Constantin Staufenau

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Constantin Staufenau
at the age of 54.

Constantin Staufenau (born February 17, 1809 in Weißenfels , † November 14, 1886 in Dresden ) was a German theater actor and director. For 13 years he had a secret friendship with Therese Gauß , who, due to class considerations, only married him after the death of her father Carl Friedrich Gauß in 1856.

Life

Constantin Wilhelm Staufenau was born on February 17, 1809 in Weißenfels near Naumburg an der Saale as the son of Carl Philipp Staufenau and Johanna Dorothee Künzeln. His Jewish father had converted to the Protestant church and worked as a teacher in Weißenfels, Annaburg and Delitzsch . After his discharge from school in 1820, he worked as a private scholar.

Theater career

Constantin's future wife, the Gauss daughter Therese, wrote in a letter to her brother Wilhelm to Missouri in 1856 , Staufenau: “Youth education (his father was a high school teacher) had given him a direction that was in his professional life as an actor, as warm as he was in his , grasped senses receptive to everything poetically beautiful, isolated him inwardly as much as I was through my isolation. "

From 1839 to 1855 Constantin Staufenau was mentioned annually in the stage manuals as an actor and director. As an actor, he took on roles as a lover and hero, as well as serious and humorous character roles. He was usually hired by theaters in northern and eastern Germany for a year or two. In 1842, 1843 and 1845 he appeared in the Göttingen City Theater. It was there that he first met Therese Gauß in 1842. She herself said that when her father died in 1855 she had known Constantin Staufenau for 13 years.

retirement

Therese Staufenau in middle years.

In 1855, the year Gauß died, Staufenau's younger brother, the merchant Julius Staufenau, who left a wife and three children in Zörbig , also died. In 1856 Staufenau wrote to Therese's eldest brother Joseph : “For a year I have quit the stage, advising and helping the poor widow of my brother, whom I love very much, for the sake of the dear brother's little orphan , but above all out Consideration for our relationship, thus leaving the world of public exhibition. "

After Gauss's death, his daughter Therese, who had looked after him for 25 years, was in despair because “Everything has collapsed that still gave me a feeling of home and family! ... Everywhere I am a stranger and inwardly lonely, only forced to realize that I no longer belong to anyone! ”In August 1855 she traveled from Göttingen to Zeitz and met Staufenau and his older sister there, and“ in the small circle of them simple, warm people who met the stranger, the sad so touchingly warmly, as if I belonged to them ”, she realized once again what she had lost.

In her emotional crisis, she withdrew to Lake Geneva for eight months to take a cure to reflect on her future life. Between her friend, the theater man, and the daughter of the famous Gauss stood the almost insurmountable barrier of the unwritten rules of professional conduct. When she pondered “whether it could be right from me to sad opinions of a world that has been so little to me all my life and has given me even less, to sacrifice the loyal, warm heart of friendship, which was always close to me with unrelenting intimacy and devotion - A calm, firm decision has matured in me which, after so much pain suffered, promises me a peace that must be granted to me ! ”And so she made a courageous decision against a world full of incomprehension despite all the hostility to be expected after long anguish.

Last years

Therese Staufenau a year before her death.

A year and a half after Gauss's death, his daughter Therese gave her yes in Elsterwerda in September 1856 to Constantin Staufenau. The couple chose Dresden, an anonymous city in the greater vicinity of Constantin's homeland, as their future place of residence in order to avoid malicious gossip by “well-meaning” fellow men. They rented an apartment at Waisenhausstrasse 27, which they swapped for their own house at Carolastrasse 11 around Easter 1859. Thanks to her parents' inheritance, Therese was a rich woman, but Staufenau also had a small fortune. The couple enjoyed quiet happiness in the few years that Therese was still granted. "Lovingly cared for by her husband, surrounded by Göttingen memorabilia, she tried a second life". According to her husband's report, Therese suffered a great deal in the last years of her life, but in the last year of her life these ailments turned into a martyrdom:

“In her tormented body, it seems that the nameless, longstanding ailments of her mother as well as the heart disease and dropsy of her father have developed together! - For a quarter of a year she has only been able to speak in a soft whisper and hardly that any more, - every drop of food, every whispered word, every movement causes the most unspeakable pains, - while she cannot lie down, and yet the doctor thinks these are terrible Suffering as it has never before occurred to him in such a union, not a condition of rapid death, but could expand unpredictably! "

At the time of marriage, Therese was 40 years old, her husband 47 years old. The marriage remained childless. Therese Staufenau died on February 11, 1864 in Dresden at the age of almost 48 years of consumption . In a will in 1860, the couple declared each other to be heirs. Constantin Staufenau outlived his wife by 22 years. In 1865 he married the doctor's daughter Johanna Horack (1832-1891) as his second marriage, this marriage also remained childless. Constantin Staufenau died on November 14, 1886 in Dresden at the age of 77. He was buried together with his second wife Johanna in the family grave of the Horack family in the Trinity Cemetery in Dresden , IG department.

Gravestone of Constantin and Johanna Staufenau.

literature

  • G. Waldo Dunnington : Carl Friedrich Gauss. Titan of Science. A study of his life and work. New York: Exposition Press, 1955, pp. 374-375.
  • Theo Gerardy : CF Gauß and his sons. In: Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft Göttingen, Volume 3, 1966, page 27.
  • Silvio John: Little things worth knowing: "Pure, deep happiness". In: Home Calendar for the Land between Elbe and Elster, Volume 64, 2019, Pages 230–237.
  • Martha Küssner: The women around Carl Friedrich Gauß. In: Göttinger Monatsblätter, Volume 4, Number 37, March 1977, Pages 2–3, Number 38, April 1977, Pages 6–7, here: 6.
  • Heinrich Mack (editor): Carl Friedrich Gauß and his family. Festschrift for his 150th birthday. Braunschweig: Appelhans, 1927, page 91.
  • Letter from Therese Staufenau to Wilhelm Gauß, January 15, 1856, handwriting: Braunschweig, Stadtarchiv, G IX 21: 28, No. 9.
  • Joseph Weinberger: Carl Friedrich Gauß 1777–1855 and his descendants. In: Archives for kin research and all related areas, year 43/44, 1977/1978, issue 66, page 86.

Web links

Commons : Therese Staufenau b. Gauss  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ [1] ; [2] , December 1820.
  2. ↑ #Staufenau 1856 . - Gimnasial teacher: original spelling.
  3. ↑ Almanach for Friends of Drama, Years 4–17, 1839–1853, Deutscher Bühnenalmanach, Years 18–19, 1854–1855.
  4. ^ Letter from Constantin Staufenau to Joseph Gauß, April 26, 1856, handwriting: Braunschweig, Stadtarchiv, G IX 21: 28, No. 15.
  5. ↑ #Staufenau 1856 .
  6. ↑ #Staufenau 1856 .
  7. ↑ #Staufenau 1856 .
  8. ↑ # Küssner 1977b , page 6.
  9. ^ Letter from Constantin Staufenau to Christian Ludwig Gerling, December 1, 1863, handwriting: Göttingen, State and University Library, Gauß, letters D: Therese Gauß 28.
personal data
SURNAME Staufenau, Constantin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Weissenfels
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1886
Place of death Dresden