Gottfried Holtzmüller

Gottfried Holtzmüller (born January 18, 1609 in Oederan ; † July 31, 1659 at Gut Hohelinde, ibid) was a Swedish-Weimar lieutenant colonel during the Thirty Years' War .

Life

Gottfried Holtzmüller was born in Oederan in Saxony , a town shaped by mining. He came from a respected family of mayors. After Gustav II Adolf's landing , he reported for military service. While performing his service as commander of the Hohenurach mountain fortress , he suffered a shot in the face and serious eye injuries when he was out of action on April 15, 1635.

Holtzmüller married Jacobina Kraft, a patrician daughter from Augsburg , on September 24, 1635 in Ulm. He had four brothers, one of them, Johann Holtzmüller (* 1604, † 1681), served as ensign on the same staff. In July 1636, Holtzmüller said goodbye to the army of Bernhard von Weimar and entered service in Württemberg . After his release there in 1644, he lived with his wife in Ulm. A son from his second marriage, Siegfried Gottlieb Holtzmüller (* 1652; † 1722), has been handed down.

Finally Gottfried died in 1659 at Gut Hohelinde in his birthplace.

Military career

Swedish company commander

In August 1631 Gottfried Holtzmüller received a patent for advertising a dragoon company under Duke Wilhelm IV of Saxe-Weimar with the rank of captain . This company was incorporated into a larger regiment for the next two years. In the autumn of 1633, Holtzmüller's dragoons appeared in the army of the Swedish field marshal Gustaf Horn and lay for a few months in a garrison in Augsburg , where the Benedictine priest Reginbald Möhner drew Holtzmüller's standard, a mythical dragon-like creature.

In the Swedish regimental lists of 1634, Holtzmüller appears as a lieutenant colonel over a squadron of 4 companies of dragoons (regular 125 men) under Gustav Horn's army corps. In the Battle of Nördlingen he fought on the Albuch with 200 horses on Horn's right flank and was involved in several rider attacks there. After the devastating defeat, Horn was captured. Holtzmüller came under the orders of Duke Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar and was relocated with his remaining 150 dragoons to the Hohenurach fortress .

Commander of the Württemberg state fortresses

Holtzmüller immediately set the offices of Urach and Münsingen , as well as the surrounding gentlemen, in contributions . His primary goal was to hold the city ​​of Urach , which was besieged immediately after the Nördlinger battle by troops of the imperial-league general guard Hans Heinrich von Reinach . On September 10, 1634, the city had already been overrun 3 times in the old style; but the attacks could be repulsed. On October 19, the Imperial Colonel Walter Butler finally moved in front of the city and had artillery bombarded it on October 21, whereupon Urach surrendered to mercy and disgrace on November 2.

During the siege of Urach, Holtzmüller's dragoons had made numerous sabotages and wiped out some imperial departments. But the surrounding villages were also heavily harassed by his soldiers . When the village of Upfingen stopped delivering food to the fortress after the conquest of Urach , Holtzmüller sent 30 horsemen to the village and had it set on fire (see: Elenhans ).

During the eight-month blockade of Hohenurach, Holtzmüller kept in constant letter contact with Duke Eberhard , who was in exile in Strasbourg. Holtzmüller had little regard for the 50-man Württemberg crew. As he later wrote to Duke Eberhard, he did not need it. The fortress could hold out until July 29, 1635. But as Ulm turned to the Peace of Prague and the supply collapsed, his brother Johann capitulated. Gottfried had made his way to Neuffen and finally to Ulm with 30 men .

In Ulm, on August 13, 1635, Holtzmüller applied to Duke Eberhard von Württemberg for the Upper Bailiwick of Urach. However, the duke had few opportunities to provide support in exile. When Eberhard returned to his country in October 1638, he appointed Holtzmüller to be in command of the Hohenneuffen fortress that had been restored .

Trial against Holtzmüller

In February 1640, however, Holtzmüller was suddenly arrested and his property was confiscated. He was accused of tyrannical command, extortion and embezzlement of princely property on Hohenurach. He extorted ransom money of 2,677 guilders from the Urach refugees, forcibly collected the wages of 20,000 guilders, tortured and hanged the Wuerttemberg box servant for no reason, beat the clerk to death and starved several hostages who were unable to kill their ranzions . He also assaulted a young girl and burned down the "beautiful place Upfingen". A memorandum dated July 6, 1635, which Holtzmüller had written for his brother Johann and which gave him the order to bury all cash and silver dishes below the Hohenurach fortress, was presented as evidence .

Gottfried Holtzmüller was able to defend himself with great intelligence and skill, although he needed a clerk because of his blindness and had no lawyer. In August 1641 there was a new hearing, which lasted until February 1642. Finally, the communion implements that Holtzmüller had confiscated was found during a search in the basement of Holtzmüller's apartment on Hohenneuffen.

The trial then went to the court in Tübingen , where it lasted until October 1644. However, these trial files have not been preserved and the outcome has not been documented. However, after four and a half years in prison on Hohenneuffen, Holtzmüller was released and partially rehabilitated. In 1645 he stayed in Ulm again, where Eberhard held out the prospect of a new post in September. The further career of Holtzmüller has not been handed down, as the trial files end here. The legal dispute cost the Neuffen winery almost 3,000 guilders.

literature

• Peter Engerisser and Pavel Hrncirik: Nördlingen 1634: The battle near Nördlingen - turning point of the Thirty Years War, Späthling (October 9, 2009).
• Peter Engerisser: From Kronach to Nördlingen, Späthling (December 2004).
• Karl von Martens : History of the within the present borders of the kingdom ... , Stuttgart, 1847.
• The knight castles and mountain castles of Germany, Volume 5 by Kaspar Friedrich Gottschalck, 1831.

Web links

• Historical association Oederan, project Holtzmüller

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Engerisser and Pavel Hrncirik: Nördlingen 1634: The Battle of Nördlingen - Turning Point of the Thirty Years War, Späthling (October 9, 2009)
2. ^ Archbishop's Ordinariate Library Augsburg.
3. ↑ Maleficent matters against Holtzmüller from 1640 to 1644 in the State Archives Ludwigsburg A 209 Bü 1715.
4. ↑ Files of the Main State Archives Stuttgart, A91 Bü 33 (Faszikel Hohenurach and Neuffen).