Heinrich Wilhelm von Wutginau

Heinrich Wilhelm von Wutginau (born May 12, 1697 in Militsch ; † October 10, 1776 at Rheinfels Castle ) was a Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel general of the infantry and governor of Rheinfels Castle.

Epitaph in the collegiate church of St. Goar

Life

He entered the service of Hesse-Kassel in 1718 and was promoted to major general on May 16, 1747, and to lieutenant general in 1756. In 1760 he became chief of the body regiment.

When the Seven Years War broke out, he was commissioned in spring 1757 to lead the Hessian troops (12 battalions and 12 squadrons) to the army of the Duke of Cumberland . He joined Hamelin in May . On July 26th he was already fighting in the lost battle of Hastenbeck . When Duke Ferdinand von Braunschweig took over command of the allied army in November , Wutginau was instructed by an order from the Landgrave to submit to him, while Duke Karl von Braunschweig made difficulties for his troops. In the first battle plan issued by the Duke, he was entrusted with leading the left wing from the first meeting. When the army set out on the Rhine in February 1758, he commanded the second line, to which his 11,490 Hessians belonged. On the advance he was added to the infantry general Georg Ludwig von Zastrow , who led one of the columns. Wutginau managed the crossing over the Rhine with a separate corps on June 5, 1758 near Rees . In the Battle of Krefeld on June 23, 1758, he commanded Lieutenant General Friedrich von Spörcken on the left wing, whose achievements did not fully meet the Duke's expectations. When retreating across the Rhine, he led one of the columns in which the transition was made. He fought on April 13, 1759 in the Battle of Bergen with the right column of the Prince of Holstein. Then he was transferred with 8,000 men to Büren , where a permanent camp was to be set up, from where he was soon expelled by the French, whereupon he returned to the main army. He had his fair share in the victory of Minden on August 1st, when he commanded one of the eight columns into which the army was divided.

The death of Landgrave Wilhelm VIII on the night of February 1, 1760 and the accession of his successor Landgrave Friedrich II resulted in a significant increase in the Hessian troops, so that the strength of the regiments under Wutginau is put at 23,236 men. The greater part of them, however, stood at the beginning of the hostilities under General Spörcken in Westphalia, while Wutginau himself was with the Duke's main army and did not emerge; he was not one of those officers who were entrusted with the execution of particularly difficult and independent assignments. The year 1761, however, brought Wutginau the opportunity to distinguish itself. It was the battle of Vellinghausen on July 16. Then the duke reported to King George III. from England that Wutginau “contributed much to the victory with exceptional bravura” and granted him a cash gift of 4,000 thalers from the contribution fund .

On February 28, 1762, Wutginau gave command of the Hessian troops to Lieutenant General Prince von Anhalt and left the theater of war; General Spörcken reported to the king at the time that the army had lost "a righteous, good man who, in particular, had been eager to maintain the good harmony between the Hanoverian and Hessian troops at all times". In 1763 Wutginau became governor of the castle and fortress Rheinfels near Sankt Goar , where under him the construction director Major Splittgerber produced the destroyed works and some new buildings; on October 24, 1772 he was promoted to General of the Infantry and on October 10, 1776 he died there at the age of seventy-nine. His grave is in the collegiate church of St. Goar .

Wutignau was one of the first recipients of the House Order of the Golden Lion , founded in 1770 .

literature

• Bernhard von Poten :  Wutginau, Heinrich Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 44, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, p. 376 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Continued new genealogical-historical news. 1771, p. 757, digitized