Carl Michael of Mecklenburg

Carl Michael zu Mecklenburg as a Russian officer

In costume at the Romanov anniversary ball in 1903

Carl Michaels grave in the Remplin cemetery

Carl Michael, Duke of Mecklenburg , also: Karl Michael , Russian Михаил Георгиевич (* 5 June ^July / 17 June  1863 ^greg. At Oranienbaum Castle ; † December 6, 1934 at Remplin Castle ; full name Carl Michael Wilhelm August Alexander ) was a member of the Russian branch of the grand ducal house of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Imperial Russian General.

Live and act

Carl Michael was the youngest son of Duke Georg zu Mecklenburg and his wife Grand Duchess Katharina Michailowna Romanowa (1827–1894), the daughter of Grand Duke Michael Pawlowitsch Romanow and granddaughter of Tsar Paul I. His sister Helene (1857–1936) married Albert von Sachsen- Altenburg . Georg Alexander (1859–1909) was his oldest brother.

Carl Michael went to study in Strasbourg and was established in 1887 from the University of Strasbourg Dr. of political science doctorate. Like his brother, he pursued a career as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army and became an artillery officer. In 1903 he was a colonel and commander of the 1st battery division of the 1st Guards Field Artillery Brigade, later Lieutenant General.

In 1894 Carl Michael and his siblings inherited their mother's extensive fortune. From this they sold the Mikhailovsky Palace for 5 million rubles to Tsar Nicholas II , who set up the Russian Museum in it.

After the death of his brother in 1909, Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich V appointed him the guardian of the children from his morganatic marriage to Natalie, Countess Carlow: Katharina, Marie and Natalia and Georg .

In 1914, after the death of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich, Carl Michael renounced his succession to the throne in Mecklenburg-Strelitz on June 24th . On August 7, 1914, he was naturalized as a Russian citizen . During the First World War he served as inspector of the Guards Artillery until 1916.

In March 1917 he was arrested and had to appear before the Duma . He managed to flee to the Caucasus and from there to go into exile in Denmark.

Succession crisis in Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Meanwhile, the house of Mecklenburg-Strelitz with the suicide of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI. get into an existential succession crisis. Carl Michael was the only possible successor according to the house law of the Mecklenburg dynasty, but had waived his rights and was also a foreigner. For example, Friedrich Franz IV , the Schwerin Grand Duke, acted as the Imperial Administrator of Mecklenburg-Strelitz until the end of the monarchy and tried to contact Carl Michael, who was on the run at the time, by letter. The outcome of the 1918 revolution, which also eliminated the monarchy in Mecklenburg, rendered no solution to the question of the Succession to the throne in Strelitz. In January 1919, Carl Michael renounced his right to succession to the throne again, but this was only an internal family matter.

Return to Mecklenburg

However, Carl Michael stuck to his property claims. From Copenhagen he endeavored to assert claims to personal property in Mecklenburg. His ownership was confirmed in Remplin. According to a judgment of the Schwerin Regional Court , with which he was awarded a one-off payment of 5 million marks in cash and the Langhagen Forest Estate (on Langhäger See , now a district of Neustrelitz , but at that time part of the Stavenhagen Office in Mecklenburg-Schwerin ), and after a After a lengthy process, its representatives reached a settlement in 1921 with the Free State of Mecklenburg-Strelitz , with which the latter acquired the Langhagen estate for a further million. In return, Carl Michael waived all claims under civil law. Since Carl Michael had fought on the side of the Russian Empire against the German Empire in World War I, the case occupied the public intensively and was for a long time an argument in favor of the expropriation of the princes . In the eyes of the critics, the comparison was a chilling example of "how treason brings the rich blessings of God and the republic with it". He made sure that Carl Michael's public reputation was permanently damaged.

In 1928 Carl Michael, who remained unmarried throughout his life, adopted his nephew Georg and made him heir and successor as head of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz family. In 1930 he finally returned to Remplin, where his sister, widow from 1902, and Georg had lived with his family since 1923.

Carl Michael was buried in the Remplin cemetery.

Awards

• Order of St. Andrew the First Called
• Order of St. Vladimir , 3rd and 4th grade
• House order of the Wendish Crown , Grand Cross with the crown in ore
• Duke of Saxony-Ernestine House Order , Grand Cross
• House Order of the White Falcon , Grand Cross

Works

• The statistics of the military replacement business in the German Empire. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, at the same time Strasbourg, legal u. State w. Fac., Jur. Inaug. Diss. v. 1887

literature

• Mecklenburg-Strelitz - Contributions to the history of a region. 2nd Edition. Steffen, Friedland i. Meckl. 2001, ISBN 3-9807532-0-4
• Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 4830 .

Web links

Commons : Carl Michael zu Mecklenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature about Duke Carl Michael in the state bibliography MV
• Mother's biography. Society Nekropolistow (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ spelling with C after the tombstone; in the Mecklenburg state calendar the spelling changes from C to K
2. ^ Czar and Czarina are under arrest (PDF), New York Times . March 22, 1917. Retrieved October 8, 2011. 
3. ↑ See Gustav Brückner: The Mecklenburg constitutional question since 1913. In: Yearbook of the public law of the present , Volume 9 (1920), pp. 218–225
4. ↑ Langhagen
5. ↑ Die Weltbühne , 22 (1926), p. 314

predecessor	Office	successor
Adolf Friedrich VI.	Head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz 1918–1934	Georg Duke of Mecklenburg