Skirmish at the dead height

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Skirmish at the dead height
Memorial stone for the battle on the Totenhöhe near Frankenberg
Memorial stone for the battle on the Totenhöhe near Frankenberg
date November 20, 1646
place near Frankenberg (Eder)
output Victory of the Hessen-Kasselschen and Swedish troops
Parties to the conflict

Hessen-Darmstadt, imperial troops

Hessen-Kassel, Sweden

Commander

Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein

Johann von Geyso , Gustav Adolf von Löwenhaupt

Troop strength
2 regiments, 800 horsemen 4,000 men, 2,000 men
losses

500 dead, 500-800 prisoners

The battle on the Totenhöhe took place on November 20, 1646 on the now largely wooded 374.7 m high hill "Totenhöhe" northwest of Frankenberg (Eder) between imperial and Hesse-Darmstadt troops on the one hand and Swedish and Hesse-Kassel troops on the other instead, with the latter gaining victory. The military defeat of Hesse-Darmstadt represented an important stage in the Hessian War , which was victorious for Hesse-Kassel and through which large parts of Upper Hesse remained with Hesse-Kassel. The battle was the largest military conflict in the Frankenberg area during the Thirty Years' War .

prehistory

The reason for the hostile position of the Hessian Landgraviates of Darmstadt and Kassel during the Thirty Years' War were disputes over the legacy of Landgrave Philip I in the broadest sense. After his death in 1567, the Landgraviate of Hesse was divided among his four sons. When the Hessen-Marburg line died out after only one generation with Ludwig IV in 1604 , the dispute between Hessen-Darmstadt and Hessen-Kassel over his legacy broke out. According to Ludwig's will, there was a division with the condition that all of Upper Hesse be left in the Lutheran faith. When Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel turned to Calvinism in 1605, Hessen-Darmstadt saw this regulation as broken and claimed all of Upper Hesse for itself. After Landgrave Ludwig V of Hesse-Darmstadt sided with the imperial family in 1621, the conflict began as a military force in the course of the Thirty Years' War. In the main accords signed in 1627, Hessen-Kassel waived the Upper Hesse claims.

Due to military successes on the Lower Rhine, Landgravine Elisabeth Amalie von Hessen-Kassel took the opportunity in 1645 to occupy parts of Upper Hesse. Their general Johann von Geyso advanced with 4,000 men via Butzbach to Marburg and occupied these places. In 1646, Landgrave Georg II of Hesse-Darmstadt recruited troops under the command of Count Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein , which Geyso expelled from his camp near Marburg. However, after joining forces, he succeeded in taking Kirchhain and Alsfeld . He was also reinforced by the Swedish general Gustav Adolf von Löwenhaupt and 2000 men who met him at Herbstein in Vogelsberg, advancing via Lippstadt and Korbach . After the relief of the city of Biedenkopf , which was besieged by Eberstein , the latter withdrew to Frankenberg, from where he wanted to invade Niederhessen with two regiments and 800 riders who had defected from the Electoral Saxony.

course

Coming from Marburg, Generals Geyso and Löwenhaupt reached a deep valley in the south-west of Frankenberg at night, probably the Bockental, and positioned their forces here on the morning of November 20th. An advance guard of the cavalry penetrated the city and switched off the guards at the Neustädter Tor. General Eberstein decided with his troops to flee in the direction of Westphalia and tried to escape from the city in two groups. The smaller, first group from the new town was wiped out in the area of ​​today's sports field by the Swedish troops under the head of the lion, who then advanced on the right wing to the dead height. Here he met the larger army under General Eberstein, who intended to escape over the footbridge at the Niedermühle in the direction of Hallenberg . The Darmstadt general was initially able to win the meeting; However, when Geyso's cavalry fell into his flank, he had to admit defeat and fled with 100 riders to the Westerwald .

The battle ended with the complete defeat of the Hesse-Darmstadt troops. The winners were able to take 800 prisoners, including Count Moritz von Nassau-Hadamar , as well as 1000 horses, nine flags and the baggage train. Another source speaks of 500 prisoners, 700 horses, 2 guns, 8 standards and all baggage. Among the 500 killed in action were General Wolf von Todenwart and a senior Swedish officer on the side of Hessen-Kassel.

consequences

The defeat moved Landgrave Georg von Hessen-Darmstadt to an armistice until April 1, 1647, which came about through the mediation of Duke Wilhelm of Saxe-Weimar . The Hessian War came to an end in the course of the peace negotiations in April 1648, whereby the division of Upper Hesse and the whereabouts of the corresponding parts at Hessen-Kassel were manifested. The battle at Totenhöhe was thus an important stage victory for Hessen-Kassel.

For the office of Frankenberg, which was already badly hit by the war, the fighting meant another enormous burden from which the city and office could only recover with difficulty. The region was ravaged by the armies moving through with the looting and devastation typical of the war , such as the partially destroyed winter crops. Letters of complaint to the Landgrave, who name both foreign and local troops as the perpetrators, bear witness to this. A survey of General Geyso confirmed that the town and office of Frankenberg had suffered more than the rest of the Upper Principality of Marburg in 1646/47. The damage caused by the Thirty Years' War was only overcome in the Frankenberger Land after about 100 years.

reception

A memorial stone, the so-called Schwedenstein ( 51 ° 4 ′ 23 ″  N , 8 ° 47 ′ 6 ″  E ), was erected at the scene of the event ; A metal plaque with the date of the battle is embedded in it. Furthermore, the field name "Totenhöhe" itself and the street name "Schwedensteinweg" in nearby Ederdorf remind of the events of 1646.

On May 8, 1932, a wooden refuge for hikers, in the style of a log cabin , was inaugurated next to the Schwedenstein, which was jointly built by the Frankenberg Transport and Improvement Association and the Frankenberg branch of the Upper Hessian Mountain Association .

Allegedly, the fallen in the battle were buried about 300 m southeast of the Schwedenstein in the so-called "Totenborn", a small wetland biotope on both sides of the F1 hiking trail, consisting of a pond in the west and a spring in the east. The folk tale tells of a Swedish general who haunts here at night, as well as of a ghostly battle from the Saxon Wars of Charlemagne .

Footnotes

  1. Inauguration of a refuge on the Totenhöhe near Frankenberg, 1932. Historical photo documents from Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

literature

  • Frank-Lothar Kroll: History of Hesse. (Beck's series: Wissen, Volume 2607). CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-53606-9 .
  • Helmut Wirwahn: The Frankenberg Office in the 30 Years War. (Frankenberger Hefte No. 3). 1994, ISBN 3-922225-24-1 .
  • Helmut Wissemann: Chronicle Frankenberg. Volume 1: From its beginnings to 1900. Kahm, Frankenberg (Eder) 1996, ISBN 3-922225-39-3 .

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