Christoph Friedrich Steffen von Plettenberg

Christoph Friedrich Steffen Plettenberg (Christoph Friedrich Stephan von Plettenberg) to Lenhausen-Stockum (* thirtieth November 1698 in Plettenberg , † 17th March 1777 to house Heyde at Unna ) participated as an officer in the service of Frederick the Great at the three Silesian Wars part , most recently with the rank of lieutenant general . He was a bearer of the order Pour le Mérite . In 1743 he bought the moated house Heyde near Unna, where he retired .

origin

Christoph Friedrich (in some documents the order Friederich Christoph can also be found) belonged to a Protestant line of the widely ramified von Plettenberg family , the Plettenberg-Stockum line, with the lower house in Lenhausen. Most of his ancestors were officers . His father Mauritz Henrich von Plettenberg, Herr zu Lenhausen , Finnentrop and Stockum , was major general of the infantry in the Dutch service. His mother was Marie Elisabeth née von Plettenberg from the Schwarzenberg line .

After the fire in the Lower House in 1732, he sold the ruins and all of his Lenhaus property to the owner of the Upper House, Count Friedrich Bernhard Wilhelm von Plettenberg, who belonged to the Catholic line of Plettenberg-Lenhausen.

Military career

As was customary at the time, he entered the military early on, in Prussia under King Friedrich Wilhelm I , the so-called soldier king . In 1715, at the age of 17, he was " Estandartenjunker " in the Prussian Cuirassier Regiment of Albe. On September 16, 1718 he was cornet , on May 18, 1723, at the age of 24, " Lieutenant " and on June 11, 1731, at the age of 32, staff assistant master . On October 29, 1733, at the age of 34, he was appointed Rittmeister and " Company Chief " in the cuirassier regiment of Bredow.

After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm I in 1740, his son and successor Friedrich II (1712–1786), later called "the Great", became his employer. This promoted him during the First Silesian War (1740-1742) on November 17, 1741 to major .

During the Second Silesian War (1744–45) he was promoted to " Lieutenant Colonel " on August 3, 1745 . Apparently he distinguished himself in this war, because on June 4, 1747 he received one of the highest Prussian medals, the Pour le Mérite order .

On July 12, 1749, at the age of 50, he was appointed Colonel and Commander of the Bredow Cuirassier Regiment. He was thus directly subordinate to the king.

On August 3, 1756 - now 57 years old - he was promoted to major general and at the same time appointed chief of the Rüts dragoon regiment . When the Third Silesian or Seven Years War broke out three weeks later , Christoph Friedrich initially worked under the famous Field Marshal von Schwerin . From September 14, 1756, the Stechow Dragoon Regiment and the Wechmar Hussar Regiment were subordinate to him near Glatz in Lower Silesia . At the king's request, he stayed in Silesia , although his own von Rüts regiment was in Prussia .

In the Battle of Prague on May 6, 1757, he commanded the outer left wing of the second battle line. The two dragoon regiments Katte and Normann were under his command. The five-hour battle, in which 67,000 men fought on the Prussian side and 61,000 on the Austrian side, was one of the bloodiest and most costly that Frederick the Great fought. The Prussian losses amounted to 14,300 men or a good 21%. Among them were Field Marshal Graf Schwerin, who led the battle alongside the king, and eleven generals . One of them was Christoph Friedrich. He was so badly wounded that he was unable to regain his field service ability.

On February 9, 1758 Christoph Friedrich was a member of the court martial over the lieutenants general von Lestwitz, von Katte and von Kyau because of the surrender of Breslau .

As a result he was able to do the job for which he was evidently particularly capable: Frederick the Great, who had always valued him as a cavalryman and horse connoisseur, entrusted him in 1758 with the management of the Remonten , the 3-4 year old young horse . Apparently he did the job with particular skill. In 1759 and 1760 he took care of the remonts for almost all of the hussar and dragoon regiments in Silesia.

On June 17, 1761, at the age of 62, Christoph Friedrich retired from service in the rank of " lieutenant general " due to illness. From then on, according to his personnel records, he lived “on his property in Westphalia”. He died on March 17, 1777, 79 years old, of a - as it is called in the Unna church book - "twelve days of painful and debilitating illness" and was buried in the choir of the Protestant town church in Unna .

Frederick the Great apparently valued him very much. On May 25, 1777, according to the personnel records, he sent Christoph Friedrich's son Dietrich Christian (1748–1818), then a lieutenant in the body regiment on horseback, "a heartfelt letter of condolences".

family

marriage

Christoph Friedrich married on March 9, 1734 at the age of 35 years Charlotte Sibylla Hendrina Adolphina of precious churches to Heyde from the 30 km west of Lenhausen located Halver . It did not come from the manor Haus Heyde near Unna, which her husband bought in 1743 (there is a confusion with Friedrich von Klocke regarding the ancestors of Friedrich von Bodelschwingh ).

