Ernst Carl Külbel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernst Carl Külbel (* 1794 ; † 1879 ) was a German non-commissioned officer in the Braunschweig body battalion under the "Black Duke", Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Oels . He took part on June 16, 1815 in the Battle of Quatre-Bras and on June 18, 1815 in the Battle of Waterloo . At Quatre-Bras he carried the fatally wounded Duke along with two comrades from the line of fire . His experiences on that day held the later master carpenter fixed in a short text that in the summer of 1860, 45 years after the death of the Duke to a trial for libel and indignity led to parison.

Life

Participation in the battle of Quatre-Bras and death of the "Black Duke"

Deployment of the Braunschweig body battalion as well as the wounding and death of the Black Duke (map from Külbel)
The house in which the Black Duke died (photo around 1890)

At the time of the battle, 21-year-old Külbel was corporal of the 2nd Company of the Life Battalion. When the Duke fell from his horse, hit by a bullet during the fighting, and was seriously wounded between the oncoming French cavalry and the rifle line of the body battalion, Külbel grabbed the hunter Reckau and the bugler Aue (r) To rescue the wounded and not to leave him to the French. Using their rifles as a stretcher, they brought him together behind the German lines. The Duke was conscious a few times, asked for water, among other things, and asked Major Friedrich Ludwig von Wachholtz , who arrived later, about the Duke's military deputy, Colonel Johann Elias Olfermann , before succumbing to his injuries a little later in a farmhouse near the battlefield .

Because of the fierce battle, the events surrounding the Duke's wound were only observed by a few and only a few knew who the injured was and who were the ones who had carried the Duke behind the Brunswick lines. This meant that the act of Külbel, Reckau and Aue (r) was soon forgotten, as the eyewitnesses no longer remembered the event and gradually died.

Colonel Olfermann described the events on the evening of the battle in his report from the battlefield to the Princely Secret Council in Braunschweig , but only mentioned the presence of Wachholtz, not the other people by name. Olfermann himself had not been present as he was on a more distant part of the battlefield at the time. In later years this led to the impression that Wachholtz had brought the wounded to safety behind the German lines. Wachholtz, on the other hand, does not seem to have contradicted this and the following year he published his own personal report under the title History of the Ducal Brunswick Army Corps in the campaign of the Allied Powers against Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815. By an officer of the General Staff . He also described the duke's death, but only mentioned himself by name, speaking of himself in the third person .

Johann Sporschil, on the other hand, explicitly mentioned the achievements of Külbel, Reckau and Aue ( sic !) In his work New Heroes Book for German Youth in 1840 containing the great deeds of the Germans in the Wars of Liberation of 1813, 1814 and 1815 . Also in Wilhelm Teichmüller's book on the history of the body battalion, published in 1858, the three were named as those who salvaged the duke.

Johann Friedrich Matthäis painting "Death of the Black Duke"

Friedrich Matthäis "Death of the Black Duke", written about 20 years after the battle, led in the summer of 1860 to a trial about the circumstances of the Duke's death.

The descriptions of Olfermann and Wachholtz seem to have been the more widespread and found an echo over the decades in the “fatherland” literature and subsequently in various artistic representations, for example. B. by Franz Joseph Manskirch or Dietrich Monten , but also abroad, so with the English painter William Heath .

Around 1835, the Dresden professor Johann Friedrich Matthäi created a painting for the "Waterloo Gallery in London " (probably the gallery that is located in Wellington's London residence, Apsley House ). He called it "Death of the Black Duke". This picture was exhibited around 1835 in an exhibition to commemorate the Black Duke in the Braunschweig Aegidienkirche , which at that time was not used as a church but as an exhibition room.

