Georg Wilhelm (Brandenburg-Bayreuth)
Georg Wilhelm von Brandenburg-Bayreuth (born November 16, 1678 in Bayreuth , † December 18, 1726 in Bayreuth) was Margrave of the Franconian Principality of Bayreuth from 1712 to 1726 .
Life
Origin and family
Georg Wilhelm, from the Hohenzollern family , was the only son of Christian Ernst von Brandenburg-Bayreuth and his second wife Sophie Luise von Württemberg .
He was married to Sophia von Sachsen-Weißenfels, who was almost fifteen at the time of the marriage in November 1699 . In 1701 she gave birth to her daughter Christiane Sophie Wilhelmine, four other children died early. After Georg Wilhelm's death, Sophia married Count Albert Joseph von Hoditz .
Georg Wilhelm was left without any male offspring. With his death the younger Franconian main line of the margraves ended in Bayreuth.
character
As Hereditary Prince Georg Wilhelm developed a pronounced passion for the Navy on his cavalier tour to Holland and England in 1695/96 . After his return he had the Brandenburg pond, a large carp pond in the northeast of the city, expanded into a lake fed by the warm Steinach . He had a hill built and naval battles with four ships up to 30 meters long. A comedy designed as a multi-day maneuver, in which the young prince commanded 2,000 soldiers and citizens, claimed several lives. Liselotte von der Pfalz wrote: "Madness probably rules at this court".
Despite the empty coffers, he joined the military as Margrave from 1712, indulged in his love of building and had no fewer than fifty operas performed in German. Georg Philipp Telemann was one of his commissioned composers. On the other hand , the absolutist sovereign, impetuously, with a tendency to excesses and madness, observed the strictest order in all processes.
The Bayreuth historian Heinritz mentioned his marriage to Sophia, “one of the most beautiful princesses in Germany” in 1842: “He loved her to the point of delight, she hated him”. The humiliations she inflicted on him and his - not unfounded - jealousy caused him to have her taken to the Veste Plassenburg to repent . Georg Wilhelm himself had a mistress in Christiane Emilie von Gleichen , with whom he fathered an illegitimate son, Georg Wilhelm von Plassenberg.
His daughter Christiane Sophie Wilhelmine gave birth to twins out of wedlock, who died shortly after birth, and was expelled from Kulmbach because the father of the twins was not befitting. In 1724 he had fifteen gypsy women who had not obeyed the deportation order executed on the gallows near Berneck .
Military career
Georg Wilhelm went through a military career, as a degree was eliminated due to his academic achievements. At the age of seventeen he was noticed as an extremely courageous soldier at the so-called Enghien meeting . In 1701 he became head of the Franconian cuirassier regiment . He successfully participated in numerous battles on the imperial side. He was seriously wounded by a musket ball during the siege of Landau fortress in 1702 . This injury never completely healed. As a margrave, he expanded the military considerably. After the War of the Spanish Succession , Georg Wilhelm hardly appeared in his military functions.
Brisk construction activity
In his youth as the Hereditary Prince, he founded the suburb of St. Georgen am See . It was a planned city (today part of Bayreuth ) in the baroque style with the order castle on the lake. He founded the Red Eagle and celebrated every year there his name day ( St. George ) with sumptuous feasts. The Red Eagle Order also had its own church (Sophienkirche), today's order church with the coat of arms of the members of the order of the 18th century. He was also an avid hunter. The hunting castles Kaiserhammer , Falkenhaube and Thiergarten , the Hermitage and Neustädtlein Castle (today the Eckersdorf municipality ) were built by him. He had the Red Eagle Hall designed in the Himmelkron hunting lodge .
literature
- Stefanie Gansera-Söffing: The castles of the Margrave Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg-Bayreuth , Verlag C. u. C. Rabenstein, Bayreuth 1992; ISBN 3-928683-05-5
- Hans-Joachim Böttcher: Christiane Eberhardine - Princess of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Electress of Saxony and Queen of Poland . Dresdner Buchverlag 2011. ISBN 978-3-941757-25-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Christoph Rabenstein, Ronald Werner: St. Georgen . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1994, ISBN 3-922808-38-7 , p. 19 .
- ↑ a b Christoph Rabenstein, Ronald Werner, op.cit. , P. 20
- ↑ Bernd Mayer: Little Bayreuth City History . Pustet, Regensburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7917-2266-5 , p. 51 .
- ^ Rainer Trübsbach: History of the City of Bayreuth . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1993, ISBN 3-922808-35-2 , p. 95 .
- ↑ Karl Müssel: Bayreuth in eight centuries . Gondrom, Bindlach 1993, ISBN 3-8112-0809-8 , p. 80 .
- ↑ a b Bernd Mayer: Kleine Bayreuther Stadtgeschichte , p. 48
- ↑ Bernd Mayer: Kleine Bayreuther Stadtgeschichte , p. 50
- ^ A b Stefanie Gansera-Söffing: The castles of the Margrave Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg-Bayreuth , Verlag C. u. C. Rabenstein, Bayreuth 1992; ISBN 3-928683-05-5 , p. 8
- ↑ cf. List of regiments of the Frankish Reichskreis
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Christian Ernst |
Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth 1712–1726 |
Georg Friedrich Karl |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Georg Wilhelm |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg-Bayreuth |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 16, 1678 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bayreuth |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 18, 1726 |
| Place of death | Bayreuth |