Georg von Derfflinger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Georg von Derfflinger

Georg von Derfflinger (born March 20, 1606 in Neuhofen an der Krems , Archduchy of Austria , † February 4 July / February 14,  1695 greg. In Gusow ) was the Elector of Brandenburg Field Marshal and Governor of Western Pomerania . Georg Derfflinger was born in Austria in 1606 to poor Protestant parents with whom he had to leave his homeland due to the Thirty Years' War .

Life

origin

He came from a wealthy farming family who owned the farm at Allhaming in Upper Austria . His father Hans Georg Dörffling was a wine tavern in Neuhofen and belonged to the Protestant denomination .

Georg Derfflinger's sister Regina Dörffling married Christoph Crinesius (1584–1629), who was pastor in Gschwendt and Neuhofen, and was expelled from Bohemia in 1624 . He was then professor of theology and oriental languages ​​at the University of Altdorf .

family

In 1646 Georg Derfflinger married Margarete Tugendreich von Schapelow , who gave birth to a daughter (Beate Luise), but died early. In his second marriage to Barbara Rosina von Beeren , he had two sons and four daughters. His second son Karl Freiherr von Derfflinger died on June 25, 1686 in the Great Turkish War at the siege of Ofen (1684/1686) (now Budapest ) and the first son Friedrich Freiherr von Derfflinger (1663-1724) married Ursula Johanna von Osterhausen , died childless.

Derfflinger crypt in Gusow

All of his daughters married sons from long-established noble families , such as von der Marwitz , von Dewitz and von Zieten .

His descendants include members of the princely houses of Hohenzollern , Mecklenburg-Schwerin , Reuss-Köstritz , Schönburg-Hartenstein , Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein , but also Otto von Bismarck , who always boasted of this descent.

Georg von Derfflinger died in Gusow in 1695, after having taken part in a campaign against Louis XIV five years earlier at the age of 84 . He was buried in the church of Gusow.

Military career

Georg von Derfflinger at the age of 64 (around 1670)
Derfflinger's command staff as general Friedrich Wilhelm

During the Thirty Years' War he was in the armies of various states. He served the longest in the Swedish army, which came to the aid of the Protestant cause, under the leadership of Gustav II Adolf . Here he made it from baggage boy to cavalry colonel in the rank of general. As a member of the staff of Field Marshal Carl Gustav Wrangel , he ended the war and was dismissed from the Swedish service.

The Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg took him into his service in 1654. Though he had never had school education, in later years he was one of the few educated officers of his rank and time. Friedrich Wilhelm entrusted him with numerous military offices and tasks which, thanks to his experience, he was able to complete to his satisfaction. He achieved great things in building up the Brandenburg army after the war, mainly taking care of the cavalry and artillery . Presumably the contacts he was able to make in the armies of many countries were the reason for his work as a diplomat. In 1674, Georg was Derfflinger of Emperor Leopold I in the realm baron conditions applicable. In 1675 he won the battle of Fehrbellin over the Swedes under Charles XI. when he carried out the successful coup against Rathenow and the subsequent pursuit of the enemy ( hunt across the Curonian Lagoon ). In 1682 he became governor of the Küstrin fortress.

Although Georg von Derfflinger was of low class, he made it to field marshal and was ennobled.

He was the namesake of the Imperial German battle cruiser SMS Derfflinger , which took part in the Skagerrak Battle and was badly damaged in the process. Numerous streets in Germany and Austria were named after him.

possession

The Great Elector gave Georg von Derfflinger a building site at Köllnischer Fischmarkt 4 in Berlin . The General Field Marshal had a palace built there in 1693, which was named after the owner: Palais Derfflinger . The architectural feature of the three-story building was an attic with six figures of ancient deities. This was the first time that the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia had a palace adorned with statues on the facade.

