Georg von Frundsberg

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Georg von Frundsberg, portrayed by Christoph Amberger
Georg von Frundsberg (left) and his son Caspar. Illustration from the 2nd edition of his biography from 1572.
Introduction to his biography from 1572.
Mindelburg

Georg von Frundsberg , even George and Jörg and from Fronsberg and Freundsberg (* 24. September 1473 in Mindelheim ; † 20th August 1528 ibid) was a South German soldier and mercenary leader in Imperial - Habsburg services. He is considered one of the most important German infantry tacticians and war entrepreneurs of the early modern period . His name is closely linked to the protracted battles between the Habsburg Emperors Maximilian I and Emperor Charles V for supremacy in northern Italy . Frundsberg is well known for its the dictum become slogan " Many enemies ', much honor'! ".

Live and act

Georg von Frundsberg was born in 1473 as the son of the captain of the Swabian Confederation Ulrich von Frundsberg and his wife Barbara von Rechberg on the Mindelburg in Swabia , which his family, originally a Tyrolean noble family of the von Freundsberg (also Fronsberg, Frundsberg or Fruntsberg ) only acquired in 1467 would have.

He entered the war service early. In 1492 he followed his father in the army of the imperial governor, Margrave Friedrich II of Brandenburg-Ansbach , who was supposed to perform the eighth to Albrecht IV of Bavaria . But since he gave in in time ( Peace of Augsburg ), there was no fighting. In the spring of 1499 Frundsberg took part in the Swabian War against the Swiss and had the opportunity to gain initial experience in warfare. In the same year he commanded the army of the Holy Roman Empire , which the German King and later Emperor Maximilian I sent the Duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro , to aid against the French.

The victories of the Swiss over the imperial made him realize that the era of the armored rider was over and the focus of the fight was shifting to the infantry . Maximilian I appointed him field captain of Tyrol , where he created a powerful infantry from pikemen based on the Swiss model . This later earned him the nickname "Father of the Landsknechte" (which was sometimes also applied to Maximilian himself). Frundsberg perfected the tactic of the so-called Geviert- or violence heap , which was an extremely deeply graduated formation of spikes. He wrote several works on war tactics such as The Faithful Advice . In 1500 he married Katharina von Schrofenstein, with whom he had a daughter, Anna von Frundsberg, and a son, Kaspar von Frundsberg ; he later became a general himself.

Because of his success in the Landshut War of Succession , he was knighted by Maximilian I in 1504 . He had led a Landsknecht regiment from Memmingen into the decisive battle of Wenzenbach . With his well-drilled troops, Frundsberg achieved further important victories. In 1513 he and a Spanish contingent defeated a numerically superior Venetian army at Creazzo . His much-quoted motto "Much enemy ', much honor'!" Comes from this battle.

On February 24, 1517 or 1518, his first wife died. On September 11, 1519 he married his second wife, Anna von Lodron, with whom he had another daughter, Siguna von Frundsberg.

At the Diet of Worms in 1521 he is said to have said to Martin Luther “little monks, little monks, you are walking a difficult course!” (See also Wikiquote ). Theological subtleties were alien to him. Nevertheless, he joined the new doctrine of the faith, but apparently only when he was dissatisfied with the papal policies directed against the emperor behind the scenes.

In September 1521 the imperial army found itself threatened by superior French forces at Valenciennes. Frundsberg later described his decision to retreat instead of a battle offered out of a feeling of honor as his “most honest act of war”, which was enforced in the war council.

During the Italian Wars in April 1522, Frundsberg and his mercenaries, as part of the imperial army under Prospero Colonna near La Bicocca, northwest of Milan, faced a French army with a large contingent of Swiss travelers . The attack by the Swiss was repulsed with so heavy losses for the Swiss that they left the French army after the battle.

The font Trewer Rath and Bedencken. An old well-tried and experienced war man , attributed to Frundsberg and dated to the end of 1522, describes the tactic of the front lengthening in order to encompass the hitherto enormous depth of the Gevierthaufen . The first five or six members are the ones who win or lose the battle, and the more people “can come to work” due to the broad order, the easier it is.