In authority, Christoph Friedrich had some difficulties with the marriage: his request for permission to marry was refused by the king on October 30, 1733. At that time this was still the father of Frederick the Great, namely Frederick William I (1688–1740), without whose approval no officer was allowed to marry at the time. The royal rejection words are still handed down: It would be a shame for him if he married, for he is the best officer in the regiment.

Almost three months later, on January 20, 1734, he got the king's permission to marry after he had reported that his company had improved.

progeny

As successful as Christoph Friedrich was as an officer and in financial matters, he suffered many blows of fate with regard to his family. His wife Charlotte died in 1751 after 17 years of marriage at the age of 36. Nevertheless, the marriage produced nine children, five boys and four girls. The last one was born in September 1750 when he was already 52 years old. As the table below shows, the six oldest children died long before their father. Only the last three reached old age.

• Johan Christoph Arnold , born on January 15, 1735. Christoph Friedrich's eldest son joined the cavalry like him and worked in his former cuirassier regiment from Bredow. He was seriously wounded in the battle of Zorndorf near Küstrin on August 25, 1758, in which he participated as a lieutenant . He died on January 3, 1759 of the consequences of the injury at the age of 23 in Berlin.

• Friederich Wilhelm Carl Ferdinand , born on March 28, 1736. He died at the age of 15 on November 13, 1751 at Haus Heyde and was buried in the Unna town church.

• Anna Charlotta Sophia , born in November 1737 and died immediately.

• Janna Lowisa Friderica Eleonora , born June 21, 1738, died 1743.

• Sophia Carolina Josina , born September 7, 1740, died 1742.

• Carl Frid. August , born October 31, 1742, died 1744.

• Henrich Ludwig Giesbert , born on May 8, 1744. He died on May 20, 1799 at the age of 55. As the eldest of the three surviving children, he inherited the Heyde house with the Binkhoff estate based on the will of his father . He was obviously a good housekeeper, because in 1785 he bought Gut Bögge , a little further north in today's Bönen, with Gut Nordhof . He had no sons, only daughters. The oldest of them, Friederike (1768–1850), his heiress, married Franz von Bodelschwingh- Velmede (1754–1827) from the neighborhood in 1785 . They became the first parents of a widely ramified family with important personalities. Her two sons Ernst (1794–1854) and Carl von Bodelschwingh (1800–1873) became Prussian ministers . Two of her grandchildren, Friedrich (1831–1910) and Ida von Bodelschwingh (1835–1894), who got engaged at Haus Heyde and married there, built the world-famous von Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel .

• Diederich Christian Johan , born on October 23, 1748. Like his father, he embarked on a career in the military. Unlike the latter, however, he apparently lived very briskly and ran into considerable debts. Finally, his older brother Henrich Ludwig Giesbert and his brother-in-law stepped in for him and paid back the debts with excessive interest. However, he then apparently caught himself and later became a colonel in the Prussian cuirassier regiment No. 3. Apparently he inherited the manor Stockum in the Sauerland (today Sundern-Stockum ) from his father . In 1792 he married Carolina Wilhelmina Dorothea Christiane von Plettenberg zu Schwarzenberg (1770–1851) and had a son with her, Eugen Gustav Friedrich Adolf (1805–1886), the father of General Karl von Plettenberg . He died in 1818.

• Henrietta Carolina Albertina , the youngest child born on September 3, 1750. On July 26, 1767 - that is, at the age of 16 - she married a neighbor from Haus Heyde from the same sex but of a different line, namely Johann Adolph Friedrich von Plettenberg zu Schwarzenberg (1725–1787), the heirs of Haus Heeren . She died on September 25, 1794.

From 1743, when Christoph Friedrich bought Heyde's house, until 1799, when his son and heir Henrich Ludwig died, the owners of the two aristocratic residences, which were only 2.4 km apart, were called Heeren and Heyde: von Plettenberg. There were two different lines of the widely ramified von Plettenberg family, namely "zu Lenhausen Stockum" on Heyde and "zu Schwarzenberg" on Heeren. However, through mutual marriages they were very closely connected.

Acquisition of Heyde and Binkhoff

In 1743, after the end of the First Silesian War, Christoph Friedrich bought the manor Haus Heyde in (Unna-) Uelzen with a size of a good 100 hectares, plus a number of associated farms for 40,722 Reichstaler . He was 45 years old at the time and had the rank of "Obristwachtmeister". The seller was the officer Jan Steffen Heidenreich von Palant zu Schadeburg (* June 1705), who had inherited the estate from his childless uncle Johan Diederich Heidenreich von Ascheberg († August 7, 1712). What prompted him to buy this manor is unknown. In any case, it had the advantage that - unlike his previous property - it was in a Protestant area and not too far from his previous home. Furthermore, it could have played a role that relatives of his, namely those of Plettenberg on Haus Heeren, had their residence very close and his only sister Anna Sophia Lucia (* 1700) 1727 Heinrich Wilhelm von Vaerst, the heir of the only 5 km distant house Westhemmerde and lived there. Perhaps his wife, who came from a knightly seat called Heyde in Halver, may have particularly liked the identity of the names.

