Bernhard von Miltitz

Bernhard von Miltitz (* around 1570 in Scharfenberg ; † November 18, 1626 in Pretzsch ) was a German military man, traveler and diplomat.

Live and act

He was born as the son of the Electorate of Saxony captain Ernst v. M. zu Taubenheim and born by Anna Born from Kanne to Klöden . He spent his youth at Scharfenberg Castle. Then Miltitz came to his uncle Jobst von Kanne zu Klöden in care. There he received private tuition and was then sent to the University of Wittenberg to study law, which he broke off after a year. He accepted a position as a page with a relative in the military for several years. Then he joined the karabiners in the Electoral Saxon Army. In 1591 Miltitz switched to the service of the military leader Christian I, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg , with whose troops he took part in a campaign in France . Dissatisfied with the French leadership, he quit the contract and traveled to the Netherlands . There he joined the troops of the military leader Philipp Graf von Hohenlohe, which is why he was used in the Civil War. In 1593 Miltitz returned to Klöden. It didn't last long there, so that the following year he traveled to France via the Netherlands and England. There he hired himself as a lieutenant on a pirate and trading ship in Dieppe, and with this ship he reached Africa , India , South America and the Caribbean . After the Spaniards raised the ship's crew in 1596 near Haiti , he escaped captivity with luck and skill. His return trip home took him through various countries in southern Europe . When he arrived in Spain , he got a job at the royal Spanish court in 1597. It was here that Miltitz met Archduke Albrecht VII of Austria , in whose service he left Spain as cupbearer and went by ship to Italy , from where he returned to Saxony in 1590 ; he arrived here the following year. Short trips then took him to the Netherlands, France and England . Because of his knowledge of the language and world experience, the Saxon Elector Christian II sent him to the courts of France, England and Austria as an embassy traveler . But Miltitz was also active in Saxon military services. In the early years of the Thirty Years' War , as captain of the County of Mansfeld and several pens , he tried to protect it from devastation. Since 1625 at the latest, the unmarried Miltitz lived at the castle in Pretzsch as the guest of his widowed sister Anna Löser, who was formerly married to the Saxon Hereditary Marshal Hans Löser († 1614) . Attempts to obtain land as a fiefdom for his services in the Dübener Heide failed due to the elector's refusal, as there were deposits of alum there . Miltitz was aware of these alum deposits. Miltitz probably made extensive memoirs during his life at Pretzsch Castle.

After his death, his sister Anna had the Pretzsch pastor Johann Durius (Dürr) prepare an extensive funeral sermon in his honor, the content of which was based on the memoirs of Miltitz, and had the sermon printed as Decennium Memorabile 1628 in Wittenberg. Rediscovered in the 20th century, the funeral sermon served as the basis for several reports on the adventurous life of Bernhard von Miltitz.

Presumably during his lifetime a furnace with cast-iron plates was built in Pretzsch Castle, which showed motifs of his travels. One of the plates is now in the Pretzsch Local History Museum and one in the Lichtenburg Castle Museum , Prettin . In addition to ships, both show a Central American landscape with a step pyramid as well as a probably symbolic wheel and other motifs, as well as exotic fruits as border decorations

literature

• Johann Durius: Decennium Memorabile. Wittenberg 1628.
• v. Kyaw: A tourist in the late 16th century. In: New Lusatian Magazine. IL, Görlitz 1872, pp. 126-134.
• Kirchhoff: A Saxon circumnavigator of the 16th century. In: Mittheilungen d. Association f. Geography to Halle. 1881, pp. 67-81.
• Vogt: The first Saxon circumnavigator. In: Scientific supplement d. Leipzig newspaper. 1881, No. 78, pp. 465-466.
• B. Ruge: Not a circumnavigator from Miltitz. In: New archive f. Saxon history III. Dresden 1882, pp. 66-77.
• Hantzsch: German travelers of the 16th century. Leipzig 1895, pp. 121–123.
• Viktor Hantzsch:  Miltitz, Bernhard von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 52, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, p. 410 f.
• Hans-Joachim Böttcher : Die Welt durchreist, died in Pretzsch ... In: Yearbook of Dübener Heide 1998. Bad Düben 1997, pp. 63–68.
• Hans-Joachim Böttcher: The adventurous journey of Bernhard von Miltitz. In: Köhler's fleet calendar. 2002, pp. 75-79.
• Hans-Joachim Böttcher: Miltitz, Bernhard von. In: Important historical personalities of the Düben Heath. (= Series of the AMF . No. 237). 2012, DNB 1024972186 , p. 67.