Frundsberg celebrated its most spectacular success in the Battle of Pavia in 1525 on February 24, 1525, where 25,000 men, including many Swiss and mercenaries, had holed up under King Francis I as a siege force and oppressed the weak garrison of the city. Spaniards and Germans inflicted a devastating defeat on the enemy, with Frundsberg's 6,000 veterans from Swabia and Tyrol having a decisive share.

With almost 20,000 soldiers, the now 53-year-old Frundsberg marched against the troops of the Pope, who was allied with France, in 1526 and defeated them at Brescia at the end of the year .

Frundsberg always addressed his subordinates as “sons” or “brothers”, and they saw in him the “father of the mercenaries”. But in the winter of 1526/1527 the situation was tense. His men had not received any pay for weeks. Georg von Frundsberg had pledged his family silver for the equivalent of 12 million euros to pay the mercenaries; However, Emperor Charles V denied his loyal general the urgently needed financial support. Only the prospect of sacking Rome kept the troops together. However, when rumors of an impending peace treaty with the Pope began to circulate, the open revolt broke out in the field camp near Bologna on March 16, 1527 : The mercenaries chased their commanders out of the camp, banded together in front of Frundsberg's tent and kept shouting “Money ! Money! ”The intrepid captain stepped in front of the raging crowd and tried to calm them down. But when the angry men continued to scream for pay and even threateningly pointed their spears at him, the physically and mentally emaciated man was at the end of his strength. Struck by a stroke, Frundsberg sank onto a drum and lost consciousness. This sudden misfortune brought the mutineers back to their senses. They shouldered their skewers and quietly parted. A short time later they let their anger run free at the “ Sacco di Roma ”. Unable to regain his former physical strength, Frundsberg was brought back to Germany after a long stay in Italian hospitals.

Georg von Frundsberg could not get over the misfortune of Bologna and died on August 20, 1528 in his ancestral castle Mindelheim. "Three things," he said, "should deter everyone from war: the corruption and oppression of the poor, innocent people, the disorderly and criminal life of the soldiers and the ingratitude of the princes."

Reception and Legacy

Bust in Helden-Allee of the Heldenberg Memorial
Frundsberg statue at Mindelheim town hall
  • In honor of him, his bust is in the Valhalla .
  • A statue of Frundsberg was unveiled at the town hall in Mindelheim in 1903.
  • Joseph Pargfrieder had a tin bust erected in Heldenallee at the Heldenberg Memorial in 1849 .
  • Through the imperial resolution of Franz Joseph I of February 28, 1863, Georg von Frundsberg was added to the list of the "most famous warlords and generals of Austria worthy of perpetual emulation" , in whose honor and memory there was also a life-size statue in the general hall of that time The newly established Imperial and Royal Court Weapons Museum (today: Heeresgeschichtliches Museum Wien ) was built. The statue was created in 1866 by the sculptor Peter Lutt (1828–1907) from Carrara marble and was dedicated by Emperor Franz Joseph himself.
  • The SMS Frundsberg was a corvette of the Austro-Hungarian Navy which was used as a training ship until 1905.
  • The Catholic Austrian Student Union (K.Ö.St.V.) Frundsberg is located in Schwaz ( Tyrol ) . The independent association founded in 1900 is committed to the Republic of Austria and the Christian approach to life. Her motto is Much Enemy - Much Honor
  • The Catholic student union Gothia, founded in 1909, merged in 1946 into the k.ö.St.V. Babenberg Klagenfurt in the MKV also carried this motto.
  • The Frundsberg barracks in Vomp near Schwaz in Tyrol is home to a pioneer company and a helicopter base.
  • On October 3, 1943, the SS Panzer Grenadier Division 10 set up in February 1943 was renamed the 10th SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg" by a Führer order .
  • The Frundsberg Festival takes place in Mindelheim every 3 years , with the residents returning to the Middle Ages.
  • The Tübingen Frondsbergstrasse commemorates Frundsberg's bombardment of the castle and the city of Tübingen in April 1519 , which then had to surrender.
  • In the Innsbruck district of Reichenau , Freundsbergstrasse is reminiscent of Georg von Frundsberg.
  • In the Munich district of Neuhausen, Frundsbergstrasse has been named after Georg von Frundsberg since 1892.

