Heinrich von Holk

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Holk after 1632 (copper engraving by Martin Bernigeroth around 1700).

Holk's signature:
Signature Heinrich von Holk.PNG

Heinrich Graf von Holk zu Eskildstrup, Egholm and Ravnholt (born April 18, 1599 at Kronborg Castle , Denmark ; † September 9, 1633 in Troschenreuth ), Danish: Henrik Greve Holck, was a Danish officer who was initially on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' War fought until he entered imperial service in 1630 and rose as one of Wallenstein's sub-commanders to field marshal .

Life

Troop leader on the Protestant side 1622–1629

As the son of Detlev Holck , the commander of Kronborg fortress on the Öresund, he attended high schools in Denmark and Germany and made educational trips to France, Italy and England in 1618/19. Instead of the official career that was intended for him, he turned to the soldier's profession and took part as a cavalry colonel in Christian's campaign from Braunschweig to the Palatinate and the Netherlands in 1622 . When the Danish King Christian IV entered the war on the Protestant side in 1625 , Holk served under General Baudissin and distinguished himself in the conquest of several fortresses in Schleswig in 1626 . In the same year he was given the command of a regiment . In July 1627, after violent resistance, he was taken prisoner by the imperial family . Interned in Prague for almost a year, he regained his freedom for a ransom of 4,000 thalers to Isolano and went to Copenhagen. Christian IV immediately commissioned him to take over the defense of Stralsund , which Wallenstein had been besieging since May 13, 1628. He was determined to conquer the city. But he didn't succeed. It was the twenty-nine year old Holk who led the defense of Stralsund so successfully that Wallenstein was forced to abandon the siege on July 21st. Of course, the Danes couldn't stay there much longer and had to leave the city to the Swedes. They remained rulers of the city for almost 200 years - until 1815.

General in Wallenstein's army 1630–1633

After the Treaty of Lübeck in 1629 between the emperor and the Danish king, Holck soon switched to the side of his former opponents. On 26 March 1630 he received from Emperor Ferdinand II. In view of his "well-known war adeptness" the appointment as colonel of a regiment of 3000 "High German servants' walk. Soon, with varying degrees of luck, he was working for his new master. He attracted Wallenstein's attention and became his confidante in the course of his service. In his numerous letters to the Generalissimo he openly criticized the haphazard conduct of the war, the incompetence and mutual jealousy of the leading generals and also the terrible looting by their soldiers.

In 1631 he took part in the conquest of Magdeburg under Tilly . In Bohemia , too , which, under Wallenstein's command , he had to clear the Saxon troops of Field Marshal Arnim , he was given the opportunity to prove his military ability. After Wallenstein had received the supreme command again from the emperor in April 1632 after his temporary dismissal, Holk was appointed sergeant-general on Wallenstein's recommendation . At that time, the cuirassier regiment of the "Holk Horsemen" was set up, which became famous and was mentioned in Schiller's " Wallenstein's Camp ".

Heinrich Holk (reversed)

Holk's fate remained closely linked to that of his protector Wallenstein, who had found in him one of his most capable sub-commanders. Contrary to his legend as a nefarious robber and angry, Holk was, like Wallenstein himself, a fanatic of order; his documents attest to strict bookkeeping; he suppressed everything that was overbearing and superfluous.

In the summer of 1632 Wallenstein sent him from a northern outpost of the Nuremberg siege to Saxony to take revenge for the occupation, plundering and devastation of Lower Silesia by Arnim's troops, to which Wallenstein's Silesian duchies Sagan and Glogau had also fallen victim. Holk's riders set fire to their way through the country west of the Elbe to the gates of Dresden. Although he didn't think much of the method of scorching and burning, he also obediently carried out reprisals. He himself suffered an injury that made him lose his left eye. On October 22, 1632, he united with Wallenstein's advanced main army and in the following weeks actually served as their chief of staff.

In the Battle of Lützen (November 6, 1632), Holk took command of the left wing of Wallenstein's army, consisting of Croats, Hungarians and Poles, as Field Marshal Pappenheim had not yet arrived while his own cavalry regiment was set up on the right wing. The situation did not change until noon after the Pappenheim cavalry, which had set out from Halle that night, had reinforced the left wing. Holk went to his own cavalry regiment on the right wing and was able to support Wallenstein, who had advanced into the middle of the Swedish infantry. Meanwhile, after Pappenheim's fatal wound, the left wing collapsed. The Croatians who were still sent by Pappenheim fell far on the left wing at the second Swedish meeting, whereupon the Swedish King Gustav Adolf was killed there.

After this battle Holk became Wallenstein's closest follower, which created numerous envious and enemies for the “Danish favorite”. In December the Kaiser promoted him to field marshal and in April 1633 elevated him to the rank of count. In the summer of that year, he managed to conquer Leipzig for the third time in two years . Holk was spared the dilemma of numerous Wallenstein's generals of having to choose between himself and the emperor. During another enterprise in Saxony, where he plundered Dresden twice, he fell ill with the plague and died after a short illness at the age of 34. The corpse of Heinrich Graf von Holk was transferred to Denmark and, on the orders of Christian IV, was honored in Copenhagen .

literature

Fiction

  • Johannes Arnold : Field Marshal Holk. Roman, Halle / Leipzig: Mitteldeutscher Verlag 1985

Footnotes

  1. Golo Mann : Wallenstein. His Life , Frankfurt am Main 2016 (first 1971), p. 768.
  2. Golo Mann, Wallenstein , p. 821 f.

Web links

Commons : Henrik Holck  - collection of images, videos and audio files