Georg Ernst from and to Gilsa

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Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa around 1775, oil on canvas

Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa (born June 18, 1740 in Ziegenhain ; † May 9, 1798 in Treysa ) was a Hessian officer , war council and chief collector in the service of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel . His surviving diary entries and letters, in which the participation of Hessian troops in the American War of Independence on the side of the British Crown , are an important source for the history of the second half of the 18th century.

Life

Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa was born on June 18, 1740 in Ziegenhain. He belongs to the older main line of the Gilsa family , that of the Oberhof Gilsa .

His father Eitel Philipp Ludwig von und zu Gilsa (1700–1765) was a lieutenant general in Hesse and Kassel . His mother was Anna Juliane Sabine Sophie von und zu Gilsa, geb. by Scholley (1702-1765). Gilsa had four siblings. His older brother Carl Friedrich Eitel (1729–1759) died in the Seven Years' War . In addition to his sister Anna Margarethe (1736–1768), he also had an older sister, Friederike Caroline (1732–1804), and a younger brother, Wilhelm Friedrich Eitel (1744–1784). He had a close relationship with the last two.

In 1754 Gilsa entered the military. There he was with the infantry . From 1756 he was stationed with Hessian-Kassel subsidiary troops in southern England for a year. During his stay there he visited London and the surrounding area. During the Seven Years' War he served in his father's regiment as a captain and adjutant and took part in numerous battles: in 1757 in the Battle of Hastenbeck and the Siege of Harburg, in 1758 in the Battle of Krefeld , in 1759 in the Battle of Bergen and the Battle of Minden and in 1760 at the battles near Warburg and Kampen Abbey . In 1761 he lost his left arm in the Battle of Vellinghausen and had to retire from active military service.

He studied from 1762 law , first at the High School Herborn and 1764 at the University of Marburg . In Marburg he came into contact with Freemasonry . He became secretary of the lodge "To the crowned lion". He was also named as a member in the mother box of the same name in 1778. In the course of his life he took part in various lodge events.

Gilsa showed great interest in contemporary literature. He was a member of the "Literature Society" founded by Carl Wilhelm Robert in Marburg in 1766 for the care and research of the German language and literature and a member of a reading society, probably founded by himself.

After he had finished his studies, he married Henriette Luise Charlotte von der Malsburg (1748–1767) on December 31, 1766 , daughter of the Hessian lieutenant general and commandant of the Marburg fortress, August Carl von der Malsburg. The correspondence she received, consisting of 140 letters, began when she met in September 1765 and ended with the death of Henriette Luise Charlotte. She died at the age of only nineteen with the birth of her daughter Caroline Friederike Franziska (1767–1772) in December 1767 in childbed .

In February 1767 Gilsa was appointed to the Hessian council of war and a year later to the knightly conqueror in Treysa . In 1772 his unmarried sister Friederike Caroline bought a house in Treysa, in which the siblings then lived together and she ran the household for her brother. His daughter died in the same year. After moving, he did not take any longer trips. An exception was a trip to Göttingen in 1789, where he visited the botanical garden and library and visited the historian August Ludwig von Schlözer and the lawyer Georg Ludwig Böhmer . Otherwise he was only on the move in central and north Hesse.

Gilsa took part in the Hessian-Kassel regional parliaments in 1773/74, 1778/79 and 1785/86 and was also present at other rural and knightly meetings. During his stays in Kassel, some of which lasted for months, he attended ballet, theater and opera performances and frequently visited the park on the Weißenstein , the menagerie , the orangery and the marble bath .

Through correspondence or visits he used to socialize with other noble families in the county; He was close friends with the von Urff family . But he also had contact with non-nobles, such as some pastor families.

In 1794 he was appointed commander of the Ziegenhain regional regiment and colonel in the First Coalition War against France , but was no longer involved in the war.

Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa died on May 9, 1798 in Treysa and was buried in the family crypt in Gilsa.

The sources

Georg Ernst von and zu Gilsa's letters and diary entries have been preserved in the family archive. In 2007, the diary entries and the letters were rediscovered during the subsequent inspection. The originals are now in the Hessian State Archives in Marburg . There is also a digitized version in the Hessian State Office for Regional History .

Letters (1772–1784)

The letters are preserved in a leather folder with three fascicles . One of them is titled "Letters from My Friends, Especially America". A total of 129 letters from the years 1772–1784 to Gilsa as well as some copies of letters to others and copies of newspaper articles have survived. Most of them date from 1775. The letters from the end of December 1777 to the end of June 1781 have been lost. The letters were written in Germany, America, England and France, the copies come mainly from people from North America. There are a total of 29 authors with whom Gilsa had different relationships, both relatives and due to joint military service, study times or common interests in literature or Freemasonry. The letters are exclusively of a private nature; they handle personal affairs, gossip, illness, and professional issues. Most of the time, however, is the use of Hessian troops in the American War of Independence . For the first time, with these letters, there is a private correspondence covering the entire duration of the war. With this the official correspondence as well as the received diaries can be checked and corrected. They also give individual insights, contemporary perceptions and assessments of the deployment by those involved in the war. Another topic is Freemasonry. In the letters, developments and events in various lodges, also outside the Landgraviate of Hesse, are discussed. You will also be informed about the internals of the Kassel Lodge "Zum krönten Löwen". Literature also plays a role. Here the quality of various magazines, but also Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's work “ The Sorrows of Young Werther ” is discussed. The family and friendship relationships of Gilsa can also be understood through the letters.