Külbel found out about the painting and went to the exhibition to inspect it. To his great surprise, he found that what was depicted did not correspond at all to the historical facts that Külbel knew as a direct participant in the event. Not only did Matthäi portray the body battalion as in the process of disbanding and fleeing, which Külbel vehemently denied, he also judged:

“The picture represented a complete parade; the most noble duke, surrounded by his general staff, as if on a great maneuver, took the center; the pallor of the face indicated that the moment of his wounding was chosen. According to the idea of ​​the painter or his reporter, he sinks to Messrs. Wachholz and v. Bause in your arms. - Were these gentlemen present? Had you stood by the Most Serene Lord at this dangerous moment? - I have to answer these questions definitely in the negative, because apart from me and my companions nobody was present. "

- EC Külbel: The last moments of our most noble duke…. Pp. 9-10.

Külbel, who in 1816, after four years of service, resigned from the body battalion and then worked as a carpenter in Braunschweig , had already heard his experiences about the Duke's death in lectures, e.g. B. in front of the citizens' association , portrayed publicly. Other participants, such as B. Major Wachholtz, had written down their experiences. In 1816, shortly after the Duke was wounded, Wachholtz described the situation as follows, speaking of himself in the third person and describing the incident as if he had given the order to bring the wounded to safety:

“[...] when he [the Duke] received the shot that threw him from his horse. By chance almost all of the officers on his staff were removed, only Major von Wachholz was nearby and had him carried back across the street behind the line by some people from the Leib Battalion, who had already taken him in. "

- Wachholtz: History of the Ducal Braunschweig Army Corps in the campaign of the Allied powers against Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815…. P. 30.

Description of the Duke's death by Külbel in 1859

Title page of Külbel's book published in 1859: The Last Moments of our Most Serene Duke Friedrich Wilhelm at Quatrebras, June 16, 1815. The 2nd edition was published in 1865 on the 50th anniversary.

In 1859, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the battle at Ölper and the march through northern Germany of the Black crowd under the "Black Duke" Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig in the summer of 1809, Külbel published a description of the last moments in the Duke's life, which he The last moments of our most noble Duke Friedrich Wilhelm at Quatrebras, June 16, 1815 . Külbel did this to describe the events from the perspective of an eyewitness. In the foreword of his report it says:

“[...] in order to counter a representation of these moments that is not entirely free from errors, as is also found, for example, in the campaign of Waterloo by C. Matthias, p. 33, using sources that are not entirely truthful. It must be expressly reminded here once again that the well-known picture that was published by CW Ramdohr in Braunschweig has not the slightest historical fidelity to it.

- Preface

According to Külbel's description, Wachholtz and other officers depicted in the painting were not even near the action. Wachholtz was at the time on a remote road and met only minutes later and walking one, as a parison and his two comrades Reckau and Aue (r) the badly injured and unconscious Herzog on an improvised stretcher made of guns on the streets of Namur to Nivelles transported. When Wachholtz asked who the injured person was, he was told that it was Duke Friedrich Wilhelm.

After the duke, who occasionally regained consciousness and spoke a few words, was initially stored in an open field not far from where he had fallen from his horse, he was transported to a nearby farmhouse when the shell fire increased , Called "La Baraque". There he died soon after in the presence of medical officer August Pockels , who officially declared the death.

Trial and verdict

The publication of Külbel's factual report in 1859 and his lectures on the events surrounding the death of the Duke of Brunswick in the previous decades, in connection with Külbel's harsh criticism of the artistic representation by Johann Friedrich Matthäi in the summer of 1860, led to an indictment of "insulting honor" the court in Braunschweig. The plaintiff was Lieutenant Colonel Robert von Wachholtz , the son of General Friedrich Ludwig von Wachholtz, who died in 1841 . He had reported Külbel, among other things, for insulting and defamation of his father's reputation.

