Georg von Kunheim the Younger

Georg von Kunheim the Younger (* July 1532 in Wehlau , Duchy of Prussia ; † 18 October 1611 in Knauten near Prussian Eylau , Duchy of Prussia) was a Prussian administrative officer and the husband of the youngest and only surviving daughter of the reformer Martin Luther , Margarete Luther .

Life

Georg von Kunheim d. J. was born as the son of the married couple Georg von Kunheim the Elder. Ä. (* 1480, † 1543), governor of Tapiau , and Margarete Truchseß von Wetzhausen († 1537). His father was a close political confidante of Duke Albrecht of Prussia . He lost his mother early and six years later, when he was barely eleven, his father too. Duke Albrecht took over his guardianship and supervised his education and training. George d. J. attended the pedagogy in Königsberg i. Pr. And the Albertus University in Königsberg , where he was a student of Wilhelm Gnapheus and Stanislaus Rapagelan . Sent by the Duke to Wittenberg University in 1550 , he studied theology and later law there . 1554 he became engaged to the house of Philipp Melanchthon with Margarete Luther , the youngest and only surviving daughter of Martin Luther . After the guardians had cleared up concerns, he married her on August 5, 1555. After he had returned to Prussia in 1557, Duke Albrecht first made him district administrator, district judge and caste lord of Bartenstein ; later he appointed him governor of Bartenstein.

From a contemporary point of view, Georg von Kunheim the Elder embodied J., who vigorously promoted Lutheran teaching , was largely the ideal of a Prussian nobleman. He appointed Pastor Caspar Henneberger as patron saint of the village church in Mühlhausen in 1560 , supported him in his studies of the Prussian map, but resigned him in 1589 due to dogmatic differences of opinion.

After the death of Margarete Luther († 1570) he married Dorothea von der Ölsnitz († 1602) in 1573 . The first marriage had nine children, of whom only three survived, and the second eight children.

See also : Kuenheim (noble family)

literature

• Lettau: Some news about the church in Mühlhausen; Especially the observation of the historical peculiarity that Dr. Martin Luther's daughter Margarethe, married v. Kunheim, is buried here . In: Prussian provincial sheets . Volume 5, Königsberg 1831, pp. 49-62.
• Old Prussian biography . Volume 1, Elwert, Marburg / Lahn 1974, pp. 274-275.