Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow

Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow

Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow (born October 4, 1678 in Berlin ; †  March 18, 1739 there ) was a Prussian field marshal and statesman .

Life

Grumbkow was a son of the Brandenburg General War Commissioner Joachim Ernst von Grumbkow , who belonged to the Pomeranian noble family Grumbkow . He entered the service of Brandenburg at a young age and took part in the wars against France . He already made it to major general here . King Friedrich Wilhelm I placed his absolute trust in him and appointed him a member of the Secret State Council, Secret State Council and Minister of War, and General War Commissioner.

Grumbkow then took over the head of the Prussian military administration and taxation and, together with the king, developed far-reaching reform activities in both areas, which on the one hand focused on the greatest possible increase in the army and the perfecting of the Prussian army administration, which soon became exemplary, and on the other hand on increasing the Tax power of the country targeted.

On behalf of and together with the king, Grumbkow improved the contribution and excise system, the guild and commercial system, the inner colonization and the administration of the cities, which were so important for Prussia. After the establishment of the General Directorate in 1723, Grumbkow became Minister of the First Department. In 1737 he was finally promoted to General Field Marshal.

The young Crown Prince Friedrich confided in Grumbkow that he felt too little attracted to women to be able to imagine entering into a marriage. In 1732, Grumbkow was influenced by the Austrian envoy Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff to thwart the crown prince's marriage, which inevitably led to an unfortunate foreign policy for Prussia. In the interests of Austria, he abused the king's trust and widened the gap between father and son at the top of Prussia.

In later years, the Crown Prince made peace with Grumbkow, who then tried honestly to bring about reconciliation with his father. However, Grumbkow died in 1739.

family

He was married to Sophia Charlotte de la Chevallerie (1681-1749). She was the daughter of the royal stable master Siméon de la Chevallerie (1635–1698). The couple had the following children:

• Charlotte Friederike († July 15, 1724) ⚭ Count Heinrich von Podewils (1696–1760)
• Charlotte Henriette (1714–1758) ⚭ Karl Ludwig von dem Knesebeck (1694–1760)
• Sophie Auguste ⚭ 1700 Thomas Albrecht von Bülow
• Amalie Louise (* 1726; † April 12, 1790)

⚭ Friedrich Ehrenreich von Hausen (1694–1745) (parents of Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich von Hausen )

⚭ 1746 Wilhelm Heinrich von Kalnein (* 1699; † May 13, 1747), Colonel

⚭ Johann August von Schroetter (1707–1773)

• Karoline Johanna (Johanna Friederike) ⚭ Friedrich von Flemming (* October 20, 1707; † March 22, 1777)

The family lived in a representative house built in 1725, which was located at Königstraße 60 near the castle . Grumbkow had taken it over, had it modernized and expanded. The house then called Palais Grumbkow was a meeting place for members of the Prussian court after Friedrich von Grumbkow's death until around 1815. It then fell into the ownership of the Prussian state, which converted it into a post office. It was torn down in 1881 and replaced by a new building on the same site. The representative portal with columns, round arches and decorative oriels was rebuilt from the original building. It was not until the end of the Second World War that the palace was destroyed by bombing and its rubble was cleared by 1950. The town hall passages were built on the site of the palace .

literature

• R. von Grumbkow:  Grumbkow, Friedrich Wilhelm v. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 22-25.
• Thomas Klein:  Grumbkow, Friedrich Wilhelm von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 213 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Reinhold Koser : Friedrich the Great's correspondence with Grumbkow and Maupertuis (1731–1759) . In: Publications from the Royal Prussian State Archives, Vol. 72 . Leipzig 1898 ( online ).
• Bernhard R. Kroener : Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow (1678-1739) . In: Kurt GA Jeserich and Helmut Neuhaus (ed.): Personalities of the administration. Biographies on German administrative history 1648–1945 . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1991, ISBN 3-17-010718-6 , pp. 13-17 .
• FL: The General von Grumbkow. A character image from the history of the states of the previous century . In: Die Grenzboten : magazine for politics, literature and art . tape 17 , no. 4 , 1858, p. 368-388 ( online ).
• Anton Balthasar König : Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow . In: Biographical lexicon of all heroes and military people . tape II . Arnold Wever, Berlin 1789, p. 82–87 ( Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow in the Google book search).

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow in the catalog of the German National Library
• Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkows correspondence with Frederick the Great in the digitization project of the Trier University Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Historic buildings - almost all large town houses and aristocratic palaces have been destroyed or demolished. But there are ideas to make their traces in old locations visible. Six examples from the old center. Picture-text article in Berliner Zeitung , based on elaborations by Benedikt Goebel (stadtforschung.berlin) and Lutz Mauersberger (berlin-mitte-archiv.com) October 9, 2017, p. 16.
2. ↑ Reinhard Alings: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - was Friedrich gay? In: Risk of Peace. Frederick the Great. The exhibition. ed. General Directorate of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg, Munich 2012, p. 238.
3. ^ Julius Kindler von Knobloch; Baden Historical Commission [Hrsg.]: Upper Baden gender book. Volume 1: A-Ha. 1894, p. 558, digitized
4. ^ Wilhelm Heinrich von Kalnein