Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz

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Henning Friedrich Count von Bassewitz. Engraving by Martin Bernigeroth , 1733

Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz , Count von Bassewitz since 1726 , (born November 17, 1680 in Dalwitz ; † January 1, 1749 in Prebberede ) was an Imperial Roman-German and Russian Privy Councilor , Duke Holstein-Gottorpscher President of the Privy Council, Oberhofmeister and Dobbertiner Monastery captain.

Life

Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz came from the old Mecklenburg family von Bassewitz . He was born as the eldest son of District Administrator Philipp Cuno von Bassewitz and Catharina Oelgardt von Lehsten on Gut Dalwitz. He had three brothers including Joachim Otto von Bassewitz and three sisters, including Sibilla von Bassewitz, the mother of Joachim Ludolf , Philipp Cuno Christian and Henning Adam von Bassewitz .

He spent his youth on the Dalwitz and Prebberede estates. He learned his training from a private tutor and school lessons in Rostock , where the family owned a house. He began studying law at the University of Rostock in June 1698 and continued it a year later at the University of Leiden in Holland .

Following his studies, he joined the Mecklenburg court service as a chamberlain in 1702 and became the thigh of Duke Friedrich Wilhelm . In October 1703 he married Anna Maria von Clausenheim , daughter of the budget council and Canon of Hamburg, Bernhard von Clausenheim . With her he had five sons, including Carl Friedrich and Joachim Otto Adolph , and six daughters. In 1711 he was dismissed from his offices and had to leave Mecklenburg because he had fallen out of favor with the Duchess due to a verse written in youthful arrogance .

Through the connection of his father-in-law, he was able to enter the service of Christian August , the prince-bishop of the Hochstift Lübeck and administrator of the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf for the underage Duke Karl Friedrich , in 1711 and by buying the office of Husum and Schwabstedt a financial contribution for 13,000 Reichstaler Develop a source of income. As a result of the Danish occupation of the Gottorf shares in the Duchy of Schleswig , he lost these offices again in 1712. He turned down the offer of King Frederick IV of Denmark to serve him while retaining his offices and possessions. Instead he went to Hamburg , where he was in the service of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, where he had fled after the occupation of his country by Denmark.

In the following years he carried out various diplomatic activities for the ducal minister Georg Heinrich von Görtz . Görtz sent him to Berlin, where he negotiated a settlement between Prussia and the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, which led to the Prussian occupation of the fortress of Stettin on June 22, 1713 . The Swedes withdrew to Pomerania. In gratitude, he received a canon post in Halberstadt for his second son, Friedrich Wilhelm. In 1714 Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz was sent to Saint Petersburg to handle the restoration of the Gottorf duchies for Karl Friedrich and his succession to the throne in Sweden. He also wanted to win the hand of Princess Anna Petrovna of Russia for Duke Karl Friedrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf.

However, this request failed because by taking Tönning on February 17, 1714, an agreement between the Duke's administrator and General Stenbock and other similar agreements came to the knowledge of Peter the Great , so that he could clearly see through an ambiguous game of the Gottorf court. Under these circumstances, Görtz tried to discredit his envoy Bassewitz to the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf. He therefore had Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz's papers stolen by Legation Secretary Christ on his return journey. However, Bassewitz soon noticed the robbery, followed Christ and took the papers from him at the post office in Danzig.

He then went to Berlin in person and asked the King of Prussia to forgive him for his attack on the post office. The king approved of his act and promised him his protection. Henning Friedrich now went to Stockholm , where Duke Karl Friedrich was staying. This sent him to Vienna and on to Bender , the refuge of the Swedish King Karl XII. to get his approval for the Swedish throne. Only on the trip there he learned that Charles XII. had returned to Stralsund , came to Stralsund too late and was now unable to obtain anything from him.

Henning Friedrich therefore returned to Mecklenburg in 1715 and lived in seclusion in Prebberede, where he waited for the things to come. On November 2, 1718, the Swedish King Charles XII. shot in Norway by an officer because Charles XII. wanted to restrict the rights of knighthood. In 1719 Görtz was after the death of Karl XII. Sentenced to death for treason and executed in Stockholm.

After Baron Görtz's arrest, Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz hurried back to Stockholm in February 1719, where Karl Friedrich appointed him Privy Councilor, and accompanied him through Mecklenburg to Hamburg in May 1719. Karl Friedrich, regent in Schleswig since 1716, now also took over the government of Holstein. Bassewitz became the secret council president, his brother Joachim Otto and his wife's uncle, Johann von Clausenheim , became secret councilors. Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz negotiated with the emperor in order to get back the parts that the Danes had torn from him, and in 1720 he managed to restore Holstein, which the Danes evacuated.

Bassewitz now resumed his earlier proposal of the duke's marriage to a Russian princess. In 1721 Henning Friedrich and the Duke left the country for seven years and both went to Riga first . On September 10, 1721, the peace between Sweden and Russia was concluded in Nystad . The Russians kept the Baltic countries and Duke Friedrich Wilhelm von Hessen-Kassel was nominated King of Sweden.

Since Karl Friedrich was not considered, Bassewitz made Peter the Great personally reproach, whereupon he promised to act jointly with Sweden. For this purpose, Bassewitz was sent to Stockholm in December 1722, where he acquired an annual allowance of 25,000 thalers, the title of Royal Highness and the intercession of the most respected Swedes for the hand of a Russian princess for the duke . In the contract of February 22, 1724, he obtained an additional article concerning the Gottorp cause. As a gift from the king he received the gold medals of the entire Gustavian family, from Peter the Great his precious portrait and the entitlement to the Order of St. Andrew, and when the duke became engaged to Princess Anna Petrovna on December 5, 1724, he became Prime Minister of the Duke.

