Ferdinand (Anhalt-Koethen)

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Duke Ferdinand of Anhalt-Koethen
Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Anhalt-Koethen, lithograph by Josef Lanzedelli the Elder. Ä.

Duke Friedrich Ferdinand von Anhalt-Koethen (born June 25, 1769 in Pless ; † August 23, 1830 in Koethen ) was the ruling Duke of Anhalt-Koethen , one of the Duchies of Anhalt , and a Prussian lieutenant general .

Life

Ferdinand was the second son of Prince Friedrich Erdmann von Anhalt-Köthen-Pless of the House of Ascania , and Countess Louise Ferdinande to Stolberg-Wernigerode born. In 1786 he joined the Prussian army , where he quickly made a career as a member of a ruling house. In the first Coalition War 1792-1794 already Major , he was wounded three times, including twice heavy, and with the Order le Mérite Pour excellent. From 1795 to 1802, as lieutenant colonel, he was chief of the Fusilier Battalion No. 10 or the Upper Silesian Fusilier Brigade, which consisted of three battalions.

After his father's death in 1797, Ferdinand took over the government in the inherited Upper Silesian principality of Pless . In the following years Ferdinand undertook with the consent of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Travels to Bohemia , Ukraine and Bucharest . Promoted to colonel in May 1803 , he commanded the Schimmelpfennig Hussar Regiment (H 6) from October 1805 .

In the war of 1806/07 and in the wars of liberation

In the autumn of 1806 Ferdinand went to war against France at the head of his regiment . After the battle of Jena , he fought his way through enemy lines with his regiment near Zehdenick . Ferdinand turned to Pomerania , where he collected scattered soldiers and 3,000 horses, which he brought to the king in East Prussia . In November 1806 he was pleased to appoint him major general and sent him with special powers as governor general to Silesia . Ferdinand's attempt to terrorize Breslau with a corps he had organized failed through no fault of his own. Because other undertakings to recapture Silesia remained unsuccessful, Ferdinand began negotiations for an armistice with the French commander-in-chief Jérôme Bonaparte at the beginning of February 1807 , but had to retreat to Bohemia after the fall of Schweidnitz and allow the Austrians to disarm him. Thereupon the king put Ferdinand's previous deputy, Count Götzen, in his place. Offended, Ferdinand asked for his departure , which the king only granted him after the peace of Tilsit . Then he lived again in Pless and traveled to Holland and France.

At the beginning of the liberation war of 1813 Ferdinand wanted a command as a general in the mobile army, but the king gave him the task of setting up the Silesian Landwehr because of his poor health .

His first marriage to Luise von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck (1783-1803) ended with the death of his wife. In 1816 he married Countess Julie von Brandenburg (1793–1848), the daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm II and his “wife on the left hand” Countess Sophie von Dönhoff . King Friedrich Wilhelm III. awarded Ferdinand the Order of the Black Eagle .

Governing Duke of Anhalt-Koethen

On December 16, 1818, after the death of his second nephew, the underage Duke Ludwig von Anhalt-Koethen , Ferdinand came to the government of this duchy , whereupon he left the civil rule of Pless to his brother Heinrich . Friedrich Wilhelm III. appointed him lieutenant general in 1819 and decorated him with the Iron Cross, 2nd class .

Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Anhalt-Köthen has bordered with Anhalt-Bernburg , Anhalt-Dessau and Prussia. There were customs disputes with Prussia, which Ferdinand first brought before the Federal Assembly in 1821 . He tried hard to develop Nienburg (Saale) as Anhalt-Köthen's export port in order to bypass Prussian customs on the waterway. It was not until 1828 when the Anhalt states joined the Prussian-Hessian Customs Union that the dispute was settled.

On a trip to Paris in 1825 Ferdinand and his second wife Julie converted to Catholicism . His unsuccessful efforts to recatholize, as well as his attempts to give the country's Protestant church a hierarchical character, aroused dissatisfaction on many sides. The Belgian Jesuit Pierre Jean Beckx (1795–1887) was called to Koethen as ducal confessor and court chaplain . Duke Ferdinand addressed in 1826 a delegation of his country at the Holy. Chair and appointed the energetic Catholics Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange (1799 to 1868), a relative of his wife, the charge d'affaires .

Ferdinand is known to posterity for his many years of promoting homeopathy from its very beginning. In 1821 he offered a permanent residence to Samuel Hahnemann , who wandered homelessly around , by appointing him to the ducal personal physician. Hahnemann and his large family stayed in Köthen for almost fourteen years, and it was here that many of his most important works were created before he married a French patient in 1834 - widowed for four years now - and moved with her to Paris, where he died in 1843.

Ferdinand's interest in agriculture was mainly focused on sheep breeding, as wool was an important export item from Anhalt-Köthen. In Grimschleben near Nienburg, the court builder Gottfried Bandhauer built an architecturally significant classicist sheepfold. In view of the scarce pasture land in Anhalt, Ferdinand founded the sheep breeding colony " Askania Nova " in southern Ukraine (Tauride steppe, north of the Crimean peninsula) in 1828 , which still exists today under this name as a nature reserve for steppe animals.

Under Duke Ferdinand's government, Bandhauer built, among other things, the Ferdinand's building of Köthen Castle from 1823 to 1828 , the short-lived monastery and hospital of the Brothers of Mercy in 1829 , and shortly before his death in 1830 the Catholic court and parish church of St. Maria .

The Duke maintained a natural history cabinet and in 1821 acquired the ornithological collection of Johann Friedrich Naumann for 2000 Reichstaler .

Ferdinand, knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece since May 22, 1830 , died childless in Köthen on August 23, 1830 and was buried in the crypt of the Marienkirche. His brother Heinrich took over the government . Ferdinand's widow Julie settled in Vienna accompanied by the court chaplain Beckx.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Friedrich von Schulte:  Klitsche, Theodor Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 199 f.
predecessor Office successor
Ludwig Duke of Anhalt-Köthen
1818 - 1830 		Heinrich
personal data
SURNAME Ferdinand
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Friedrich Ferdinand of Anhalt-Koethen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke of Anhalt-Koethen
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1769
PLACE OF BIRTH Pleas
DATE OF DEATH 23 August 1830
Place of death Koethen