Diaries (1754–1798)

The diary entries of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa begin on February 2, 1754 when he joins the army and end in January 1798. The first entries up to 1784 are in a bound leather band with the inscription "Mein Journal"; then the entries were continued in thin notebooks. There were eight booklets in all; the seventh, with entries from September 1790 to July 1792, has been lost. Gilsa kept his diary continuously without major interruptions. There are also letters and letters that Gilsa copied into his diary or whose receipt he documented there. In addition, in 1777 he kept in his diary a "Journal of my repeated hard illnesses" in which he entered observations and treatments of his illnesses.

The diaries show a wide variety of topics, from the Seven Years War to the academic training of a young nobleman, and are of importance for various fields of research. The first book is interesting for the “new military history” because it describes the course of the Seven Years' War from the perspective of a relatively inexperienced combatant. The course and student life of a young nobleman can be reconstructed from the notes on the course. The reports on his occupation as a war councilor and conqueror provide information about the course of and disputes in state parliament negotiations, personal networks and social life in their environment and are therefore significant for the political history as well as the constitutional and administrative history of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel. Another topic is the American War of Independence, its contemporary perception and the evaluation of the deployment of Hessian troops. Furthermore, the First Coalition War and the lodge events of the Freemasons are topics in the entries. Other fields of research for which the diary is important are university and educational history as well as the history of medicine.

literature

  • Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa (=  studies and materials on constitutional and national history . Volume 26 ). Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-921254-83-7 .
  • Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): War in America and Enlightenment in Hesse. The private letters (1772–1784) to Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa (=  studies and materials on constitutional and national history . Volume 27 ). Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-921254-82-0 .
  • Friedrich Wilhelm von and zu Gilsa: On the history of the family von and zu Gilsa . In: Friedrich-Wilhelm von und zu Gilsa, Rainer Scherb (Ed.): Gilsa 1209 to 2009. Pieces of the mosaic of an 800-year village history . Schwalmstadt-Treysa 2009, ISBN 3-9808942-6-6 , p. 92-120 .

Web links

Commons : Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gilsa, Georg Ernst von und zu. Hessian biography (as of February 22, 2013). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on July 5, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Diary entry of February 2, 1754, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, p. 3.
  3. ↑ Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. IX – XXI, here: SX
  4. ↑ Diary entry from July 25, 1757, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. 19–20.
  5. ↑ Diary entry of November 30, 1757, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, p. 26.
  6. ↑ Diary entry of June 23, 1758, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. 33–35, here: pp. 33–35.
  7. ↑ Diary entry of April 13, 1759, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. 47–48.
  8. ↑ Diary entry from August 1, 1759, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. 57–59.
  9. ↑ Diary entry of July 31, 1760, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, p. 119.
  10. ↑ Diary entry from October 16, 1760, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (eds.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, p. 130.
  11. ↑ Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. IX – XXI, here: p. XII.
  12. ↑ a b c Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. IX – XXI, here: pp. XIV – XV.
  13. ↑ a b c Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. IX – XXI, here: p. XVI.
  14. ↑ Diary entry from September 7, 1789, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Noble life at the exit of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. 450–451, here: p. 451, footnote 277.
  15. ↑ Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. IX – XXI, here: pp. XII – XIII.
  16. ↑ Signature Letters: HStAM Best. 340 from Gilsa No. 123, Signature Diary Records 1754–1785: HStAM Best. 340 from Gilsa No. 125, Signature Diary Records 1785–1798: HStAM Best. 340 from Gilsa No. 126.
  17. ↑ Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): War in America and Enlightenment in Hesse. The private letters (1772–1784) to Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. XIII – XXVII, here: pp. XIII – XIV.
  18. ↑ Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): War in America and Enlightenment in Hesse. The private letters (1772–1784) to Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. XIII – XXVII, here: pp. XVII – XXVI.
  19. ↑ Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. IX – XXI, here: p. IX.
  20. ↑ Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann: Introduction, in: Holger Th. Gräf, Lena Haunert, Christoph Kampmann (ed.): Noble life at the end of the Ancien Régime. The diary entries (1754–1798) of Georg Ernst von und zu Gilsa , Marburg 2010, pp. IX – XXI, here: pp. X – XV.
personal data
SURNAME Gilsa, Georg Ernst from and to
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, colonel, council of war and conqueror
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1740
PLACE OF BIRTH Goat grove
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1798
Place of death Treysa