The high income from his positions as General Field Marshal, Privy Councilor of War, Governor of Western Pomerania, Supreme Governor of all fortresses and the supreme governor of three regiments (an infantry, cuirassier and dragoon regiment) made it possible for Derfflinger to expand his possessions considerably. By marrying, honoring and buying, he acquired six Brandenburg and 14 East Prussian estates including two houses, one in Königsberg and one in Berlin (as shown above). Gusow , Platkow , Wulkow near Trebnitz, Hermsdorf, Klessin and Schildberg were in his possession in the Mark Brandenburg and in East Prussia they included Quittainen , Grünhagen, Mäcken, Skollmen, Matzweissen, Pergusen, Weinings, Groß-Thierbach, Klein-Thierbach, Krönau, Köllming, Greissings, Lägs and Trauten.

Song from Derfflinger

The old Derfflinger
The Stettiners had undertaken
a pair of scissors hanging off
the field marshal as a mockery.
"Wait, I want you to
take a measure with my yardstick,
cross million shock schwernoth."

Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg

Theodor Fontane zum Derfflinger

In the five-volume work, walking tour through Mark Brandenburg by Theodor Fontane , there is also a separate chapter The old Derfflinger .

“How the youth of the young Derfflinger went here can only be speculated. "He grew up in fear of God and honesty, and his father, in order not to complain about anyone, let him become a tailor." This is how Pauli reports in his "Life of Great Heroes" and in spite of all indignant erudition, it remained in the hearts of the people. And why we forcibly remove every pretty poetic trait in our traditions!

Meanwhile, a tailor or not, he was by no means long. The hero was in and wanted out. In addition, those days were the best days. Everything was at war, and Bohemia was its real arena. "

- Theodor Fontane, Walks through the Mark Brandenburg, The Oderland

Fontane's descriptions are based on the biographical sketch Derfflinger (1875) by Ernst Graf zur Lippe-Weißenfeld .

Bust in the Siegesallee

For the former Berliner Siegesallee , the sculptor Fritz Schaper designed a marble bust of Derfflinger as a side figure of monument group 25 to the central statue for the Elector Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg, unveiled on March 30, 1901. The bust shows the General Field Marshal with the marshal's baton, but overall more as a noble Hofmann. For the representation, Schaper used, among other things, a copper engraving by Johann Hainzelmann from 1690, which very likely corresponds to the first picture above.

Honors

literature

Web links

Commons : Georg von Derfflinger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brockhaus Enzyklopädie , 1988, Volume 5, p. 265: Birthdays and deaths
  2. ↑ Hans Hülber: Georg Derfflinger - His ancestors and the living space of his early youth , OÖHbl 37 (1983), pp. 23–33.
  3. ^ A b Hans Saring:  Derfflinger, Georg Frhr. from. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 605 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ^ Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg , Volume 2 ( The Oderland ) "The Oderbruch and its surroundings" - Gusow: The old Derfflinger, Section 5
  5. ↑ The Moltke of the Great Elector .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Junge Freiheit , July 1, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.jungefreiheit.de  
  6. ↑ The ship's rescuer becomes an undertaker . In: Nordwest-Zeitung , July 24, 2009.
  7. ↑ Historical buildings - almost all large town houses and aristocratic palaces have been destroyed or torn down. But there are ideas to make their traces in old locations visible. Six examples from the old center. Picture-text article in Berliner Zeitung , based on elaborations by Benedikt Goebel (stadtforschung.berlin) and Lutz Mauersberger (berlin-mitte-archiv.com) October 9, 2017, p. 16.
  8. ^ Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg , Volume 2 ( The Oderland ) "The Oderbruch and its surroundings" - Gusow: The old Derfflinger - first published in 1879 in the revised 3rd edition
  9. ↑ Uta Lehnert: The Kaiser and the Siegesallee. Réclame Royale . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-496-01189-0 , p. 192
personal data
SURNAME Derfflinger, Georg von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Derfflinger, Georg Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brandenburg General Field Marshal
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1606
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuhofen an der Krems
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1695
Place of death Gusow