Christian Friedrich von Stockmar
Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Stockmar (born August 22, 1787 in Coburg ; † July 9, 1863 there ) was a German doctor and statesman .
Life
Stockmar's parents were Johann Ernst Gotthelf Stockmar (1760–1825) and his wife Johanna Christiane geb. Summer. Christian was born as the second of four children on her manor in Obersiemau near Coburg. The father was a ducal-Coburg magistrate in Rodach .
School and study
Stockmar attended the Casimirianum high school and graduated from high school at the age of seventeen. From 1805 to 1810 he studied medicine at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen and the Julius Maximilians University in Würzburg . He was a member of the Corps Onoldia (1807) and the Corps Franconia Würzburg (1808). In Würzburg he made friends with his fellow countryman and corps brother Friedrich Rückert from Coburg .
After passing the exam in Würzburg with good results, Stockmar settled in Coburg as a general practitioner under the guidance of his uncle Dr. Summer. Since 1812 city and rural physician (medical officer) in Coburg, he set up a military hospital, which he managed until November 1813. After lying for three weeks with hospital fever, he joined the Masonic lodge "Carl zum Rautenkranz" in Hildburghausen in 1813 .
Military doctor
In January 1814 he went to the campaign against France as senior physician of the ducal-Saxon contingent . In Mainz he became a medical officer of the 5th Army Corps and served in the hospitals of Mainz , Oppenheim , Guntersblum and Worms . Since autumn 1814 he has been a general practitioner in Coburg again, and in 1815 he went to Alsace again as a Saxon regimental doctor .
In 1816 he became the personal physician of Prince Leopold von Coburg when he married Princess Charlotte Auguste , the granddaughter of Georg III. and presumptive heir to the throne of England. Stockmar became her confidante and most influential advisor.
Coburg court marshal
In 1817 Stockmar gave up the medical profession and became court marshal , d. H. Secretary, Treasurer and Head of Household to the Prince.
On August 12, 1821, he married his cousin Fanny Sommer (1800–1868), a pharmacist's daughter from Coburg. The marriage had three children: Ernst (1823-1886), Marie (1827-1856), who married Hermann Hettner in 1848 , and Carl (1838-1909). The couple lived in Prince Leopold's little castle in Niederfüllbach for over 36 years .
On October 31, 1821 Stockmar was raised to the royal Saxon nobility of Stockmar-Manstein.
Royal negotiations
On March 22, 1829 Stockmar was the Chargé d'affaires of Prince Leopold at the 1st London Conference on the independence of Greece , which became a kingdom. Against Stockmar's advice, Leopold accepted the first election - and failed because of Otto von Wittelsbach .
On January 20, 1830, Stockmar was elevated to the status of Bavarian baron by King Ludwig I.
At the London Conference (1830) , Belgium became independent from the Netherlands and became a hereditary kingdom. The negotiations were again conducted by Stockmar. The second choice fell on Leopold, who, persuaded by Stockmar, when King Leopold I accepted the Belgian crown. Stockmar organized his court life in Brussels. When Dutch troops entered Belgium, they captured Stockmar on August 12, 1831, but forgot him when they retreated. Although Stockmar played a significant part in the founding of Belgium, he could not be used as a foreigner in the Belgian state. Therefore, in May 1834 he left Leopold's service with a pension, but remained his personal advisor. He stayed with his family in Coburg until 1836.
Matchmaker
In 1835 he initiated the marriage of the Coburg prince Ferdinand to the widowed Portuguese queen Maria II .
In 1836, Stockmar brokered the marriage of Prince Albert of Coburg with the British heir to the throne, Victoria , who in May 1837 was eighteen years of age and came of age. When Wilhelm IV died, Stockmar advised the young queen in her difficult situation.
Stockmar left England in August 1838 and accompanied Prince Albert to Italy (Florence, Rome, Naples, Milan) at Victoria's request from December 1838 to May 1839. After the engagement on October 15, 1839, Victoria announced her impending wedding on January 1, 1840 at the opening of Parliament. Just eight days later, Stockmar was negotiating as Albert's plenipotentiary in London against intrigue and opposition, including with Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston about Albert's Protestant religion, about naturalization, his rank, his powers and the appanage. After the wedding on April 10, 1840, Stockmar left in early August. In November he returned to the birth of Princess Royal Victoria (later Empress Friedrich) and took over the care of the "Children's Department".
