Johan August Meijerfeldt the Elder

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Johann August Meyerfeldt, engraving by Christian Fritzsch (1729)

Johan August Meijerfeldt the Elder (also Johann August Meyerfeldt ; * 1664 in Oberpahlen in Livonia ; † November 9, 1749 in Sövde in Skåne ) was a Swedish general and imperial council and governor general of Swedish Pomerania .

Life

Johan August Meijerfeldt was a son of Lieutenant Colonel Andreas Meyer, who was ennobled in the Swedish service in 1674, and his wife Katharina Wolf. In 1683 he began his military career with a Swedish cavalry regiment in Livonia, where he was promoted to lieutenant in 1689 . In 1693 he became a captain in an infantry regiment that fought in the Palatinate War of Succession on the side of the Netherlands against France.

On his return he took part in the Great Northern War , for example in the battles at Narva (1700), Klissow (1702) and Thorn (1703). In 1702 he became a colonel and in 1704 major general . In 1704 he took part in the Battle of Posen . In 1705 he was raised to the status of a Swedish baron .

In 1708 he turned against the plan of Charles XII, who led his army into Ukraine . After the defeat at Poltava in 1709, he went into exile with the king in Bender , from where he sent him to the Imperial Council in Stockholm that same year . In early 1710 he was in command of the right wing of the Swedish troops in the battle of Helsingborg . After his return to Bender, the king promoted him to lieutenant general on August 17, 1710 and at the same time appointed him in command of the fortress of Stettin . He traveled there via Constantinople and Italy in January 1711.

In July 1711 he became Vice Governor General and in 1713 - raised to the status of Swedish count - as successor to Jürgen Mellin Imperial Councilor and Governor General of Swedish Pomerania . In the same year he had to leave Stettin to Russian troops, for which he and the garrison were given safe conduct to Stralsund . During the occupation of northern Western Pomerania and the island of Rügen by Danish troops from 1715 to 1721, he headed the Swedish admiralty in 1716 and 1717 . From 1719 to 1720 he was Reich Chancellery and in 1720 temporarily President of the Reich Chancellery. After the departure of the Danes, he resumed his post as Governor General of Swedish Pomerania in 1721, which after the Treaty of Stockholm in 1720 only included Western Pomerania north of the Peene.

After the peace of Stockholm, Meijerfeldt, against the disarmament of Sweden, achieved a doubling of the troops under him to 3000 men and the expansion of the Stralsund city fortifications . In the Reichsrat he campaigned for the envoy of Swedish Pomerania to support the emperor's policy at the German Reichstag, even if, as with the Pragmatic Sanction, this did not coincide with the official policy of the Kingdom of Sweden.

The former Meijerfeldt'sche Palais, later the Swedish government palace and Prussian governor's palace, in Stralsund .

Meijerfeldt had extensive land holdings with Nehringen , among others, in Western Pomerania totaling around 15,000 hectares and more near Sövde in southern Sweden . As a landowner, he brought his policy closer to the interests of the Pomeranian estates. He rejected the introduction of a tax collection based on the Lagerströmschen register drawn up on the basis of the Swedish land survey of Western Pomerania because of the considerably higher tax burden. He contributed to the fact that the budget of the province of Swedish Pomerania was supported from 1739 by grants from the Reich Chamber.

Between 1726 and 1730 he had the Meyerfeldtsche Palais built in Stralsund at his own expense , which served him both as a residence and as a city apartment. Later it was the official seat of the governors general of Swedish Pomerania and from 1818 the Prussian district government.

family

Johan August Meijerfeldt the Elder Ä. was first married to (⚭ 1707) Anna Maria Törmflycht (1685–1710) and second marriage (⚭ 1717) to Brigitte von Barnekow (1700–1771). From the second marriage the future Field Marshal Johan August Meijerfeldt the Younger emerged as one of his two sons .

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Meijerfeldt, Johan August the Elder
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyerfeldt, Johann August the Elder
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish politician, Governor General in Swedish Pomerania
DATE OF BIRTH 1664
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberpahlen , Livonia
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1749
Place of death Sövde , Skåne