When Peter the Great († February 8, 1725) was close to death, Bassewitz received a confidential warning from General Procurator Jagosinsky to flee quickly if he did not want to share the fate that lay ahead of Katharina and Prince Menshikov . Bassewitz immediately communicated this message to the Tsarina and was sent by her to Menshikov, and now the measures were immediately planned which were to secure the throne for Katharina and which were to be carried out after Peter's death. The duke's wedding took place on June 1, 1725. Bassewitz received the Imperial Russian Order of St. Andrew . He was also awarded the Alexander Nevsky Order . On June 9, 1726, Bassewitz was elevated to the rank of imperial count by the emperor in Vienna and later also appointed a secret councilor. After Katharina's death, the Duke returned to Holstein, where Bassewitz also became the Duchess's Oberhofmarschall and Oberhofmeister , magistrate of the offices of Reinbek and Trittau and his wife Oberhofmeisterin.

Dedication by Philipp Friedrich Hane on the occasion of the appointment as monastery captain of Dobbertin

The Duchess died in childbirth on February 21, 1728, when Bassewitz was at the Soissons Congress to pursue the full restoration of the Duchy. However, he could achieve little here, although he had spent a very significant sum at the congress. The Duke was angry with Bassewitz, probably also because of the whisperings from his opponents, and relieved him of all his offices on the charge that he had carried out his mission negligently. When Bassewitz found out about this on his return to Neustadt, he immediately demanded his departure and the payment of the money he had spent in the service of more than 100,000 thalers. But since he was still in possession of many important documents, he was interned and guarded in Neustadt. However, with the help of his wife, he managed to get those papers to safety, whereupon he himself was able to escape secretly and went to Mecklenburg to his property before 1733.

On November 15, 1746, Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz was elected Dobbertiner monastery captain at the state parliament in Güstrow . As a noble women's monastery , the Dobbertin Monastery was the largest and richest Mecklenburg state monastery, along with the Malchow and Ribnitz Monastery . Despite illness and constant challenges, he held the post of monastery captain until shortly after his death.

Henning Friedrich died on January 1, 1749 on his estate in Prebberede and was buried in the Belitz churchyard , where the family grave is also located.

swell

  • State Main Archive Schwerin (LHAS)
    • LHAS 2.12-3 / 2 Monasteries and orders of knights. Dobbertin.
    • LHAS 3.2-3 / 1 Provincial Monastery / Monastery Office Dobbertin.
    • LHAS 9.1-1 Reich Chamber Court . (1495–1806) Foreign relations including Reich. No. 716, 717, 721.

literature

  • David Franck : Old and New Mecklenburg. Eighteenth book. Güstrow, Leipzig 1757.
  • Dietrich Schröder: Papist Mecklenburg. First through tenth alphabet. Wismar 1741.
  • Hans Heinrich Klüver: Description of the Duchy of Mecklenburg. Wismar 1737.
  • Ludwig Fromm :  Bassewitz, Henning Friedrich Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, pp. 127-129.
  • Autobiography, letters and other papers, some of which are published in the Archive for Regional Studies of the Großh. Mecklenburg. Year 1864, pp. 413–447 ( digitized version ).
  • Peter Friedrich Arpe : The confused Cimbrien, in the strange biography of Mr. HF Count von Bassewitz. Kiel 1771.
  • Adolph Graf von Bassewitz (ed.): From the life of the imperial count Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz with some news about the Bassewitz family Wendischer line. o. O. 1858.
  • Julius von Maltzan: Some good Mecklenburg men. Wismar 1882.
  • Olaf Klose :  Bassewitz, Henning Friedrich Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 625 ( digitized version ).
  • Robert Pries: The Secret Government Council in Holstein-Gottorf 1716–1773. Neumünster 1955.
  • Hubertus Neuschäffer: Henning Friedrich Graf von Bassewitz (1680–1749). On the Russian policy of a Schleswig-Holstein Prime Minister. In: Schleswig-Holstein. 2/78, Husum 1987, pp. 7-10.
  • Svetlana Dolgova, Marina Osekina: Henning Friedrich Graf von Bassewitz. In: M. Lukitschev, R. Witt (ed.): The Gottorfer on the way to the Tsar's throne. Schleswig 1997, pp. 21-26.
  • Hubertus Neuschäffer: Henning Friedrich Graf von Bassewitz (1680–1749). Helms, Schwerin 1999, ISBN 978-3-931185-47-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^   Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz  in the German Digital Library
  2. ↑ today a district of Walkendorf , Mecklenburg
  3. ↑ Registration of Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz in the Rostock matriculation portal
  4. ↑ Adolph Graf von Bassewitz (ed.): From the life of Count Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz with some news about the Bassewitz family of the Wendish line , o. O. 1858
  5. ^ David Franck Old and New Mecklenburg. 1756 pp. 369-370.
  6. ↑ Horst Alsleben : Jungfrauenkloster as a Protestant women's monastery - a monastery office in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. In: Dobbertin Monastery. History - building - living. Volume 2, contributions to art history and monument preservation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Schwerin, 2012 p. 50.
personal data
SURNAME Bassewitz, Henning Friedrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Imperial Roman-German and Russian Privy Councilor and Duke Holstein-Gottorpscher Privy Council President and Chief Steward
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1680
PLACE OF BIRTH Dalwitz, today part of Walkendorf
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1749
Place of death Prebberede