Friedrich Lothar von Stadion

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Friedrich Lothar Graf von Stadion-Warthausen (* April 6, 1761 , † December 9, 1811 in Chodenschloß ) was a canon and high official in the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Bishopric of Würzburg . He later entered the Austrian civil service and worked, among other things, as a diplomat.

Friedrich Lothar Graf von Stadion-Warthausen

Life

He came from the aristocratic family Stadion . The father was Franz Conrad von Stadion. The mother was Ludovika von Zobel zu Giebelstadt-Darmstadt. His younger brother was the later Austrian court and state chancellor Johann Philipp von Stadion . Because he fell ill with tuberculosis at an early age , from which he also died later, he had to renounce the birthright and was designated for the clergy.

Together with his brother he went accompanied 1782/83 by the common educators and steward Joseph Hieronymus Karl Kolborn on Grand Tour while getting to Joseph II. , Frederick the Great and Louis XVI. know. Both brothers were influenced by the Catholic Enlightenment . They had relationships with reformers and enlighteners. Friedrich had contacts with the representatives of the Weimar Classics , but above all with the Romantics . The relationship with Bettina von Arnim was particularly close . They called him one of the "most wonderful men in the world". Maximilian von Montgelas , however, described him as a priest in the strictest sense of the word and as pious.

He was cathedral capitular in Würzburg and later also in Mainz . In Mainz he also became a secret council and finally president of the government. At times he was administrator of the Lieutenancy in Erfurt and in 1797 became rector of the University of Würzburg . In 1798 he became envoy of the Würzburg monastery at the Rastatt Congress . He tried in vain to save the high pens. He also did this in legal publications. However, he was one of the members of the Imperial Deputation who voted on December 9, 1798 for the acceptance of a French ultimatum and thus for secularization .

After the secularization of the Würzburg Monastery, he lost his post as rector of the Würzburg University. Instead, he was accepted into the Bavarian civil service after the state was incorporated into Bavaria . He was responsible for spiritual affairs, including the dissolution of the monasteries, monasteries and spiritual authorities in the former bishopric.

He later entered the Austrian service. At times he was the Bohemian Reichstag envoy in Regensburg. After the Peace of Pressburg , his brother, who had meanwhile become Foreign Minister, commissioned him with an expert opinion on the question of whether Francis II should continue to hold onto the crown of the Holy Roman Empire . He was later commissioned to provide another expert opinion. This was supposed to clarify to what extent the crown could be claimed by others after it was laid down by Francis II and whether there was a risk that the House of Habsburg could lose its previous privileges and possibly be used as an imperial burden. Both reports played a role in preparing for the laying down of the crown.

A short time afterwards he was the Austrian envoy in Bavaria. He was well acquainted with Maximilian I Joseph and the ministers of Montgelas and Franz Karl von Hompesch . He knew Montgelas from the environment of the Illuminati Order . However, it is unclear whether he, like his brother, belonged to the secret society. He should try to bring Bayern to Austria's side. At the same time, he set up an information and espionage network directed against the French in southern Germany. Finally it became clear to him that Bavaria would not change sides and leave the Rhine Confederation in a coming war . This made Bavaria a potential enemy of Austria.

He urged his brother that Austria must attack France and her allies while Napoleon Bonaparte and his troops were bound in Spain. He then wrote closely observing reports to his brother that sharply criticized the measures taken by the Montgela government. The fact that Friedrich Lothar falsely reported that the armies of the Rhine Confederation secretly sympathized with Austria also contributed to Austria's decision to strike.

During the Fifth Coalition War in 1809 he was Plenipotentiary Army Commissioner for Germany and General Director of the Austrian main army under Archduke Karl . After the defeat he withdrew from the public to his possessions in Bohemia .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrike Landfester: Self-care as statecraft. Bettine (sic!) Von Arnim's political work. Würzburg 2000, p. 120.
  2. ↑ Clemens Maria Tangerding: The urge to the state. Living worlds in Würzburg between 1795 and 1815. Cologne a. a. 2011, p. 171.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Burgdorf: A world view loses its world. The fall of the Old Kingdom and the generation from 1806. Munich 2006, pp. 125–126.
  4. ↑ Eberhard Weis : Montgelas. Vol. 2. Munich 2005, p. 24, 387ff.
  5. ^ Karl Otmar von Aretin : From the German Empire to the German Confederation. Göttingen 1993, p. 133.
personal data
SURNAME Stadium, Friedrich Lothar von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canon and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1761
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1811
Place of death Chodenschloss