Johann Eberhard von Droste zu Zützen

Johann Eberhard von Droste zu Zützen (born August 1, 1662 in Zützen near Golßen , † September 18, 1726 in Reddern ) was a Saxon lieutenant general , commander of the Königstein fortress and landowner .

Flat church in Reddern, built by Johann Eberhard

ancestry

Johann Eberhard came from a sideline of the Catholic noble family Droste zu Hülshoff , which existed in Möllenbeck (today Münster-Wolbeck ) in the 17th century and belonged to the 14th generation of his family. His father was Herbert (or Gerhard) von Droste zu Möllenbeck (1609–1695) who had moved from Westphalia to Saxony in the Thirty Years' War . His eldest brother, Everwin von Droste zu Möllenbeck , was accepted into the Fruit-Bringing Society in Köthen . Herbert - like his brother Everwin - had adopted the Protestant denomination and married Sybilla Elisabeth von Klitzing . His life story is documented: after a robbery on his parents' house in Möllenbeck, he grew up , separated from his parents and siblings, on the estate of his maternal uncle, Herr von Bischopinck , from 1610 . At the age of 13 he had come to live with another uncle in Holland in 1624 , where he had attended French school. In 1626 he went to Denmark as a page with the Dutch ambassador and later to Sweden with Court Marshal Dietrich von Falkenberg , until he was shot near Magdeburg and he himself was captured by the Imperial Army , but released again. He then rejoined the Swedish army and made a career there up to colonel . Dismissed with 2,300 thalers and a gold chain, he was able to acquire the Zützen and Wendisch-Gersdorf estates (today the town of Golßen ) in 1651 (according to another source, his wife brought them with him). In the 20th century, these two estates had a total size of 1055 hectares. The Brenitz school's homeland book mentions his mild estate.

Life

Johann Eberhard, who as a later son was not the heir of his father, married Christina von Birckholz, heiress of the estates Reddern , Kasel, Loss and Pelzdorf. In his second marriage he married Johanna Erdmuthe von Klitzing. The Order of St. John refused to accept him. As a lord of the manor, he built the so-called "Flachskirche" in Reddern around 1725, which he did not see to be completed. A (heavily weathered) alliance coat of arms Droste-Klitzing is attached to the church, inside remind of him and his family and others. a. an inscription, an epitaph for his daughter Johanna Eberhardine Erdmuthe (1727–1752) with words of honor and a baptismal font with a coat of arms.

Military career

Johann Eberhard von Droste zu Zutzen was in command of the Königstein Fortress, here as it was in 2008

Johann Eberhard was only eight years older than the Saxon regent August the Strong , under whom he made a military career. He joined the Saxon Army very early and in 1691 became a colonel in the Electoral Saxon body regiment on foot. As such, he went along when Elector August 1697 traveled to Poland for the royal coronation . From 1701 he was sub-commander of the infantry regiment of the Saxon or German Guard. As early as 1701 he was promoted to major general and in 1703 commanded an infantry regiment named after him, with which he took part in the Great Northern War , in 1704 stormed Praga near Warsaw and which he also commanded in the Battle of Fraustadt in 1706 . In 1711, at the age of 49, he was promoted to lieutenant general and then served for several years, most recently as commandant of Königstein Fortress . This was an honorable position of trust, because August the Strong often stayed in this largest mountain fortress in Germany and had it expanded during this time.

progeny

Only after von Droste zu Zützen's death was his daughter Johanna Eberhardine Erdmuthe Johanna Bernhardina (1727–1752) born, who in 1741 gave birth to her ailing nephew Johann Leopold II von Droste zu Zützen, Gersdorf, Reddern, Kasel, Loss and Pelzdorf (1718–1750 ) got married. In 1749 he sold the Zützen estate to the wife of Carl Wilhelm von Kleist , who  had a Kleistensitz built there by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff by 1750 - almost simultaneously with Sanssouci Palace ( Walter Ulbricht had it set on fire in 1945 - only the cellar vaults survived to the 1970s). Since Johann Leopold Droste zu Zützen had remained childless, at least some of his goods would have gone to the Westphalian line of Droste zu Hülshoff . Because Heinrich II. Von Droste-Hülshoff (1597–1666) was enfeoffed in 1652 with the goods Zützen and Wendisch-Gersdorff. However, because of the many other enfeoffers and the need to have to accept the evangelical faith, the latter had missed the necessary subsequent enfeoffment, so that the goods came to families there.

