Georg Friedrich (Waldeck-Eisenberg)

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Georg Friedrich von Waldeck (with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. John)
Georg Friedrich von Waldeck, engraving by Jacques Blondeau (1683)

Georg Friedrich von Waldeck (born January 31, 1620 in the Arolsen Palace ; † November 19, 1692 ibid) was a German field marshal and Dutch captain general . In 1682 he was the first family member of the Waldeck family to receive the title of prince. This was personally tied to him - in contrast to the hereditary prince title that the Waldeckers received 30 years later.

Live and act

Georg Friedrich came from the family of the Counts of Waldeck . He was the third son of Count Wolrad IV of Waldeck zu Eisenberg (1588–1640) and his wife Anna von Baden-Durlach (1585–1649), a daughter of Margrave Jakob III. from Baden-Hachberg .

Georg Friedrich (copper engraving, anonymous)

Waldeck entered the service of the States General in 1641 and in 1651 as Lieutenant General in the service of Brandenburg , where in 1653 he also came to head the state administration as a leading minister. As head of the Brandenburg war system and close domestic and foreign policy confidante of the Elector, Georg Friedrich tried to reorganize the Brandenburg highest government authority, the Privy Council , as well as the court, domain, army and tax administration with the aim of to make the elector and his finances independent of the status of the estate and thus to enable the armaments necessary for an active policy. He gave Brandenburg politics a new direction when he broke away from the imperial party and tried to bring about an alliance of Protestant princes. As early as December 10, 1652, he was made a Knight of St. John by the master master at the time, Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen . In 1654 he received the Kommende Lagow .

On June 23, 1656 he concluded the Marienburg Alliance in Marienburg between Brandenburg and Sweden , in which the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich Wilhelm pledged to assist in the war against Poland and received the diocese of Warmia and four Polish voivodships from Sweden as fiefs . In the three-day battle near Warsaw in the Second Northern War , from July 28 to 30, 1656, Georg Friedrich commanded the Brandenburg and Swedish cavalry ; his younger brother Wolrad , as major general, commanded three infantry brigades in the center of the Swedish-Brandenburg order of battle. In 1658 Georg Friedrich resigned from the service of the Great Elector after he had signed the Treaty of Wehlau with Poland in 1657 and promised to switch from the Swedish to the newly formed Polish-Danish side.

In 1664, after the early death of his nephew Heinrich Wolrad , he inherited the Waldeck-Eisenberg sub- county and the Cuylenburg county .

Under Karl X. Gustav of Sweden, Georg Friedrich von Waldeck fought in his last two campaigns against Denmark . He was then German General Field Marshal in 1664 in the Battle of Sankt Gotthard ( Mogersdorf ). Under Wilhelm III. from Orange-Nassau he became Chief of Staff of the Dutch Army.

In 1682 he was raised to the rank of imperial prince by Emperor Leopold I as Prince of Waldeck . The low financial strength of his principality, which had already forced his ancestors to pledge their income many times, forced Georg Friedrich to borrow 1 million marks from Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Kassel .

During the Turkish War in 1683 Georg Friedrich von Waldeck led the district troops of Bavaria , Franconia and Upper Hesse to the relief army in Vienna to end the Turkish siege . From 1685 he worked as an independent military leader under Duke Karl von Lothringen and Elector Max Emanuel von Bayern.

Georg Friedrich was in 1688 by Wilhelm III. appointed captain general of the Netherlands when he left for England . In 1689 he defended the Lower Rhine against the French in association with Brandenburg in Belgium . He won at Walcourt , but was defeated by Marshal Montmorency-Luxembourg in 1690 in the Battle of Fleurus and in 1691 in the Battle of Leuze .

In 1689 he was elected Lord Master of the Brandenburg Balli of the Order of St. John.

Georg Friedrich von Waldeck died on November 19, 1692 in Arolsen and was buried in Korbach . Because his four sons had all died before him, his sub- county went to his cousin Christian Ludwig von Waldeck-Wildungen on the basis of an inheritance contract concluded in 1685 , who thus reunited both parts of the county in one hand for the first time since 1397.

The Georg Friedrich barracks in Fritzlar is named after him.

progeny

From his marriage on November 29, 1643 in Cuylenburg to Elisabeth Charlotte (1626–1694), a daughter of Count Wilhelm von Nassau-Siegen (1592–1642):

Epitaph

The inscription on the grave in the Nikolaikirche in Korbach says:

Georg Friedrich by God's grace, Prince of Waldeck, Count in Pyrmont and Cuylenburg.
Master of the Order of St. John in the Mark, Saxony, Pomerania and Mecklenburg. Provost of Halberstadt Cathedral and Commander in Lagow.
The Holy Imperial Majesty and the United Dutch Provinces Field Marshal General and Governor of Maastricht.

Historical sources

The most important documents about the life and political work of Georg Friedrich are kept in the Hessian State Archives in Marburg . Correspondence with important statesmen as well as memoranda on imperial constitutional and military issues contains the holdings 117 Political Archives of Prince Georg Friedrich, established in the 19th century . Further documents are handed down in the various holdings of the Waldecker Older Chancelleries (inventory group 115).

literature

Web links

Commons : Prince Georg Friedrich von Waldeck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz35706.html
  2. ↑ Berliner Revue , Volume 11, p. 408.
  3. ↑ a b Adolf Wilhelm Ernst von Winterfeld : History of the Knightly Order of St. Johannis from the Hospital in Jerusalem: with special consideration of the Brandenburg Ballistic Office or the Sonnenburg Lordship. Berendt, Berlin 1859 pp. 741-743. ; P. 780.
predecessor Office successor
Moritz of Nassau Master of the Balley Brandenburg of the Order of St. John
1689 - 1692 		Karl Philipp of Brandenburg-Schwedt
personal data
SURNAME Georg Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Georg Friedrich Prince of Waldeck; Georg Friedrich Waldeck-Eisenberg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Reichsfeldmarschall and Dutch captain general
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1620
PLACE OF BIRTH Arolsen
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1692
Place of death Arolsen