Gustav Philipp of Pfalz-Veldenz

Lauterecken Castle Tower; Hereditary Prince Gustav Philipp was imprisoned here for over a year and this is where he was murdered.

Gustav Philipp von Pfalz-Veldenz-Lützelstein (born July 17, 1651 in Lauterecken ; † August 18, 1679 ibid) belonged to a sideline of the Wittelsbach Princely House and was the Hereditary Prince of the Principality of Pfalz-Veldenz . He converted from the Lutheran to the Catholic faith, was subsequently locked up by his father for about a year in the castle tower in Lauterecken and shot there by a constable at his father's orders.

Life and death of Gustav Philipps

Hereditary Prince Gustav Philipp von Pfalz-Veldenz-Lützelstein was born as the son of Count Palatine Leopold Ludwig von Pfalz-Veldenz-Lützelstein and his wife Agatha Christine von Hanau-Lichtenberg in his father's castle in Lauterecken. There are no written sources about his youth. The local writer Hermann Lorch (1878–1964) wrote the story “Gustav Philipp's Homecoming” based on local tradition and stated about his youth: “As a boy he lived in a house in Lauterecken that people called a castle. He spent a joyless youth here. "

When the prince grew up, he traveled through France, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. First he served the Duke of Lorraine, then he entered the imperial service. In the battle of Sinsheim on June 16, 1674, he acquired a "heroic name", as an old report in the Catholic parish archive in Lauterecken states. The prince led an exuberant life, as most of the aristocrats - especially in the military - did at this time. At times, atrocities and murder were reported later.

The prince converted from the Evangelical Lutheran to the Roman Catholic creed against his father's will. The disputes with the father, who lived in the distant Lützelstein , intensified and he finally threw the prince out of the castle in Lauterecken, which he had previously lived in. The prince, publicly exposed in his reputation, exercised his domicile rights and in August 1678 gained force access to the castle. There was a scuffle and he stabbed a young man. The father took this act as an opportunity to imprison the son. Gustav Philipp was thrown into the tower without investigation or trial and he was left to "languish" there. A letter from the Hereditary Prince dated December 26, 1678 has been preserved in the secret house archive of the Bavarian State Archives. A. writes: "... I am locked in a dark prison, where I can see neither the sun nor the moon and I am not given a fire to warm me, so that I die from the cold ..." The Protestant Pastor Haack was sent to him every day, to bring him back to the Lutheran faith. This fact points to the religious and political background of the affair. While Pastor Haack reports to the Count Palatine: "The Hereditary Prince returned to the Augsburg Confession, but since he showed no penance and repentance, I refused absolution and the Lord's Supper", say the letters of the 27-year-old imprisoned prince in the Bavarian State Archives completely different language. He writes as “the most submissively obedient child” to his “dearest father” and expresses deeply Christian emotions, such as “repentance for wrongdoings” and “trust in God's mercy”; Haack's statements are therefore doubtful. Against a return to the "Augsburg Confession" speaks that both the Bishop of Trier and the papal nuncio advocate the release of the Hereditary Prince.

A secret burial followed the murder of the Hereditary Prince. According to official historiography, he was buried on August 24, 1679, at night between 12 noon and 1 am - apparently in camera - in the Protestant church in Lauterecken. However, recent research has made the burial site doubtful, as there is no burial site in the church. Presumably he was buried in a secret place. In addition, one can say with certainty today that, contrary to the statements made by Pastor Haacks at the time, he did not return to the “Augsburg Confession” and for that reason alone he was denied a funeral in the Protestant parish church. Of course, because of the scandal, this could not be made public and he could only be buried in secret elsewhere.

The Pfalz-Veldenz family died out in 1694 with Gustav Philipp's father Leopold Ludwig von Pfalz-Veldenz-Lützelstein without any descendants entitled to inherit. All of the sons had preceded their father in death. After the death of the older Hereditary Prince Gustav Philipp, the two younger ones also fell as officers; Karl Georg (* 1660 in Lützelstein) on July 4, 1686 in front of Ofen and August Leopold, Bavarian Colonel (* 1663 in Lützelstein), on September 9, 1689 in front of Mainz.

reception

The Protestant clergyman Friedrich Blaul dealt with the story in his 1838 travelogue “Dreams and Foams from the Rhine”, as did the Catholic historian Franz Xaver Remling in 1846 in Das Reformationswerk in der Pfalz . Both announced that the Hereditary Prince had been shot in his bed by Sergeant Berto on the night of August 24, 1679 at the behest of his father. August Becker wrote in 1857 in "The Palatinate and the Palatinate":

“ ... his eldest son Gustav Philipp came back from his travels, a Catholic. Immediately his strict Lutheran father had him captured, placed in the aforementioned castle tower and shot in bed by the red sergeant Jeremias Berto. The Lutheran parish register says that the prince was caught because of rebellion, apostasy and other misdeeds ... Count Palatine Leopold Ludwig - the father - survived all his children; after a sad, lonely old age he died without an heir and his land fell to the Electoral Palatinate. "

- August Becker, 1857

Walter Wilhelm Götz made a similar statement in the Geographical-Historical Handbook of Bavaria .

The writer Friedrich Wilhelm Hebel (1875–1931) took over the story in his “Palatine Book of Legends” under the title Der Mutter Fluch , changing the names while maintaining the locations. The writer Hermann Lorch (1878–1964) processed the events in the story "Gustav Philipps Homecoming".

Another representation can be found in Adalbert von Bayern's 1979 family chronicle "History of our family".

literature

• August Becker : The Palatinate and the Palatinate. 1857. Numerous new editions.
• Hermann Lorch: Gustav Philipps homecoming . Volksbildungsverlag, Neustadt an der Haardt 1922.

Individual evidence

1. ^ For example Christian von Stramberg : The Moselle valley between Zell and Konz. Koblenz 1837.
2. ↑ Friedrich Blaul : Dreams and Foams from the Rhine , Vol. 2, Speyer [1838], p. 29
3. ^ Franz Xaver Remling : The Reformation work in the Palatinate. 1846, p. 214. New edition 1929.
4. ^ Walter Wilhelm Götz: Geographical-Historical Handbook of Bavaria. Munich 1898, Volume II., P. 851.
5. ↑ Friedrich Wilhelm Hebel : The mother curse . In: Palatine Book of Legends. Numerous editions.