Carl Friedrich Heinrich Levin von Wintzingerode

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Oil painting by Albert Grégorius, ca.1811, missing

Carl Friedrich Heinrich Levin Graf von Wintzingerode (wrongly also Heinrich Karl Friedrich Levin von Wintzingerode , born  October 16, 1778 in Kassel , † September 15, 1856 in Bodenstein ) was a Württemberg diplomat, minister of state and heir and court lord of Bodenstein.

Origin and youth

Wintzingerode was the son of the Württemberg cabinet minister Georg Ernst Levin Graf von Wintzingerode . He grew up as the stepson of Landgravine Philippine von Hessen-Kassel and, in his turbulent youth, maintained close relationships with her nephew Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia . In Berlin he was trained as a pianist by Friedrich Kirmeyer. His successes meant that from then on the then Crown Princess Luise von Kirmeyer was also taught. In 1802 he followed his father into the Württemberg state service and successively became government councilor, chamberlain, district chief in Öhringen, envoy in Karlsruhe and Munich.

Württemberg diplomat

In 1810 he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy to Paris, where he vigorously tried to represent Württemberg's interests vis-à-vis Napoleon . In 1814 he moved to the Allied headquarters, took part in the French campaign in the wake of Tsar Alexander I , signed the First Peace of Paris for Württemberg, went to London with the Tsar and was then sent as an envoy to St. Petersburg , where he met St. Anne -Order of 1st class received. In 1815 he accompanied Alexander I again to overthrow Napoleon after the Hundred Days. 1816 King gave him Frederick the post of interior minister, which he accepted but not as a result of carried out shortly afterwards throne change, but of King I. Wilhelm for ambassador in Vienna was appointed.

Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Württemberg

In 1819, contrary to his wishes, he was appointed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, from May 17, 1819 to October 2, 1823, he was thus also a member of the Privy Council and pursued a liberal realpolitik. In August 1819 he took part in the Carlsbad Conference . He was the only foreign minister present to protest against the reactionary Karlsbad decisions to persecute demagogues . He saw in them a danger for the acceptance of the governments of the German Confederation in the population and a source of new unrest. He also viewed the resolutions as an interference with the sovereignty of the member states of the German Confederation.

On the other hand, his resistance to Metternich's attempt to interpret Article XIII of the German Federal Act to the effect of excluding liberal representative constitutions in the federal states and allowing only state constitutions was successful . He saw it as a breach of loyalty to the people to withhold from them the share of sovereignty promised in 1815. At the beginning of his ministry , he made himself the spokesman for the liberal ambitions of the southern German states.

He defended himself in vain against the plans of King Wilhelm I of Württemberg for a triad policy that was supposed to strengthen the southern German central states. They culminated in the affair surrounding the " Manuscript from Southern Germany ", which led to the diplomatic isolation of Württemberg.

Private citizen and Prussian parliamentarian

In 1823 there was a break between the king and his foreign minister, who from then on devoted himself to music, composition, political journalism and his extensive memoirs at his ancestral palace in Bodenstein and in Göttingen. After the Göttingen Revolution in January 1831, he advised the governor, Duke Adolph Friedrich von Cambridge . In doing so, he took the position that, although one must act with rigor against rebellions, after that one should be lenient and take up the justified demands. Shortly afterwards, the Duke of Cambridge became viceroy of Hanover and, after the resignation of Count Munster , offered Wintzingerode the post of cabinet minister, which he turned down. In addition to private reasons, he stated: “As I am a foreigner and am considered liberal, I would have anything against me that has influence in this country. I would only be supported by a prince who is indeed quite good, but weak and subject to all influences. "

Since the late twenties he worked as a class member of parliament in his home country. In 1847/48 he belonged to the Prussian First and Second United Landtag , after he had previously been elected several times as a member of the Eichsfeld nobility in the provincial parliament of the province of Saxony . In both parliaments he represented positions that oscillated between highly conservatism and class liberalism. During the March Revolution in 1848 he had to flee temporarily from the insurgents to Göttingen.

Aeone Countess of Wintzingerode, b. Freiin vom Hagen (1800–1835), painting by Carl Oesterley the Elder. Ä., Ca.1830

Heinrich Levin Wintzingerode was married to Lady Diane Jane King, daughter of the Earl of Kingston , and to Aeone Freiin vom Hagen. His third son, Wilko Levin Graf von Wintzingerode, was governor of the Prussian province of Saxony from 1876 to 1900 .

Heinrich Levin Wintzingerode left around 40 compositions, including settings of poems by Goethe and Schiller and his cousin Amalie von Wintzingerode. These works are kept in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar . There they were initially considered lost after the fire on September 2, 2004. In the course of the restoration of the recovered material, however, it turned out that most of it can probably be saved. The only composition available in print is the completion of the setting of “Johannens Abschied” from Schiller's Jungfrau von Orléans . It was started by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg , who was friends with Wintzingerode and whose widow was supported with the profits from the finished composition.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eberhard von Wintzingerode: Family tree of the family von Wintzingerode . Dieterich, Göttingen 1848
  2. ^ Eugen Schneider :  Wintzingerode, Heinrich Karl Friedrich Levin Graf . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 505-507.
  3. ^ Heinrich Levin Graf von Wintzingerode to his father, Göttingen, March 16, 1831 (LHASA, MD, Rep. H Bodenstein Appendix, No. 1750).
  4. ↑ Cf. Graf HL Wintzingerode to his voters, August 1847, printed as a manuscript in Göttingen 1848.

literature

See also

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Levin Graf von Wintzingerode  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Camille Nepomuk von Frohberg Wuerttemberg envoy to Russia
1813–1816 		Joseph Ignaz von Beroldingen
Paul Joseph von Beroldingen Wuerttemberg envoy in Austria
1816–1818 		Carl August von Mandelsloh
Ferdinand Ludwig von Zeppelin Württemberg Minister of Foreign Affairs
1819–1823 		Joseph Ignaz von Beroldingen
personal data
SURNAME Wintzingerode, Carl Friedrich Heinrich Levin von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wintzingerode, Carl Friedrich Heinrich Levin Count of; Wintzingerode, Heinrich Karl Friedrich Levin Count of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Württemberg State Minister, heir and court lord of Bodenstein
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1778
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1856
Place of death Bodenstein