Friedrich Wilhelm Oak

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The edging of the Friedrich Wilhelm Oak in 2005.
In the spring.
Bivouac on July 31, 1809, one day before the battle near Ölper : Friedrich Wilhelm sitting on the ground (contemporary engraving by Eberhard Siegfried Henne ).

The Friedrich-Wilhelm-Eiche is a natural monument in Braunschweig and, together with a metal enclosure built around it in 1859, commemorates the bivouac of the Guelph Duke Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Oels on the evening of July 31, 1809, one day before the battle at Ölper .

history

During the time of the occupation of Braunschweig by Napoleonic troops from 1807 to 1813, the Braunschweig Duke Friedrich Wilhelm was on the run. In March 1809, with financial support from Archduke Karl von Österreich-Teschen , he set up the “Ducal Braunschweigische Korps” in the Bohemian town of Náchod , which went down in the history of the wars of liberation as the Black Troop. With him he marched against French troops and their allies fighting from Bohemia via Rumburg and Peterswald to Saxony and Franconia .

After the defeat of the Austrians in the Battle of Wagram , the “ train through Northern Germany ” began for the Black Crowd , on July 29, 1809, when Halberstadt was stormed . Then the unit marched to Braunschweig, where they arrived two days later.

On the night of July 31st to August 1st, 1809, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm camped with a large part of his corps (at that time still) in front of the city ​​walls under a tree at the Petritor . The next day there was a battle at Ölper. In the following days the corps moved on through northern Germany and finally embarked for England at Elsfleth . The Duke did not return to Braunschweig until December 1813, after the French had left. Not even two years later, on June 16, 1815, Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Oels was killed in the battle of Quatre-Bras .

The monument

Like his father Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm was extremely popular with the Braunschweig population. Duke Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand was fatally wounded in 1806 in the battle of Jena and Auerstedt against the French. Friedrich Wilhelm fell nine years later at Quatre-Bras, also against Napoleonic troops. In Braunschweig, the first memorial was erected for both of them on August 13, 1823, with the obelisk on Löwenwall , followed by the obelisk in Ölper on October 15, 1843 in memory of the battle there in 1809, and finally the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Eiche on Petritor in 1859.

The "Friedrich Wilhelm Oak" is a pedunculate oak ( Quercus robur ) that was planted on June 18, 1850 on the occasion of the Waterloo celebration on Petritorwall , near the corner of the street "Am Neuen Petritore". The acacia , under which Friedrich Wilhelm had originally stored in 1809, was felled soon afterwards. In the meantime (2012) the oak planted in 1850 has a trunk circumference of 2.36 m, a height of 23 m and a crown diameter of 15 m.

The design of the massive cast iron edging comes from the district architect Friedrich Maria Krahe and was executed by the court sculptor Theodor Julius Heinrich Strümpell . The black enclosure, originally closed all around, is now open on the left (as seen by the viewer) and has seven posts in the form of cannon barrels pointing upwards, each of which has the following decorations from bottom to top : a golden lion head (for the Brunswick Löwen ), above oak leaves , followed by the initials "FW" for Friedrich Wilhelm, above a crown , followed by a black laurel wreath and a gold star . Each cannon barrel ends with a cannon ball with a flame above it. In the middle of the enclosure, exactly in front of the trunk of the oak, the multi-colored, crowned, ducal coat of arms is raised, under which there is a metal plate with the inscription in capitals in gold : Here camped / Duke Friedr. Wilhelm / von Braunschweig a. Öls / in the middle of his warriors / in the night on d. 1 Aug 1809. is located. Gilded oak leaves are mounted to the right and left of the panel. On the right side of the fence there is an oval plaque with a laurel wreath and the inscription: Dem / Deutschen / Heldenfürsten . The left-hand side that is missing today read: The / Father of the Country / his loyal people / August 1, 1859 .

The fence was erected on August 1, 1859, the 50th anniversary of the battle near Ölper, but officially only according to a source on the afternoon of July 31, according to another source on August 1, 1861, in connection with the 1000-year-old Celebration of the city of Braunschweig inaugurated in the same year.

The duke's bivouac was engraved in steel by Eberhard Siegfried Henne between 1809 and 1828 and then sold as a hand-colored engraving on August 1, 1809 under the title Bivouac des Duke of Braunschweig Oels in front of Braunschweig . A copy is now in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum .

literature

  • Johannes Angel: Friedrich Wilhelm Oak. In: Luitgard Camerer , Manfred Garzmann , Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf (eds.): Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon . Joh. Heinr. Meyer Verlag, Braunschweig 1992, ISBN 3-926701-14-5 , p. 77 .
  • Jürgen Hodemacher: Braunschweig's streets, their names and their stories. Volume 1: Inner City. Cremlingen 1995, ISBN 3-92706-011-9 .
  • Friedrich Knoll : Braunschweig and the surrounding area: historical-topographical manual and guide through the monuments and art treasures of the city. 1881.
  • Götz Mavius: Monuments in the city of Braunschweig in the 19th century. In: Braunschweig City Archives and City Library. In: Braunschweig City Archives and City Library, Small Fonts. No. 7, Braunschweig 1981.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gustav von Kortzfleisch : The Duke Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig's train through Northern Germany in 1809. Ernst Siegfried Mittler and Son, Berlin 1894, ( digitized ( memento from March 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive )).
  2. ↑ a b c Friedrich Knoll: Braunschweig and the surrounding area: historical-topographical manual and guide through the monuments and art treasures of the city. P. 175.
  3. ↑ Braunschweig tree cadastre: Information on the Friedrich Wilhelm oak.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / geoportal.braunschweig.de  
  4. ↑ Johannes Angel: Friedrich-Wilhelm-Eiche. In: Camerer, Garzmann, Schuegraf, Pingel (eds.): Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon. P. 77.
  5. ^ Götz Mavius: Monuments in the city of Braunschweig in the 19th century. P. 24.
  6. ^ The inauguration of the monumental decoration of the Friedrich Wilhelm oak. In: Iris. No. 31, from July 28, 1861, quoted from: Braunschweigischer Kalender . 1975, Verlag Joh. Heinr. Meyer, Braunschweig 1974, p. 73.
  7. ↑ Virtual Kupferstichkabinett at kk.haum-bs.de

Web links

Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 5 ″  N , 10 ° 30 ′ 51.4 ″  E