Heinrich of Prussia (1747–1767)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Prince Friedrich Heinrich Karl of Prussia (born December 30, 1747 in Berlin ; † May 26, 1767 in Protzen near Fehrbellin ) was Frederick the Great's favorite nephew , chose the career of an officer in the Prussian army and was most recently major general .

Life

Heinrich was the second son of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia and Luise Amalie von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and thus the younger brother of the future King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II. Following the house tradition, he was awarded the High Order of the Black Eagle on January 16, 1748 . On the occasion of the death of his father on December 8, 1758, he became chief of the Cuirassier Regiment No. 2 . On September 20, 1764 Heinrich became captain and company commander in the 1st Guard Battalion (No. 13a) . On September 17, 1764 he was promoted to colonel and took over his cuirassier regiment. On April 26, 1767, the king had promoted him to major general. The tragic death during a maneuver in Protzen brought an abrupt end to the young prince, who presumably had an extraordinary career in store. The king was very fond of him, and at times even considered changing the line of succession in his favor. The funeral speech also came from the king's pen:

“You will live forever in my heart! Death is ours, gentlemen. Blessed are those who die with the comforting awareness that they deserve the tears of the survivors. "

Theodor Fontane describes his life and especially his death while hiking through the Mark Brandenburg as follows:

“Now the reign of the widowed Mrs. General began . During the time of her reign, before the minorene son came in, the great event of showing off occurred during the previous century: the death of a Prussian prince in the manor house there. "
"Old Pastor Schinkel reports on this death in the Protzener Kirchenbuche as follows:" On May 16, 1767, His Royal Highness Prince Friedrich Heinrich Karl of Prussia and his regiment arrived here on the march from Kyritz to Berlin . He took up quarters with our wife Lieutenant General von Kleist, in the hope of moving on the next morning after our night here. However, the smallpox showed up, so that His Royal Highness felt compelled to stay here. Skillful doctorens 1) used every means to save this dear and lovable prince, but God decreed it differently, so that after the white frizzles struck, this dearest prince had to give up his ghost on May 26th at eight o'clock in the evening. A sad souvenir, so the later times will not be forgotten. The May 28 , eleven o'clock the high body was gesetzet by officers under illumination of many lights in the local vault evening and on June 7 , when brought here, to Berlin on the first day of Pentecost of. This most blessed prince was born on November 30th, 1747, so barely nineteen years old, five months old. ""
"I'm going to follow this simple church book record with a few more notes."
“Prince Heinrich, at that time commonly called  the young Prince Heinrich, unlike his famous uncle in Rheinsberg , was the son of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, who died in Oranienburg in 1758 . So he was the nephew of Frederick the Great as well as the younger brother of the later King Frederick William II. From the moment the war affairs lay behind him, Frederick the Great showed him a very special benevolence. This was due as much to the general circumstances as to the characteristics of the young prince. He appeared to be of unusual disposition, was intelligent, full of noble thinking and lofty ambition, at the same time kind and of pure change; What, however, caused the king to show a very unusual cordiality in all his relations with this prince was probably the fact that he felt to a certain extent indebted to the prince's deceased father, to whom he had caused much heartache which he wanted to remove and to his older brother (later King Friedrich Wilhelm II.), who for various reasons did not really suit him, could not. "
“In 1762, Prince Heinrich expressed a lively wish to be able to join the king when war operations began again. However, Friedrich refused because the young prince was only fourteen years old. Only after the conclusion of peace was he drawn from Magdeburg , where he garrisoned, to Potsdam and joined the Guard Battalion as a captain . For several years now he was one of the king's regular lunch guests and accompanied him on his inspection trips through the provinces. In April 1767, the prince moved to Kyritz in order to take over command of the cuirassier regiment standing here or even part of it. This cuirassier regiment were the famous "yellow riders", of which the Prince had been chief since 1758. "
"The assumption of command was followed a few weeks later by the catastrophe that I reported above according to the records in the Protzen church book."
“ Rittmeister von Wödtke brought the mourning news to the king. This was seldom moved. One of the senior officers comforted the king and asked him to calm down. "He is right," replied Friedrich, "but he does not feel the pain caused by this loss." - "Yes, Ew. Your Majesty, I feel it; he was one of the most hopeful princes. "The king shook his head and said:" He's got the pain on his tongue, I've got it here. "And as he did so he put his hand on his heart. His letters reveal a similarly deep participation. He wrote to his brother Heinrich in Rheinsberg: "I loved this child like my own", and in the postscript to Tauentzien he reported to an official order: "My dear Hendrich is dead."
“Let's return to Protzen after this biographical digression. The prince's siblings sent the widowed General von Kleist valuable tokens of gratitude, and the latter localized the event itself by means of two images in the death room. An act of loyalty that, on the homage side, seems to go a little too far and to cross the line of beauty. I couldn't find out whether the paintings still exist; but the gable room in which the young prince died is still called the "prince's room."

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the von Kleist family - Muttrin-Damensche Line, p. 410
  2. ^ Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg , first part: The county of Ruppin, Protzen
personal data
SURNAME Heinrich of Prussia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Friedrich Heinrich Karl Prince of Prussia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION royal Prussian major general
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1747
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1767
Place of death Splurge