and so their interest was more limited to getting to know life at a respected ducal court. Over the years, however, the allure of the new was over and fewer and fewer academics came, so that the maintenance costs were out of proportion to the income.

medicine

August Wilhelm arranged for a medical ordinance to be drawn up in order to effectively combat quarreling. This ordinance came into force on February 21, 1721 and regulated the training and licensing of medical professionals, the delimitation of the respective responsibilities and payment. For example, it was now prohibited to perform bloodletting without the presence of a medicament. The duty of confidentiality and the right to remain silent only concerned the medicus, but not the surgeon. Rather, the surgeons had the duty to report to the authorities after the first treatment of "dangerously wounded" people.

politic and economy

August Wilhelm Philipp Ludwig Probst von Wendhausen (1633-1718) took over from his father as Chancellor, who led the government with a strong hand. After his death in November 1718, Urban Dietrich von Lüdecke followed the next day , but was unable to replace his predecessor.

One of the attempts to promote trade and commerce, as his father Anton Ulrich had given him in his last "Instructions", was the tobacco trade. In an edict of December 17, 1716 it was decreed that foreign tobacco, with the exception of foreign Virginia tobacco, could no longer be imported. Only local tobacco that was processed in the tobacco factory on Braunschweiger Kohlmarkt was supposed to come into the trade. Even travelers were only allowed to have as much tobacco with them as they needed for their own use. For further needs they had to purchase products from Brunswick. Not least because of the poor quality of the local tobacco, the economic success of the tobacco trade in Braunschweig was limited. During the reign of August Wilhelm, the time of stricter regulation of the offices fell - economy and justice were clearly separated. Chamber President Hieronymus von Münchhausen (1680–1742) intensified the collection of old debts, lease income and taxes. The beer tax played a special role. It affected not only the large breweries, but also the many people in the country with permission to brew - for their own use or for serving.

The Duke's favorite Konrad Detlev von Dehn , who came to the Wolfenbütteler Hof as a page before 1703 and became a junior chamberlain after August Wilhelm took office in 1714 , had a lot of influence . In 1720 August Wilhelm gave him the counter-signature. This meant that he now had the right, which was actually reserved for the prince, to countersign regulations of the Privy Council and the Chamber and thus make them legally binding. As the Duke's deputy, Dehn also traveled to other European royal courts, where he not only appeared as a diplomat, but also studied courtly ceremonies, customs, fashion and architecture. He sent detailed reports about this to Wolfenbüttel and was thus a useful conversation partner for August Wilhelm, who was interested in everything that could improve his ducal court's representation.

When disputes arose between Prussia and Hanover, it was mainly thanks to August Wilhelm that these disputes did not lead to armed conflicts. Friedrich Wilhelm I had sent his recruits to find tall men for the guard of "tall guys". These recruiters were not squeamish, they even roamed foreign territory and lured the men across the border with promises. They didn't even stop at the soldiers from neighboring countries. George II then issued an edict that these recruits should be picked up so that they could be severely punished. The matter escalated, troops were drawn together and advanced to Magdeburg and Halberstadt. Thanks to the Braunschweig agency, however, it did not come to an extreme. The duel between the two opponents could also be prevented.

When Chamber President Münchhausen introduced strict order and repeatedly insisted on restrictions, Dehn denounced him to the Duke by obtaining letters in which Münchhausen complained of the Duke's ostentatiousness and waste. An investigative authority under Dehn's chairmanship and a ruling from the Helmstedt University, which was dependent on Dehn and whose adviser was Augustin von Leyser Münchhausen's personal enemy, sentenced him to parting without a pension. The Duke's younger brother Ludwig Rudolf obtained from the Reichshofrat that Münchhausen deserved neither the dishonorable farewell nor the fiscal process.

On February 21, 1731 Dehn was dismissed from all offices. He had undertaken fraudulent financial manipulations with the Chamber Councilor von Rhetz and the administrator of the Lutterloh orphanage and had to leave. He did not exactly fall out of favor with Duke August Wilhelm, because the latter guaranteed him an annual pension of 1,000 thalers. He was also allowed to keep all of his goods. However, August Wilhelm died a few weeks after Dehn's dismissal and the new reigning Duke Ludwig Rudolf refused Dehn to continue paying the pension payments because of the poor financial situation of the duchy.

