Georg Friedrich Karl (Brandenburg-Bayreuth)

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Margrave Georg Friedrich Carl of Brandenburg-Kulmbach-Bayreuth

Georg Friedrich Karl von Brandenburg (-Kulmbach) -Bayreuth (born June 19, 1688 at Obersulzbürg Castle near Sulzbürg ; † May 17, 1735 in Bayreuth ) was Margrave of the Franconian Principality of Bayreuth from 1726 .

Georg Friedrich Karl was the eldest son of Christian Heinrich von Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1661–1708) and his wife Sophie Christiana, b. Countess von Wolfstein (1667–1737). He came from the Kulmbach branch line (the Kulmbach-Bayreuth branch) of the younger line of the Franconian Hohenzollern and succeeded Margrave Georg Wilhelm in the Principality of Bayreuth in 1726 . Due to this takeover of the government, his name contains von Brandenburg-Kulmbach-Bayreuth or even just from Brandenburg-Bayreuth , while his father is referred to as von Brandenburg-Kulmbach .

The Margrave Georg Friedrich Karl was written to (on June 6, 1730) as "Georg Friedrich Carl, Margrave of Brandenburg in Prussia, Magdeburg and Mecklenburg-Duke, Burgrave of Nuremberg, Graff of Hohenzollern and Schwerin, Lord of the states of Rostock and Stargard ”.

Youth and education

First Georg Friedrich Karl was tutored by his very religious mother ("a very pious woman in the sense of Pietism"), after which he received a thorough training in Bielefeld. From 1700 to 1704 he undertook extensive educational trips through Western Europe, which led him to Denmark , France and Holland , among others . He then studied for four years at the University of Utrecht . After the death of his father in 1708 he returned to his family, who had lived at Weferlingen Castle near Magdeburg from 1704 . The castle had been assigned to his family as an apanage by King Friedrich I in Prussia after the completely indebted father Georg Friedrich Karl had renounced the right of succession in the Franconian possessions of the Hohenzollern in favor of Prussia in the Schönberg Treaty .

Efforts to get a successor in Bayreuth

However, after the death of his father, Georg Friedrich Karl tried to reverse the waiver of inheritance and pursued the annulment of this contract. He received support from the Franconian estates, who feared that Prussia would break up the Franconian Empire . The Archbishop of Mainz (and Prince-Bishop of Bamberg) Lothar Franz von Schönborn and his nephew, Imperial Vice Chancellor Friedrich Karl von Schönborn, campaigned for the annulment of the Schönberg Treaty. However, this only finally succeeded in 1722 after long, difficult disputes and resulted in considerable financial burdens.

Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth

When Margrave Georg Wilhelm died in 1726 without male heirs, Georg Friedrich Karl was finally able to succeed him in the Principality of Bayreuth without any major difficulties. After taking over the government as the first regent from the Weferling line, he attached great importance to improving the shattered finances, which had also resulted from the dissolution of the Schönberg Treaty, and concentrated above all on internal government.

In terms of urban planning, there were important changes in Bayreuth: settlement activity was now also increased outside the medieval wall ring. This became visible in the construction of a new city gate and the construction of a road to the orphanage planned outside the city , which was later given the name Friedrichstrasse . Those willing to build were given free land and tax exemption for several years. This concept was only realized under his successor, his son Friedrich.

His commitment to promoting school and social institutions is remarkable. During his reign in 1731 work began on rebuilding the Münchberger Stadtkirche , which was destroyed in a fire in 1729. In the subsequent building, after another fire in the 19th century, individual items have been preserved, including a margrave's coat of arms with the initials of Georg Friedrich Karls, which is attached to the wall opposite the choir.

In contrast to many of his ruling contemporaries, Georg Friedrich Karl did not develop any political or military ambitions. Instead, as a committed pietist and supporter of August Hermann Francke, he worked intensively on the interests of religious life. Drama and all merrymaking were banned from the life of the court. In 1727, court preacher Johann Christoph Silchmüller , who was appointed from Halle, wrote in his diary: "Everything in the castle is as quiet as if it were a monastery". The dissatisfied and displeased, however, used to mock that the margrave and his "black coats" had turned the country into a house of prayer.

The heavy-blooded margrave preferred to retreat to Himmelkron Castle , a former monastery whose past suited his pious nature. As a result of his willingness to save, the Bayreuth Castle soon fell into a decline. In this joyless climate his son, the young Hereditary Prince Friedrich , brought home the Prussian Princess Wilhelmine as his wife in January 1732 . The couple's youthful, urgent joie de vivre did not get along well with the ascetic life at the Bayreuth court, so that there were soon serious tensions with the old margrave. He resented the absence of the longed-for male heir after the birth of her daughter Elisabeth Friederike Sophie in August 1732. He had his chamberlain von Voit instruct her that he would live long enough to annoy her.

Georg Friedrich Karl in the memoirs of his daughter-in-law

In the memoirs of his daughter-in-law Wilhelmine von Prussia , however, he is described as a mostly unpleasant contemporary who drank and made little effort for the fine arts. The court society seemed quite joyless to her. Above all against the background that the Bayreuth court had been described to her as the exact opposite in her time in Berlin - however, this description referred to the time of her predecessor Georg Wilhelm. Margravine Wilhelmine wrote that her father-in-law was thin, bow-legged, limited, selfish, false, jealous and arrogant. The antipathy was mutual. The margrave harassed his daughter-in-law in much the same way as her parents always had. At first he insinuated that the pregnant woman was only pretending to do so in order to be the center of attention. When it was obvious that Wilhelmine was actually in different circumstances, he said that he hoped it was a daughter, because according to the marriage contract he only had to care for a prince. His son took Wilhelmine's side and the drunken margrave hit the son with his stick, who, however, refused to put up with it - the two fought "like beer coaches".

Marriage and offspring

Georg Friedrich was married to Dorothea von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck (1685–1761) daughter of Friedrich Ludwig since 1709 . The couple divorced in 1716. The following children came from this connection:

⚭ 1731 Prince Alexander Ferdinand von Thurn und Taxis (1704–1773)
  • Friedrich (1711–1763), Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
⚭ 1. 1731 Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709–1758)
⚭ 2. 1759 Princess Sophie Karoline of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1737–1817)
⚭ 1734 Duke Ernst August I of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1688–1748)
⚭ 1734 Prince Karl Edzard of East Friesland (1716–1744)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Viviane Deak, Yvonne Grimm, Christiane Köglmaier-Horn, Frank-Michael Schäfer, Wolfgang Protzner: The first coffee houses in Würzburg, Nuremberg and Erlangen. In: Wolfgang Protzner, Christiane Köglmaier-Horn (Ed.): Culina Franconia. (= Contributions to economic and social history. 109). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09001-8 , pp. 245-264, here: pp. 259 and 261.
  2. ↑ City Archives Erlangen: 33 No. 3 P 1. pp. 169–171.
  3. ^ Paul Schaudig: Pietism and Separatism in the Aischgrund. 1925, p. 83.
  4. ^ A b c Will von Poswik, Herbert Conrad: Bayreuth . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1974, p. 12 .
  5. ^ Thea Leitner : Scandal at Hof , pp. 169-170, Ueberreuter, 1993, ISBN 3800034921
predecessor Office successor
Georg Wilhelm Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
1726–1735 		Friedrich
personal data
SURNAME Georg Friedrich Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brandenburg-Kulmbach-Bayreuth, Georg Friedrich Karl von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1688
PLACE OF BIRTH Obersulzbürg Castle, near Sulzbürg
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1735
Place of death Bayreuth