Friedrich Wilhelm von Götzen the Younger

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Friedrich Wilhelm von Götzen the Younger (born January 20, 1767 in Potsdam , † February 29, 1820 in Bad Kudowa ) was a Prussian lieutenant general and governor of Silesia .

origin

His parents were the imperial count Friedrich Wilhelm von Götzen the Elder of the same name . Ä. , Prussian Lieutenant General, Adjutant General of Frederick the Great and Governor von Glatz and Luise, born. from Holwede , used. by Mellin . Friedrich Wilhelm belonged to the Protestant Silesian branch of those von Götzen . Together with his brother Adolf Sigismund, he inherited the fiefs of Obersteine , Scharfeneck and Tuntschendorf in the County of Glatz from his father .

Military career

Military Reorganization Commission, Königsberg 1807

Friedrich Wilhelm von Götzen the Elder J. joined the Leib-Karabinier-Regiment as a Junker in 1782 and was promoted to lieutenant two years later. In 1798 he was a Rittmeister in the Bila Hussar Battalion and rose to a staff officer in 1801 .

In 1804 Götzen was adjutant to the wing of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II , who in 1805 sent him on a special mission to the court of Electoral Saxony in Dresden . Here he met the influential publicist Friedrich von Gentz , from whom he was encouraged in his anti-Napoleonic resistance.

In 1806 Götzen was commissioned to organize the resistance against the French troops and to defend Silesia. At the same time, Colonel Ferdinand Prince zu Anhalt-Pless was appointed Governor General of Silesia and Götzen was appointed his deputy. Because of the hopeless military situation, Götzen tried to negotiate with Austria. In the Bohemian town of Nachod , around 45 km west of Glatz, he met Friedrich von Gentz at the palace of the Duchess of Sagan on January 12, 1807 , who was supposed to mediate a conversation with the Austrian Foreign Minister Johann Philipp von Stadion .

At the beginning of February 1807 General Lefebvre-Desnouettes took Schweidnitz and threatened Glatz. Prince Anhalt-Pless, the governor general, fled to Bohemia and took up quarters with his entourage in Nachoder Schloss . On February 13, Götzen received the royal instruction to go to Vienna immediately and to start negotiations on an alliance between Austria and Prussia. Four days later Götzen arrived in Vienna disguised as a courier. After a friendly conversation with Stadion, Emperor Franz II granted him the requested audience on February 22nd , during which Götzen found that Austria wanted to remain neutral and not to be persuaded to enter the war against Napoleon. After further negotiations, however, he received the promise of secret delivery of weapons, uniforms and military equipment, with which the resistance against the French attacks should be strengthened. On March 23, Götzen returned to Glatz and three days later received notification of his appointment as governor general of the province of Silesia .

In the Silesian campaign , Götzen opposed the troops of the Confederation of the Rhine , who were fighting for France and were commanded by Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte , from the fortress at Glatzer . Through warfare and negotiations, he split up the opposing troops and prevented the fortresses of Glatz, Silberberg and Cosel from being surrendered to the enemy until they were rendered obsolete by the Peace of Tilsiter . Before that, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel (May 15, 1807).

At the beginning of November 1807 Götzen traveled to Memel to meet his king Friedrich Wilhelm III. Report back. On December 16, 1807, he was appointed to the military reorganization commission, which was supposed to rebuild the army and whose chairman was General Scharnhorst . Götzen took the position of the reform opponent Ludwig von Borstell and was commissioned to reorganize Silesia militarily. In Konigsberg , where the court camp of Memel had been moved, the king gave him the order to draw up a mobilization plan for the artillery . Here he also had conversations with the Freiherren vom Stein . In August 1808 he returned to Glatz and accelerated the expansion and repair of the Silesian fortresses.

retirement

Because of serious illness and exhaustion, Götzen, who was also a knight of the Pour le Mérite order, was no longer able to perform his official business fully from 1809 and repeatedly retreated to Kudowa ( Cudowa ) to relax at the castle of his brother-in-law Michael von Stillfried , where he was also visited General Scharnhorst several times. In 1810 he received the Red Eagle Order III. Class. With the promise of a re-employment after his recovery, he received the requested farewell on August 12, 1812, but remained chief of the 2nd Silesian Hussars .

On January 15, 1813, Götzen made himself available to the king again for the wars of liberation . However, his health no longer permitted military use. After Prussia was divided into four military governorates in March 1813, he was again appointed military governor for Silesia, but had to surrender this office to August Neidhardt von Gneisenau in June 1813 . Since Friedrich Wilhelm III. lived from June 9th to 29th in the neighboring parsonage in Tscherbeney , it can be assumed that Götzen also took part in the political talks held there.

Although no longer in active service, Götzen was appointed lieutenant general in 1816. In 1819 he acquired - together with his brother Adolf Sigismund von Götzen - the rule Tscherbeey , which also included Kudowa and the castle there. Here he sought recovery for his weakened health, but died in 1820 at the age of 53. His memory in the Prussian army resulted in the name being given to the 2nd Silesian Hussar Regiment No. 6 by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1889. The now Hussar Regiment Graf Goetzen (2nd Silesia) No. 6 had been in France since 1819 after returning from the occupation army Squadrons stationed in Upper Silesia. At this time (1809-1820) Götzen was the nominal head of the association established by him in 1809. The regiment was merged in Leobschütz in 1889. Only the 3rd squadron remained in Oberglogau, from where, after 70 years, it was relocated to Ratibor in 1894 to a new barracks building.

Monuments

In his honor, a monument in the form of an obelisk was erected in Glatz in the following years. After the German population was expelled after the Second World War and Silesia came under Polish administration, the memorial was not destroyed, but redesigned so that it could serve as a memorial for the Red Army during the subsequent communist era .

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the 2nd Silesian Hussar Regiment No. 6, a monument to the Count was erected in Leobschütz on November 14, 1908, based on a design by the Berlin sculptor Eugen Börmel . The statue shows the lieutenant general in contemporary hussar uniform with equestrian standard. The monument was removed and scrapped by the Poles after 1945.

tomb

Götzen found his final resting place - like his brother, who outlived him by 27 years - in the cemetery of the Protestant chapel on the Kudowa Castle Hill. This was destroyed after the Second World War and leveled in the early 1970s. Parts of the idol tombs that were thought to be lost were found a few years ago on the property of the rectory in Czermna ( Tscherbeey ).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Wagner, Unter dem Schwarzen Adler: Pictures from Silesia`s Military History, Berlin 1905, p. 176
  2. ↑ Historical photo of the monument from 1906
  3. ↑ Dieter Bingen , Hans-Martin Hinz , The Looping: Destruction and Reconstruction of Historic Buildings in Germany and Poland , p.196 on the fate of the Glatzer Goetzen monument after the Second World War
personal data
SURNAME Götzen, Friedrich Wilhelm von der Younger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goetzen, Friedrich Wilhelm von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian lieutenant general, governor of the province of Silesia
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1767
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1820
Place of death Bad Kudowa