The private citizen August Wilhelm

Duchess Elisabeth Sophie Marie,
painting by Christoph Bernhard Francke, before 1729

August Wilhelm was married three times, but wanted men and boasted that he had learned the art of same-sex intercourse in Venice . He fell in love with the Raugrafen of the Palatinate , Karl Ludwig , half-brother of " Liselotte von der Pfalz ", whose life August Wilhelm had to save once when he tried to "force" the young Prince of Eisenach. Liselotte described August Wilhelm in 1700 as “a ugly esteem” who was “terribly disgusted” [dissolute, unrestrained], and was certain that people with his vice “could never be corrected”.

In 1681 August Wilhelm married Christine Sophie von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1654–1695), eight years his senior , daughter of his uncle Rudolf August. After her death in 1695, he married Sophie Amalie von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf (1670-1710) that same year . Liselotte remarked mockingly in a letter after her death: "[...] but he will soon comfort himself with his pages from the humor [disposition] that erbprintz is like". August Wilhelm's closest confidante Dehn, who was said to be somewhat attractive, allegedly had a corresponding effect on August Wilhelm. But Dehn was not a despiser of feminine charms either. He seduced one of the conventual women of the St. Crucis Monastery , who ultimately made the mistake of persecuting Dehn with wishes and demands. To get rid of her, he had her brought to the Stephanie monastery in Bremen, which was used as a prison.

Six months later, in September 1710, August Wilhelm married his maternal cousin and former godchild Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg because the Wolfenbüttler Hof had not yet given up hope of an heir for the Hereditary Prince. After all, Elisabeth Sophie Marie had already given birth to a child. But this third marriage also remained childless.

death

When the duke died in 1731, a lavish and splendid funeral was prepared, which was worthy of his style of government and court. Many, if not almost all, of the citizens of the duchy suffered after and during his reign from the horrific debts of the state, because they had to pay the ever-increasing taxes, which had gradually become impossible for many. His brother Ludwig Rudolf took over the reign after his death and led the duchy back to the financial stability that had once ruled under the father of the two brothers. Dehn had to leave the country and Münchhausen was appointed prime minister.

literature

  • Horst-Rüdiger Jarck (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon. 8th to 18th centuries , p. 57, Braunschweig 2006
  • Gerhard Gerkens : The political testament of Duke Anton Ulrichs zu Braunschweig Lüneburg , p.37 f. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch 49/1968
  • Friedrich Wagnitz : Duke August Wilhelm von Wolfenbüttel (1662–1731). Princely life between family and finances. Wolfenbüttel 1994
  • Georg Schnath : History of Hanover in the age of the ninth cure and the English succession 1674–1714. Volume III Hildesheim 1978
  • Udo von Alvensleben-Wittenmoor : The Braunschweig palaces of the baroque period and their master builder Hermann Korb. Berlin 1937, p. 76.
  • Wolfgang Kelsch : Hermann Korb. Baroque master builder at the Wolfenbüttler Fürstenhof. Braunschweig 1985, p. 35.
  • Alfred Kuhlenkamp : The Rudolf-Antoniana Knight Academy in Wolfenbüttel 1687–1715. Braunschweig 1977
  • Klaus Jürgens : Lutheran renewal under Duke August Wilhelm and Abbot Gottlieb Treuer. Wolfenbüttel 1996.
  • Karl-Rudolf Döhnel : The anatomical-surgical institute in Braunschweig. Braunschweig 1957
  • Ferdinand Spehr :  August Wilhelm (Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 664 f.
  • Gotthardt early care : On the rise and fall of Count Konrad Detlev von Dehn. A new attempt on the favorite at Wolfenbüttler Hof in the 18th century. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch 2007, pp. 89–113.
  • Christof Römer : The Age of High Absolutism (1635-1735) in: The Braunschweigische Landesgeschichte. A region looking back over the millennia. Editor Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Gerhard Schildt. Braunschweig 2000
  • Wilhelm Havemann : History of the Lands Braunschweig and Lüneburg. Braunschweig 1857. 3 volumes