Wachholtz cited two passages from Külbel's text, which he had already written around 1835 and which had been published in the magazine Eremit , as being particularly offensive . In one, Külbel described that Friedrich Ludwig von Wachholtz was far away on a street at the time of the Duke's death and not, as described by Wachholtz himself in 1816, in the immediate vicinity of the Duke. In the second passage, Külbel described the following incident after the publication of his report:

"Several days later, General von. Wachholz to me and made a request, the acceptance of which would have called into question my whole civil honor, and which I therefore rejected with indignation; for my honor had to be all the more dear to me, since I knew it to be immaculate. "

- NN: Judicial finding in the indictment of Major v. Wachholz [sic!] Against the master carpenter Ernst Carl Külbel. P. 10

Since the hunter Reckau was missing and the horn player Aue (r) had already died, only Külbel himself was available as an eyewitness. After taking evidence , the court found in the grounds of the judgment on July 4, 1860 that all of Külbel's statements were correct and that there was no evidence of any intent on the part of the accused that he had wanted to insult or defame the plaintiff's father. Külbel was subsequently acquitted .

swell

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eike Kuthe: "The last moments of our most noble Duke ...". In: Heike Pöppelmann (Ed.): When is a hero a hero? The Black Duke 1815/2015. In: Small series of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum , Volume 7, Wendeburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-932030-66-6 , p. 66.
  2. ↑ EC Külbel: The last moments of our most noble Duke Friedrich Wilhelm at Quatrebras, June 16, 1815. Schweiger & Pick, Celle 1859. In: Paul Zimmermann: Friedrich Wilhelm Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Oels in voices of his contemporaries Dr. K. Venturini, EC Külbel and Heinr. Conr. Stäffe. P. 92.
  3. ^ Julius von Pflugk-Harttung : Belle Alliance (Allied Army). Reports and information on the participation of German troops of Wellington's army in the fighting at Quatrebras and the battle at Belle Alliance. R. Eisenschmidt, Berlin 1915, p. 26.
  4. ^ EC Külbel: The last moments of our most noble Duke Friedrich Wilhelm at Quatrebras, June 16, 1815. In: Paul Zimmermann: Friedrich Wilhelm Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Oels in voices of his contemporaries ... p. 94.
  5. ^ Julius von Pflugk-Harttung: Belle Alliance (Allied Army). Reports and information on the participation of German troops of Wellington's army in the fighting at Quatrebras and the battle at Belle Alliance. Pp. 25-27.
  6. ↑ Friedrich Ludwig von Wachholtz: History of the Ducal Braunschweig Army Corps in the Campaign of the Allied Powers against Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 ... , p. 30.
  7. ^ Johann Sporschil: New book of heroes for the German youth containing the great deeds of the Germans in the Wars of Liberation of 1813, 1814 and 1815. Third volume. Published by George Westermann , Braunschweig 1840, pp . 192–193.
  8. ^ Wilhelm Teichmüller: History of the Duke Braunschweigischen Leibbataillon. Schwetschke , Braunschweig 1858, p. 89.
  9. ↑ NN: Judicial finding in the indictment of Major v. Wachholz [sic!] Against the master carpenter Ernst Carl Külbel. Braunschweig, July 4th 1860.
  10. ↑ NN: Judicial finding in the indictment of Major v. Wachholz [sic!] Against the master carpenter Ernst Carl Külbel. P. 2.
  11. ↑ Ernst Carl Külbel: The last moments of our most noble duke…. P. 7.
  12. ↑ NN: Judicial finding in the indictment of Major v. Wachholz [sic!] Against the master carpenter Ernst Carl Külbel. P. 1.
  13. ↑ EC Külbel: The last moments of our most noble duke ... , p. 9.
  14. ↑ NN: Judicial finding in the indictment of Major v. Wachholz [sic!] Against the master carpenter Ernst Carl Külbel. Pp. 2-4.

Remarks

  1. ↑ In the first edition from 1859 Külbel gives the name with Auer (p. 5 and 8), in the second edition from 1865 the name is changed to Aue (p. 6).
personal data
SURNAME Külbel, Ernst Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German non-commissioned officer of the Braunschweig body battalion
DATE OF BIRTH 1794
DATE OF DEATH 1879