Friedrich Georg August of Hessen-Darmstadt

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Prince Friedrich Georg August von Hessen-Darmstadt (* July 21, 1759 in Darmstadt , † May 19, 1808 in Groß-Gerau ) was a Prince of Hessen-Darmstadt , colonel and writer .

Life

origin

Friedrich Georg August was a son of Georg Wilhelm von Hessen-Darmstadt (1722–1782) and his wife Princess Maria Luise Albertine von Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg (1729–1818). His sister Friederike Caroline Luise von Hessen-Darmstadt was married to the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and the mother of his niece Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz , the Prussian Queen Luise.

His peer Prince Friedrich von Hessen-Darmstadt (1759-1802) was his cousin.

Training and work

His tutor to the prince was Justus Balthasar Müller (1738–1824) from 1769 to 1775 . Through him the intellectual training of the prince was covered and his role model also encouraged him to write. A stay at a university was apparently not planned and after a three-month trip to Italy in 1775, the Hessian prince embarked on a military career. He had had the rank of lieutenant in the Hessian bodyguard since 1767, and that of a major since 1769. In 1776 he was promoted to captain in the Hanoverian Guard Grenadier Regiment (retired as colonel in 1783) and finally in 1783 to colonel in the Royal French Infantry Regiment No. 101 Royal Nassau-Saarbrücken.

Like some other members of his family, Prince Friedrich Georg August was a Freemason .

His literary work includes Dariolette: A tragedy in five acts , printed in 1788. The title hero Count Dariolette is possibly an idealized portrait of the prince himself. After a short phase of stage production, which coincided with the heyday of the princely amateur theater in Darmstadt, he turned the prince of military-technical literature too.

death

He died of pneumonia. The attending doctor had initially only diagnosed a bad stomach. This misdiagnosis had a fatal consequence.

Awards

family

On September 4, 1788, in Griesheim , he married the commoner Karoline Luise Salome Seitz (born June 24, 1768 in Darmstadt, † June 20, 1812 there), daughter of Christian Wilhelm Seitz, who was first court wig maker , then lackey and valet of Landgrave Ludwig IX . , the Prince's uncle, was in Pirmasens and Darmstadt. The bride met Friedrich Georg August when he and Friedrich Schiller were walking across the snow-covered market square, while she was having a snowball fight with her friend and happened to meet the prince with a snowball. In such a morganatic marriage the children did not receive the privileges of the higher-ranking husband, but the lower position of the wife. Therefore, the landgrave ennobled the wife to "wife of Friedrich". At the court of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt there was no room for the married couple of different status, so they first set up in the forester's house in Griesheim and later in Groß-Gerau .

Accordingly, their son did not have the name and title of a Hessian prince, but that of "Freiherr von Friedrich". Ferdinand August Freiherr von Friedrich (1800–1879) became the Grand Duke of Hesse as Chamberlain in 1827 . He is buried in the family crypt of Landgrave Friedrich August von Hessen . He married Anna Werr (1804–1844) in Würzburg in 1826 , with whom he had their daughter Agnes Franziska Ferdinande Freiin von Friedrich (1828–1889). The latter married the ducal Nassau chamberlain and first lieutenant Arwied Freiherr von Witzleben (1823-1883) in Miltenberg in 1847 and died in Bucharest . She had two sons and a daughter who was married to an engineer in Bucharest.

literature

  • Friedrich Georg August, Prince of Hesse (1759–1808). In: Hessische Biographien , Vol. 1 (1918), pp. 489-493.
  • Carl Knetsch : The House of Brabant: Genealogy of the dukes of Brabant and the landgraves of Hesse. Part 2. The descendants of Philip the Magnanimous . Philipps University of Marburg 1918, p. 334 f. ( Digital )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Estate in the Hessian State Archives: manuscripts (D 4,494,3), dramas (d 4,495,3) and pamphlets (D 4,495,5)
  2. ↑ Biography of: lu:  Müller, Justus Balthasar . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 641 f.
  3. ↑ List of all the Brothers of the Strict Observance Order, 1828, p. 104.
  4. ↑ Dariolette: A Tragedy in Five Acts , 1788 ( digitized version )
  5. ↑ Literary Communication in the Territorial State, p. 421 ff.
  6. ↑ a b c Monument of the most tender love
  7. ↑ Grand Ducal Hessian Government Gazette , 1827, p. 100.
  8. ↑ Hessen-Darmstadt, Friedrich Georg August Prince of in the Hessian biography
  9. ↑ Family tree
  10. ↑ Family tree
  11. ↑ Family tree
personal data
SURNAME Hessen-Darmstadt, Friedrich Georg August von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, colonel and writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1759
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1808
Place of death Gross-Gerau