Apparently, as with his marriage, another very important matter for him, now the purchase of the residence, was delayed by his chief employer. In his military résumé it is noted that on July 27, 1743 he was refused permission to travel. The reason, this time apparently from the pen of Frederick the Great , was: "With the regiment, the introduction of good discipline and order seems to be more necessary than the recruitment, which is why you should work diligently." Probably the trip should serve him above all To buy house Heyde. Shortly afterwards, however, Christoph Friedrich was in Westphalia and purchased the Heyde estate on September 19, 1743. In order to be able to pay the purchase price, he sold his inherited share in Gut Lenhausen in the Sauerland. In 1746, after the Second Silesian War, he was able to repay 1,930 thalers of debts that he had taken over from the seller when he bought Heyde.

On July 10, 1748 he was given two months "vacation on his property in the county of Mark". An absence of four months from the regiment, which he had probably requested, was not permitted. On September 27, 1754, it is recorded that he had received two months “leave on his goods in Westphalia”. These were the inherited Stockum estate and the Heyde estate acquired in 1743. From these entries about the granting of leave in his personal files, the conclusion can be drawn that he rarely stayed in Westphalia during his active time as an officer. After his retirement on June 17, 1761, he then apparently lived permanently on Heyde, for more than 15 years until his death in 1777. Incidentally, he is the first owner of Heyde's house, of which a picture has survived.

He was apparently still very active in retirement. Presumably, when he bought the palace in 1743, the early architectural history of which is largely unknown, he only found the manor house and a few isolated farm buildings and made an extension to a representative three-wing complex in the spirit of the Baroque era. His son and heir Henrich Ludwig may have completed the work. The park was probably created by both of them, of which a number of trees still exist today and five are protected as natural monuments.

In 1768, now 70 years old, Christoph Friedrich acquired the Binkhoff estate in ( Bönen -) Altenbögge, just under 4 km to the north . He was the owner of three manors: the inherited Stockum in the Sauerland, Heyde and Binkhoff.

Others

In 2002, the Von-Plettenberg-Weg was named in a new building area of Uelzen in memory of the Plettenbergs on Haus Heyde.

In the fantastic youth novel Grenzgänger published in June 2014 . A Ruhrpott road movie , written by 66 young people from six cities in the Ruhr area, is one of the three main characters Michael Friedrich Gustav von Plettenberg from Duisburg , in the novel a descendant of Christoph Friedrich Steffen von Plettenberg from Haus Heyde. In the final chapter, which takes place at the former Heyde house, the Ahnherr von Plettenberg appears as a ghost who helps his descendants to be freed from his obsession with the help of the “ magical ” plane tree he has planted .

See also

• Plettenberg (noble family)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Volker Kennemann: The "lower house" in Lenhausen. In: To Bigge, Lenne and Fretter Heft 34, Finnentrop 2011 p. 59 ff.
2. ↑ List of the cavalry regiments of the Old Prussian Army Dragoon Regiment D VII
3. ↑ She was buried in the monk's church in Salzwedel , where her tombstone is still preserved today.
4. ^ Sarah Meyer-Dietrich / Sascha Pranschke / Inge Meyer-Dietrich (eds.): Grenzgänger. A Ruhrpott road movie . 1st edition June 2014, Klartext Verlag Essen, pp. 135 ff. ISBN 978-3-8375-1207-6 .

literature

• Josef Cornelissen: from Plettenberg to Lenhausen Stockum, Christoph Friedrich Steffen. In: Protestant profiles in the Ruhr area - 500 life pictures from 5 centuries. Editors: Michael Basse, Traugott Jähnichen , Harald Schroeter-Wittke . Hartmut Spenner Verlag, Kamen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89991-092-6 , p. 111f.
• Josef Cornelissen: Haus Heyde lives on - 36 pictures about an extraordinary spot in Unna . Publication series of the city of Unna, Volume 46, Unna 2005, ISBN 3-927082-49-X . 31 p. DIN A 4. p. 7.
• Josef Cornelissen: Heyde House near Unna - A Westphalian aristocratic residence in its eventful fate . Publication series of the city of Unna, Volume 35, 1998, pp. 81–98. ISBN 3-927082-37-6 . 352 p. DIN A 4. p. 81-98.
• Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldier leadership . Volume 1, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1937], DNB 367632764 , pp. 409-410, no. 423.
• Friedrich von Klocke : Friedrich von Bodelschwinghs ancestors . In: Westfälisches Adelsblatt, monthly newspaper for the united Westphalian aristocratic archives . V. No. 9-10, 4th year (Sept.-Oct. 1927) pp. 257-264.

Web links

• Chronicle Mühlhausen / Uelzen