Web links

Commons : August Wilhelm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herz. August Bibl. Wolfenb. Cod.Guelf.30.2. Extra number 28 sheet 50
  2. ↑ Herz. August Bibl. Wolfenb. Cod.Guelf. 217 a Blank., P. 8.
  3. ↑ Lower Saxony State Archives Wolfenb. 1 Alt 22, No. 285, sheet 72
  4. ↑ Lower Saxony State Archives Wolfenb. 1 Alt 22 number 433
  5. ↑ von Alvensleben, Kelsch
  6. ↑ Schnath: Geschichte Bd.III, S. 200f.
  7. ↑ Schnath: History Bd.III, S. 597th
  8. ↑ Schnath: Geschichte vol III, p. 183.
  9. ↑ Herz. August Bibl. Wolfenb. Coed.Guelf.30.2 Extrav.Nr.28 Bl.37
  10. ↑ Lower Saxony State Archives Wolfenb. 1 Alt 22 No. 299
  11. ↑ Dieter Matthes. The Braunschweigische Primogeniturstreit of 1535 and the captivity of Duke Wilhelm. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch 47, 1966, pp. 5–51.
  12. ↑ JJ Voigts: Kurtze description and explanation of the illumination which on the high birth day [...] was the 8th Mart. 1715 was represented on the Marckt zu Jena. Johann Adolph Müller, Jena 1715, 7 sheets
  13. ↑ P. Zimmermann : The birthday party of Duke August Wilhelm of Braunschweig and Lüneburg in Jena on March 8, 1715. In: Yearbook of the history association for the Duchy of Braunschweig. 1915-1916. 14th year, Zwissler, Wolfenbüttel 1916, p.167 ff. Digitized on the publikationsserver.tu-braunschweig.de , accessed on January 5, 2018
  14. ↑ Johannes Beste: History of the Braunschweigische Landeskirche from the Reformation to our days. Zwißler, Wolfenbüttel 1889, p. 359 f. Digitized on Wikisource , accessed October 27, 2017
  15. ↑ Döhnel, Karl-Rudolf: The Anatomical-Surgical Institute in Braunschweig, p. 48.
  16. ↑ Gerd Biegel : Edict on the tobacco trade 1717 . In: Braunschweig Edition Volume 7 BSE 01 089
  17. ^ Wagnitz: Duke August Wilhelm von Wolfenbüttel. P. 104 ff.
  18. ↑ Lower Saxony State Archives Wolfenbüttel 2 Alt No. 2873
  19. ↑ G. early care: On the rise and fall of Count Konrad Detlev von Dehn. A new attempt on the favorite at Wolfenbüttler Hof in the 18th century. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte, Braunschweig 2007.
  20. ↑ cf. Paul Derks : The Shame of Sacred Pederasty. Homosexuality and the public sphere in German literature 1750-1850 , Verlag Rosa Winkel, Berlin 1990, p. 34f.
  21. ^ A b Elisabeth Charlotte von Orleans: Letters from the years 1676 to 1706 , ed. by Wilhelm Ludwig Holland, Stuttgart 1867, No. 108, p. 196f., Elisabeth Charlotte to Louise, Raugräfin zu Pfalz (stepsister, July 27, 1700)
  22. ↑ It is probably about Friedrich August von Sachsen-Eisenach, who died on September 19, 1684 (Hergemöller 2001)
  23. ^ Elisabeth Charlotte von Orleans: Letters from the years 1707 to 1715 , ed. by Wilhelm Ludwig Holland, Stuttgart 1871, No. 392, pp. 53f., Elisabeth Charlotte to Amelie Elisabeth Raugräfin zu Pfalz (September 8, 1708)
  24. ^ A b Elisabeth Charlotte von Orleans: Letters from the years 1707 to 1715 , ed. by Wilhelm Ludwig Holland, Stuttgart 1871, No. 466, p. 167f., Elisabeth Charlotte to Louise Raugräfin zu Pfalz (March 13, 1710)
  25. ^ Elisabeth Charlotte von Orleans: Letters from the years 1676 to 1706 , ed. by Wilhelm Ludwig Holland, Stuttgart 1867, no. 113, pp. 204–206, Elisabeth Charlotte to Louise Raugräfin zu Pfalz (August 31, 1700)
  26. ↑ Lower Saxony State Archives Wolfenb. 1 Alt 23 No. 291
predecessor Office successor
Anton Ulrich Prince of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel
1714–1731 		Ludwig Rudolf
personal data
SURNAME August Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, August Wilhelm von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1662
PLACE OF BIRTH Wolfenbüttel
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1731