The Fruntsperg fähnlein was founded in Schwaz in 1900 to keep up the memory of the famous farmhand leader . The Fruntspergfähnlein is not a club, but a round table in which only 24 Sassen may be included. The admission is made by secret balling with black and white balls, if there is only one black ball, the candidate is rejected forever. Sassen auf Fruntsperg are only allowed to become business people and house owners from Schwaz. Exceptions are only made for the chronicler , the feather fox and the castle captain . In the chronicles there are therefore mocking references that the flag also needs people who can write and read. The Sassen on Fruntsperg meet once a month for a clan , which takes place according to a precisely defined ritual and has been taking place since 2003 in the newly built knight's hall at Schloss Freundsberg , the family seat of the Fruntsperg family. All Sassen have their own names, which go back to old former castle names of the Fruntsperger. The Fruntspergfähnlein only rides out on very special occasions, for example when the city of Schwaz needs a representative honor guard for festive events. On such occasions the Sassen wear heavy armor, which is modeled on the mercenary uniform of the late Middle Ages. The respective colonel and field captain bears the name of the famous Landsknechtsführer Jörg von Fruntsperg, currently Jörg IX.

Georg von Frundsberg is also the subject of a "Pseudo-Landsknechtslied [s]" with the title Görg or more often Jörg von Frundsberg cites us , which Wilhelm Kutschbach (born 1905) from Göttingen wrote around 1930 (melody and text). The song was popular with the Bündische Jugend, was included in the Hitler Youth songbook in 1933 and was also very well received by the SS. After the Second World War, Friedrich Deisenroth , music officer in the Bundeswehr, created a concert variant entitled Georg von Frundsberg (released as LP in 1967).

In the 2001 historical film The Medici Warrior (Italian original title Il mestiere delle armi ), directed by Ermanno Olmi, the death of the papal mercenary leader Giovanni de 'Medici in battle with the imperial troops of Charles V under the leadership of Georg von Frundsberg depicted as a historical example of the change in warfare in the Renaissance through the introduction of firearms into battle. Georg von Frundsberg is played by Nikolaus Moras.

swell

  • Adam Reissner : Historia Mr. Georgen vnnd Mr. Casparn von Frundsberg, Vatters vnd Sons , Frankfurt am Main 1568. Full text in the Google book search.
  • Adam Reissner : Historia of Messrs. Georg and Kaspar von Frundsberg , after the 2nd edition of 1572 ed. by Karl Schottenloher, Leipzig 1910/1914 (Voigtländer's source books vol. 66).

literature

Web links

Commons : Georg von Frundsberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Georg von Frundsberg  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johann Christoph Allmayer-Beck : The Army History Museum Vienna. The museum and its representative rooms . Kiesel Verlag, Salzburg 1981, ISBN 3-7023-0113-5 , p. 30
  2. ^ Frondsbergstrasse in Tübingen on TÜpedia.
  3. ^ City of Innsbruck, Department of Statistics and Reporting (ed.): Street names of the state capital Innsbruck. Innsbruck 2013, p. 24 ( PDF; 274 kB )
  4. ^ Frundsbergstrasse in Munich Neuhausen-Nymphenburg. Retrieved April 16, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Heinz Schreckenberg: Ideology and everyday life in the Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main [u. a.] 2003, p. 282.
  6. ↑ Botho Lucas Choir : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0szqSd0osoE
  7. ↑ Heinz Schreckenberg: Ideology and everyday life in the Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main [u. a.] 2003, p. 282; Elsa Kammerer: La fabrique allemande du roi français. François Ier vs Georg von Frundsberg (Pavie, 1525), in: Bruno Petey-Girard: François Ier imaginé. Actes du colloque international de Paris, 9-11 April 2015 , Geneva 2017, pp. 374–376.
  8. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8INji8NNKxk
  9. ↑ The Medici Warrior . In: KINO . ( kino.de [accessed on November 24, 2017]).


personal data
SURNAME Frundsberg, Georg von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fronsberg; Freundsberg; George; Jörg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soldier and mercenary leader
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1473
PLACE OF BIRTH Mindelheim
DATE OF DEATH August 20, 1528
Place of death Mindelheim