Hieronymus Christian von Holsten

Hieronymus Christian von Holsten (* 1639 in Hohenwestedt ; † July 2, 1692 in Jutland ) was a German officer in changing services.

Live and act

Hieronymus Christian von Holsten was a son of the officer Claus von Holsten († in December 1643 in Böternhöfen ) and his wife Elsabe, née von Hoen (en), who died before 1660. The father served as an officer to several princes and most recently to the Danish king. The ancestors on the paternal side also served as soldiers, as far as documented. The ancestors on her mother's side, including her father and officer Evo von Hoen (en) on Nortmoor , belonged to the Frisian landed gentry.

Holsten's father had a dubious reputation and is said to have instigated two soldiers in 1630 to murder an enemy. Later the father switched to Brandenburg services. Holsten's older siblings, including Adolph Hans von Holsten , therefore grew up with Detlev von Rantzau . This lived on Drage and was bailiff of the office Steinburg . In his will this provided for 6,000 Reichstaler for each child. In the year Hieronymus Christian von Holsten was born, his father leased the Meierhof Böternhöfen, where he and his family settled at the latest in 1641. In 1643 Swedish looters who crossed the Duchy of Holstein during the Torstensson War shot Holsten's father. The widow had to leave the court and moved with her children to Hamburg and later to Count Christian zu Rantzau in Breitenburg . Holstens 6000 Reichstaler from the estate of Detlev von Rantzau, who died in 1639, was administered by Bertram Reventlow on Lammershagen, then his brother Adolph Hans von Holsten, who was nine years older.

While Adolph Hans went through the costly training of a nobleman, including studies and the Grand Tour , Hieronymus Christian joined a Swedish regiment of horsemen stationed in the Bremen monastery as a “freerider” at the age of sixteen . With this regiment he took part in the Swedish invasion of Poland-Lithuania in 1655 , the so-called Swedish Flood , with which the second Northern War began. After initial successes, the Swedish troops were defeated by King Karl X. Gustav . Holsten was captured in 1656 and joined the Polish body regiment Lubomirskis , with whom he fought in Hungary and the Ukraine. He also took part in the Battle of Tschudnow in 1660, which ended with the defeat of the Russian army under Vasily Sheremetyev. He was then briefly captured by a horde of Crimean Tatars who allied themselves with Russian and Polish troops and sold prisoners of war as slaves. Thanks to the Prince of Wallachia, he was released. He was then promoted to lieutenant captain.

In 1663 von Holsten returned to Schleswig-Holstein. Two years later he joined the army of Christoph Bernhard von Galen and headed a company of light riders as Rittmeister during the war against the Netherlands . In the 1670s he served in the Danish army, in 1675 he was paid as a cavalry officer and pensioner. From 1676 he served in the Gotland militia. In 1678 he helped thwart Swedish landing attempts at Buksvig (?) And Hobro . In 1684 he resigned from the service and received a pension from then on.

Von Holsten was in contact with his older brother Hans Adolph until the last few years of his life, but lived independently of him. He is named as single in a family tree from 1743, so he probably died unmarried. The economic book for 1690 mentioned in Hans Adolphs Langesøbog noted “Jer. Christian's wedding 15 Rtlr ”, refer to Hans Adolph's eldest son rather than to a late wedding of Hieronymus Christian.

Autobiography

Von Holsten never became important as a military man. His memoirs made him famous , parts of which have been preserved as an autograph. His language is unusually lively and extremely precise. He made no secret of his enthusiasm for the cruel sides of the war. Since he never got into higher positions, he did not describe his youth - like other authors - from a different perspective. Von Holsten's notes are now considered an important source of military history, the history of Eastern Europe, Schleswig-Holstein and Westphalia. They are also an important example of baroque literature.

Works

• Helmut Lahrkamp (ed.): War adventure of the Rittmeister Hieronymus Christian von Holsten: 1655–1666. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner 1971 (= sources and studies on the history of Eastern Europe 4)

(Polish edition) Przygody wojenne 1655–1666. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax 1980 ISBN 83-211-0196-8

literature

• Eckardt Opitz: Holsten, Hieronymus Christian von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 6 - 1982. ISBN 3-529-02646-8 , pages 132-133.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Eckardt Opitz: Holsten, Adolph Hans von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 6 - 1982, p. 130.
2. ^ Bömmelburg / Błaszczyk / Popov: Violent communities and the “Military Revolution” in Eastern Europe . In: Winfried Speitkamp (ed.): Violent communities in history: emergence, cohesive force and decay , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2017, pp. 101–138; P. 115
3. ^ Eckardt Opitz: Holsten, Hieronymus Christian von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 6 - 1982, page 132.
4. ^ ^{A b c} Eckardt Opitz: Holsten, Hieronymus Christian von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 6 - 1982, page 133.
5. ↑ Maren Lorenz: The Wheel of Violence: Military and Civilian Population in Northern Germany after the Thirty Years War (1650-1700) . Cologne / Weimar 2007, p. 296