Droste zu Zützen in literature

The poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff uses in her (unfinished) story Bei Uns zu Lande im Lande after the handwriting of a nobleman from Lausitz as her narrator, the figure of an unidentifiable Lusatian relative, who describes a stay at Hülshoff Castle . The purpose of the stay is to find an heir for his property in Lusatia . While the plot is set to take place in the early 18th century, residents of Hülshoff are from the generation of the poet (1797–1848) and her parents Clemens-August II. Von Droste zu Hülshoff (1760–1826) and Therese-Louise von Droste to Hülshoff, respectively , born Haxthausen (1772-1853) shown.

In fact, the Droste zu Zützen line had already died out in 1750. The only member of the Hülshoff parent company enfeoffed with Zützen and Wendisch-Gersdorf, Heinrich II von Droste zu Hülshoff (1597–1666), was a contemporary of the founder of Droste zu Zützen, Herbert (1609–1669). The next generation to Hülshoff, Bernhard III. von Droste-Hülshoff (1634–1700), visited his cousin Herbert von Droste zu Zützen on his cavalier journey, where he stayed for some time. The son of Herbert Droste zu Zützen, the then childless Johann Eberhard von Droste zu Zützen is said to have actually visited his distant cousin Heinrich Johann I von Droste zu Hülshoff (1677–1739) in 1723 in order to have one of his sons take over to move goods in Lusatia. His eldest son Heinrich Wilhelm Droste zu Hülshoff (1704-1754) is said to have refused, as the legacy of the Hülshoff headquarters and an advantageous marriage to the Droste family in Vischering were in prospect. The younger son Ernst Konstantin von Droste zu Hülshoff (Canon, 1709) was not available either, because he wanted to convert to the clergy and not to the Protestant denomination. Heinrich von Droste zu Hülshoff (1875–1934) reports this . The poet also refers to the Lusatian branch of the family through her portrayal of a young "Everwin" - this was the name given to the eldest brother of the above. Herbert, Everwin von Droste zu Möllenbeck (approx. 1592–1661), who was admitted to the Fruitful Society .

The poet's fiction of transferring the Hülshoff visit from the generation of her great-great-great-grandfather to her own present thus deviates from the historical core. Apparently she only wanted to erect a monument to her homeland Westphalia and her close family. She writes: That I “recognized my dear parents so clearly that you could point your fingers at them - that was actually not my intention, I just wanted to borrow individual features [...] now I'm afraid everyone will take it for portrait [ …] ”(Letter of July 20, 1841 to August von Haxthausen ).

literature

• Carl Christoph Besser: Honorary memory of the well-bored women, women Johannen Eberhardinen Erdmuth, weathered. and born Drostin, inheritance and court women on Reddern, ... to the consolation of Ms. Mama, who was painfully stooped by this death ..., who were also well-bored women, women Johannen Erdmuth, Lieutenant General Drostin, née. from Klitzing. Leipzig 1752.
• Annette von Droste-Hülshoff : With us on land in the country (fragment, estate), 1862.
• Heinrich von Droste zu Hülshoff : The cousin from Lausitz. Entertainment supplement of the "Deutsche Zeitung", January 19, 1928.
• Wilderich from Droste to Hülshoff : 900 years of Droste to Hülshoff . Verlag LPV Hortense von Gelmini, Horben 2018, ISBN 978-3-936509-16-8
• Wilderich von Droste zu Hülshoff : Annette von Droste-Hülshoff in the field of tension of her family.
• Christoph Munko becomes Kössät in Zützen. In: Excerpts from the Brenitz school home book.
• J. Holsenbürger: The gentlemen v. Eckenbrock (by Droste-Hülshoff) and their possessions.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} J. Holsenbürger: The gentlemen v. Eckenbrock (by Droste-Hülshoff) and their possessions.
2. ↑ Prussian Archive 3rd year (1792), digitized version of the University of Göttingen, p. 135 ff.
3. ^ ^{A b} Heinrich von Droste zu Hülshoff: The cousin from Lausitz. Entertainment supplement of the "Deutsche Zeitung", January 19, 1928.