Hans Georg Welling

Hans Georg Wellig (also: Johann Georg Welliegen and Hans Georg Welling as well as Hans Georg Welligen ; * before 1650 in Northeim ; † after 1677 )) was a Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg engineer , military and pyrotechnician and montanist .

life and work

The engineer and artillery captain Hans Georg Wellig lived in Kassel from 1650 to 1660 , where he married Anna Maria Sandmann on August 20, 1650 and, according to the Kassel church registers, also had his children baptized. In the city register of Kassel from 1653, Hans George Wellig von Northeim was listed as a button maker . He taught his sons artillery and fireworks; they helped him in part with his later Hanoverian fireworks, where the sensational events were among the highlights of court festivities. One of his sons was the alchemist, mine director and theosophist Georg von Welling .

Also in 1660, Wellig, who came from Kassel, appeared in front of those responsible for the Upper Harz mining industry to demonstrate a high-performance water lifting machine on site. Possibly the machine was not sufficiently suitable for mining, as it was apparently not installed in any Harz mine and only later another horse-powered machine was put into operation in Clausthal between 1670 and 1680, but only for a short time. Nevertheless, there was an instruction from 1660 by Duke Christian Ludwig for the implementation of Wellings' plans - which has been preserved to this day .

By 1665 at the latest, Wellig was in the service of Duke Johann Friedrich von Braunschweig-Calenberg in Hanover . In 1668 he "invented" - for Benedicta Henriette von der Pfalz's entry into Hanover, the Duke's bride - a fireworks display on November 9, 1668 , which the engraver and fireworker Joachim Georg Krickau recorded in various copper engravings. The engravings measuring 16.3 × 16.3 cm became the property of the Hanover City Library , signature H 130, 8 , while the second volume with a text published by Georg Friedrich Grimme and a copperplate plate measuring 23 × 47 cm passed into the possession of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Lower Saxony State Library ; Signature C 15475 . Wellings' authorship of the fireworks spectacle entitled “Die überüberüberwindende Liebe” - he organized several fireworks, some with the help of his sons - can be read from the inscription on a scene that has been preserved.

In 1671, Wellig commanded the allied artillery during the siege of the city of Braunschweig and soon after received the office of Quartermaster General .

Several years later, on October 18, 1674 in Hanover, Wellig organized an “ Opera Von Denen Ubergrße Brden Helden- Daten Cimons von Athen ...” in Hanover, presented by the Handel biographer Friedrich Chrysander as the oldest known Hanover opera. In fact, however, the program, which comprised 18 folio sheets and was illustrated with large copper engravings, was more of court amusement than a musical drama, a magnificent fireworks display in which military music was played to illustrate the war and the god of war Mars and the personified " Invidia had a few rhymes to speak". The writing on the fireworks, printed with 8 copper engravings measuring 19 × 16.3 cm by Wolfgang Schwendimann , was dedicated to the three daughters of Duke Johann Friedrich by Wellig.

Welling's stay in central Germany can be proven until 1677. The date of his death is unknown, however the family-owned genealogical message, which was written in 1728 and still in private ownership in 1990, names the year of death 1782.

Fonts

• The Overcoming Love: Presented and represented by an artificial Fewr-Werck / Welches Bey HochFürstlicher Haimbführung Des ... Mr. Johann Friederichs / Hertzieh zu Braunschweig and Lüneburg / [et] c. ... Wife / The ... Women Benedicta Henrietta Philippina, Pfaltz-Countess bey Rhein / [et] c. Happy burned / to Hanover November 8th. ... 1668 / [From your Hochfürstl. Pass ... Ingen. Artollerie Lieutenan [n] t Invented and made: HG Welligen] , Hanover: Grimmen, 1668
• Opera Of those great brave heroic deeds of Cimon of Athens, whose victories and triumphs received / some on water and land have been presented in an artificial firework. To the most submissive homage to those ... Princ: Felicitati Charlottae, Pr. Henriettae Mariae Josephae, Pr. Wilhelminae Amaliae, Born Hertzoginnen zu Braunschweig and Lüneburg / [et] c. ... From Dero Most Illuminated Mr. Vatters Des ... Mr. Johann Friederichen Hertzüge zu Braunschweig and Lüneburg / [et] c. Designated engineer and artillery captain, Hans Georg Welligen , printed in Hanover by Bey Wolfgang Schwendimann, Hoch-Fürstl. Hoff-Buchdrucker allda, 1674; Digital copy of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel (HAB)

Archives (selection)

Archival material by and about Hans Georg Wellig (Welling) can be found, for example

• in the Lower Saxony State Archives
  • Letter from Hans Georg Welling to General von Podewill drawn up around 1674/75 with a request for the post of Quartermaster General. In the letter the author mentions his eldest sons and gives their ages; Archive signature NSHA Han 47 I, No. 171, sheet 99f. ; the information is consistent with those in the privately owned genealogical records written in 1738 under the title Genealogical Message .
  • as military catering bills for the years 1675 to 1677, in whose payrolls Hans Georg Welling was listed as quartermaster general; Archival signature NHSA Cal Br 16, No. 896
  • as a project sketch and letter from Hans Georg Welling von Northeim, dated October 17, 1660, to Duke Christian Ludwig and his instructions also from October of the year “re. the water art made by Hans Georg Welligen zu Caßell for use on the Hartze ”under the title Hartz-Generalia ; Archive signature NHSA Cal Br 4, no.64

Web links

• Bjoern Schirmeier: Earth globe with sundial , photo and text for an astronomical instrument made of ivory with silver or silver-plated with the artist's signature "HG Welligen Lievtenat D. ARTOLLERY Faict" in the database of the Hessen Kassel Museum Landscape

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Johannes Bolte :  Wellig, Hans Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 680.
2. ↑ Information in the catalog of the German National Library , accessed on November 13, 2019.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Christine Henschel, Bruno Jahn (Red.): Welling, Georg von ... , in this: Killy Literature Lexicon , Volume 12: Vo - Z , 2nd edition, Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-022038-4 , p. 281; limited preview in Google Book search
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Alheidis von Rohr : Picturesque-idealized. City views of Hanover from the 16th century to 2000 , book accompanying the exhibition of the same name (= Writings of the Historisches Museum Hanover, issue no.17) Hanover 2000, ISBN 3-910073-18-2 , pp. 62, 116
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Petra Jungmayr: Georg von Welling (1655 - 1727). Studies on life and work (= Heidelberg studies on natural history of the early modern period , Volume 2), also dissertation in 1988 at the University of Heidelberg, Stuttgart: Steiner, 1990, ISBN 978-3-515-05399-0 and ISBN 3-515-05399 -9 , pp. 14, 15, 172; limited preview in Google Book search
6. ↑ Henning Calvör : Acta historico-chronologico-mechanica circa metallurgiam in Hercynia Superiori, or, Historical-chronological message and theoretical and practical description of the mechanical engineering and the auxiliaries in mining on the Oberharze , Braunschweig: Im Verlag der Fürstlichen Waysenhaus-Buchhandlung, 1763 , P. 98; Digitized via Google books
7. ↑ ^{a b} note 20, in Petra Jungmar: Georg von Welling ... , p. 15
8. ^ Wilhelm Rothert : Benedikta, Duchess of Hanover , in ders .: Allgemeine Hannoversche Biographie , Volume 3: Hanover under the Kurhut 1646-1815 , Sponholtz, Hanover 1916 (published posthumously by his wife A. Rothert and M. Peters), p. 100-101
9. ^ Digitized from Google books
10. ↑ Proof of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Lower Saxony State Library