Georg Friedrich Dentzel

Georg Friedrich Dentzel as a Knight of the Legion of Honor

Georg Friedrich Dentzel (from 1806 Georges-Frédéric Baron Dentzel ; born July 16, 1755 in Dürkheim , † May 7, 1828 in Versailles ) was a Lutheran pastor, Jacobin and French officer under Napoleon Bonaparte .

Live and act

Dentzel grew up as the son of a baker in Dürkheim in the Electoral Palatinate and studied Protestant theology at the universities in Halle an der Saale and Jena , supported by the Valentin Ostertag Foundation . As a young chaplain , he joined the Régiment de Royal Deux-Ponts , a French regiment of Duke Christian IV of Zweibrücken , which was recruited mainly in the Palatinate and Alsace and fought on the French side in the American War of Independence . Dentzel took part in the campaign from 1780 to 1783 and the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia in 1781 , which led to the decisive victory over the British colonial masters.

The experiences from the American struggle for independence sparked Dentzel's political commitment after his return to Germany. In Landau in the Palatinate, which had been a French fortress since 1648 with only brief interruptions and formed an enclave on German soil, the Evangelical Lutheran congregation elected him to the parish office in 1783 (“First Pastor and Senior in the Consistory ”). In 1784 he married the daughter of the First Mayor of Landau, Sybilla Louisa Wolff.

In addition to his social and pastoral work in the community, Dentzel was particularly active in Landau, France, during the revolution . In 1790 he founded a national guard and the "Society of Friends of the Constitution ", which later became the city's Jacobin Club . In 1792 he became a member of the National Convention in Paris and briefly its secretary in 1795. The Convention sent him to the departments of Moselle and Bas-Rhin as Representative en mission with far-reaching powers .

During the siege of Landau by the Prussians in the First Coalition War , Dentzel made a name for himself in defending the city, but came into conflict with the French fortress commanders. He was ordered to Paris and taken into custody on Danton's orders . Only the execution of Danton and Robespierre saved him from the guillotine . Under the rule of the Board of Directors , Dentzel was a member of the Conseil des Anciens .

In 1806 Napoleon brought Bonaparte Dentzel to his staff with the rank of Colonel because of his services in preparation for the battle of Jena and Auerstedt . Napoleon often used him for important diplomatic tasks on his campaigns. He was city commandant of Weimar , where he met Goethe and Wieland , as well as of Warsaw and Vienna . Here he ensured, among other things, that the French staff officers paid their last respects to the composer Joseph Haydn at his funeral as a representative of revolutionary France by walking behind his coffin.

In 1806 Dentzel was elevated to the status of Baron de l'Empire by the French Emperor and in 1813, shortly before the Battle of Leipzig , he was appointed officer of the Legion of Honor . Dentzel accompanied the emperor on most of his campaigns and witnessed the battle of Waterloo .

Even with the defeat of Napoleon, to whom he had remained loyal on his brief return from Elba , Dentzel's career had not come to an end: he was in 1815 by Louis XVIII. retired with the rank of maréchal de camp .

Until 1822, Dentzel was a member of the consistory of the " Consistorial Church of the Protestants of Augsburg Confession " in Paris. In 1828 he died on his estate Petit Trianon near Versailles, the former property of Madame de Pompadour , which he had acquired. He is buried in the Notre-Dame de Versailles cemetery.

Dentzel's son Louis (1786–1829), a staunch Republican, was unable to continue his military career after 1814 in restorative France and joined the Greek Revolution in the 1820s . A grandson of Dentzel was Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann , who was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III. Paris redesigned from an urban perspective. Dentzel was distantly related to the writer Friedrich Christian Laukhard .

literature

• Otto Mehringer: Georg Friedrich Dentzel. Pastor - Jacobin - General. A Palatine fate. Evangelical Press Association of the Palatinate, Speyer 1983 (without ISBN).
• Friedrich Christian Laukhard FC Laukhards, formerly Master of Philosophy and now Musketeer under the Thadderschen Regiment zu Halle, Leben und Fate, described by himself and published as a warning for parents and young students. Five parts, 1792–1802.
• Erich Renner: L'expédition particulière. The forgotten notes of field preacher Georg Friedrich Dentzel about the American War of Independence. Wismar 2013. ISBN 3864400813 .