Stockmar was back in Coburg from April to September 1841 and was Victoria's advisor on important foreign policy issues until October 1842. As godfather for the Prince of Wales, born in November 1841 (later King Edward VII ), Stockmar proposed Friedrich Wilhelm IV as the greatest Protestant prince of the continent; the King of Hanover ( Ernst August I ) and the Duke of Coburg rejected the proposal. Stockmar developed an education plan for the two children.
Since the winter of 1842 he lived alternately in England and Coburg. From May 1847 he stayed in Coburg for four years, where he devoted himself to German affairs, such as a (failing) turn to England and a (failing) reorganization of Germany.
Envoy to the Bundestag
In 1848 he represented the duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha as envoy to the Bundestag in Frankfurt am Main and campaigned for a small German federal state under Prussia's leadership. In July 1848 and February 1849 he was asked to take over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the provisional imperial government. He refused:
"Anyone who in their 60th year of life with gout in the bowels still wanted to take on the nursing service for Germania, who suffers from an infectious disease, would have to be great."
In the Bundestag, which was soon to be dissolved, he declared the particular governments superfluous and demanded that they give up as a patriotic act.
Convinced from the outset of the hopelessness, he nevertheless took part in the deliberations of the Erfurt Union Parliament for a constitution in 1850 as a member of the Duchy of Saxony-Coburg for the Volkshaus . Nevertheless, he did not doubt that his dream of German unity would be fulfilled:
“The Germans are a good people, easy to rule, and the German princes who do not understand this do not deserve to rule over such a people. Do not be put off! You younger ones cannot fail to see how great the progress has been made by the Germans in this century towards national unity. I have experienced it, I know this people, you are approaching a great future, you will experience it, but I will not. Then think the old man! "
Age
In 1856 he visited England for the last time and from the spring of 1857 lived only in Germany. In pursuit of his idea of an Anglo-German friendship, he founded another marriage: Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia with "Vicky", the English Princess Victoria, who was very fond of Stockmar. Stockmar was unable to attend their wedding at the beginning of 1858 due to illness. His stay in Potsdam in the autumn of 1858 was suspect to the Prussian court circles; he was thought to be an English or Belgian spy. After that, Stockmar never left Coburg and his Marisfeld Castle , which he had bought in 1814 and Buch Castle in 1820 . But he stayed in correspondence with “his” royal courts in England and Belgium. In 1860 Queen Victoria and Albert visited him in Coburg. After his “political pupil” Albert died in 1861, Victoria came to Coburg alone in 1862. Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Vicky also visited him repeatedly. The old friend Rückert rarely came.
Last devoted to philosophical-religious thoughts and charitable, Stockmar died at the age of 75 after a stroke. He was buried in the simple family crypt, which was later enriched by the Crown Prince couple.
literature
- Karl August Friedrich Samwer: Stockmar, Christian Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 295-305.
- Ernst Schröder: Christian Friedrich von Stockmar. A pioneer of German-English friendship. Webels, Essen 1950.
- Rita von Wangenheim: Stockmar. Baron Christian Friedrich von Stockmar. A Coburg-English story. Hirsch-Verlag, Coburg 1996, ISBN 3-923700-08-3 .
- Ernst von Stockmar: Memories from the papers of Baron Christian Friedrich v. Stockmar. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1872.
- Jochen Lengemann : The German Parliament (Erfurt Union Parliament) from 1850 , 2000, pp. 305-306.
The archives of the Corps Onoldia and Franconia Würzburg contain eleven contributions (1898–1998) on the life story of Stockmar (R. Kutz, Bamberg).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 23 , 132; 139 , 41
Remarks
- ^ Medical Councilor, personal physician to Field Marshal Prince Friedrich Josias of Coburg
- ^ As in 1810 already Ms. Rückert
- ↑ She died on November 6, 1817 after the stillbirth of a son.
- ↑ Carl was married to Anna Frfr. v. Haynau (1847–1904)
- ↑ There Mrs. Rückert married Luise Wiethaus from Coburg in December 1921.
- ↑ The double name was never mentioned.
- ↑ Her remarriage to Louis d'Orléans, duc de Nemours had failed due to resistance from England.
- ↑ Stockmar's extensive correspondence about it has been preserved.
- ^ With 262: 158 votes the House of Lords granted only £ 30,000.
- ↑ Not as often mentioned as a member of the Paulskirche
- ↑ Ernst was the son of Christian Fr. Stockmar.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stockmar, Christian Friedrich von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Stockmar-Manstein, Christian Friedrich Freiherr von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German doctor and statesman |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 22, 1787 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Coburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 9, 1863 |
| Place of death | Coburg |