August von Vietinghoff

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August von Vietinghoff, called Scheel (* 1783 ; † May 11, 1847 in Berlin ) was a royal Prussian lieutenant colonel , commander in the Lützow Freikorps and, at a young age, a friend of the gymnastics teacher and anti-Napoleonic freedom fighter Friedrich Friesen .

Life

He came from the old, originally Westphalian noble family Vietinghoff and was the sixth and youngest child of Friedrich von Vietinghoff called Scheel (1737–1799), heir, feudal lord and court lord on Funkendorf and Bieberswöhr (both now districts of Prebitz , Upper Franconia ), and the Wilhelmine von Schirnding . After his friend Friesen, like Vietinghoff lieutenant of the Lützow Free Corps, was dispersed by his troops in 1814 and captured and killed by angry farmers near the Ardennes village of La Lobbe near Rethel , Vietinghoff looked for his body. When they invaded France, both had promised each other that the survivor of the campaign would bring the other's remains back home. After some effort, Vietinghoff found and identified Friesen's remains in 1816 and had them exhumed on December 5, 1816 .

According to Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's plans , the body was to be buried in Berlin's Hasenheide . Since an appropriate burial was initially not possible due to the political situation at the time as a result of the Wartburg Festival (1817) and the persecution of demagogues (1819), Vietinghoff packed the dead friend in a suitcase coffin and kept him with him. Since he was repeatedly relocated by the military, the case coffin also came along and became his usual companion, with whom he talked during leisure hours.

Only 25 years later, now retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel and thinking about the finiteness of his own life, he decided in 1842 to part with his companion after all. Together with old comrades, he found the appropriate final resting place. With the consent of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Friesen's body was solemnly buried on March 15, 1843, right next to General Gerhard von Scharnhorst in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin , after the remains of the anatomist Dr. Bulkheads had previously been arranged.

Vietinghoff himself was not buried in the Invalidenfriedhof, but in one of the cemeteries in front of the Hallesches Tor . According to Willi Wohlberedt, his grave has long been leveled.

Vietinghoff married Pauline von Schlegel on December 4, 1825 in Königsberg ( Neumark ) . The couple had no offspring.

novel

The German writer Carl Leberecht Immermann processed the events surrounding the bones of Friesen while Vietinghoff was still alive in 1836 in his novel The Epigones .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vietinghoff described himself according to the sources as a baron ; According to information from the Vietinghoff family association, this line (which is still alive today) did not have the title of baron.
  2. ^ Karl Ludwig Kannegiesser: The German orator. Verlag Fr. Hentze, Leipzig 1845, p. 452. (digitized version )
  3. ↑ Gustav Parthey: Jugenderinnerungen. Handwriting for friends. Volume 1, Berlin 1907.
  4. ↑ René Schilling: War Heroes. Interpretation patterns of heroic masculinity in Germany, 1813-1945. Verlag Schöningh, 2002, p. 124. (excerpt)
  5. ↑ Gustav Parthey: Jugenderinnerungen. Handwriting for joy. Volume 2. Berlin 1907, p. 535. (digitized version )
  6. ↑ The Epigones. Family memoirs in 9 books. 1836. New edition: Winkler Verlag, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-538-05120-8 .
  7. ↑ James Hogg (Ed.): Titan - A Monthly Magazine. Volume 24. London 1859, p. 389. (digitized version)
personal data
SURNAME Vietinghoff, August von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vietinghoff called Scheel, August von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian lieutenant colonel
DATE OF BIRTH 1783
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1847
Place of death Berlin