Johann Eustach von Görtz

Johann Eustach von Görtz in 1790

Johann Eustach Graf von Görtz actually called Graf von Schlitz von Görtz (* April 5, 1737 in Schlitz ; † August 7, 1821 in Regensburg ) was educator of the ducal princes of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach , diplomat in the Prussian service, as well as non-fiction author and pioneer the Weimar Classic.

Life

The family of those " von Schlitz called von Görtz " has their headquarters in Schlitz , north of the Vogelsberg in Hesse . His parents were the castle captain in Braunschweig Johann von Schlitz called Görtz (* April 30, 1683; † July 28, 1747) and his wife Maria Friederika Dorothea von Görtz (* August 22, 1696; † September 2, 1773). The grandfather was President of the Chamber of Elector Georg von Braunschweig-Lüneburg . Count Johann Eustachius received his first training in his parents' castle in Schlitz. He was then sent to the still young Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig together with his brother Fritz, who was two years older than him, and a court master . At the latest there he came into contact with enlightening ideas and writings through his teachers.

Then Görtz studied from 1752 to 1754 in Leiden and then from 1754 to 1755 in Strasbourg , here mainly with Johann Daniel Schöpflin . In 1755 he received his first position as private secretary of the Weimar Chancellor Heinrich Graf von Bünau . Later he moved as a legation counselor for further diplomatic training in Gotha state services. Two years later, in 1759, he returned to Weimar.

The prince tutor

Here, in 1762, the ruling Duchess Anna Amalia appointed him the chief tutor of her two sons, the Hereditary Prince Karl August and the younger Constantine . His nephew Carl Heinrich von Schlitz, called von Görtz, was also taught together with them.

Görtz felt obliged to the modern ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Bernhard Basedow and endeavored to implement their ideas in practical lessons. His modern stance was often a source of conflict for the Weimar Privy Council, which was extremely skeptical of these efforts.

Even before his trip to France, Count Johann Eustach von Görtz , who was hastily ordered to Saint Petersburg, lived up to his order from Friedrich II and tried to convince Denis Diderot to return from Russia via Potsdam and Sanssouci .

Between November 1774 and May 1775 traveled Freiherr von Goertz, Gottlob Ernst Friedrich Josias von Stein (1735-1793) Karl Ludwig von Knebel and Leibmedikus Engelhard with the two princes to Paris. During her stopover in Frankfurt , Johann Wolfgang Goethe was invited to breakfast in the Red House . Görtz liked the poet extraordinarily and accompanied the princes to Mainz . In Karlsruhe, Görtz and his student Karl August took part in the regular reading rounds with Klopstock at the Margrave's.

For three months in Paris, the Count and the Hereditary Prince regularly visited the salons in which the most famous encyclopedists of the time, such as Diderot , d'Alembert and Turgot , frequented the salons and where the salon visitors took part in an intensive exchange of ideas.

The chief steward

After his dismissal as a prince educator in 1775, Görtz temporarily took over the office of chief court master to the young Duchess Luise von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach until the arrival of the designated chief chamberlain, Countess Wilhelmine von Giannini . In April 1776, the Count sought and found contact with King Friedrich II of Prussia .

The diplomat

Monument to Johann Eustach von Görtz in Regensburg

In the run-up to the War of the Bavarian Succession, he went to Munich and Zweibrücken on his behalf . He succeeded in supplying Prussia with a war pretext for the claims made by Austria to a part of Bavaria after Maximilian Joseph's death by persuading Duke Charles II of Zweibrücken to object to these claims. He was then appointed Minister of State.

In 1779 he was appointed Prussian ambassador to Saint Petersburg , where he met James Harris and stayed until 1785, without being able to prevent Empress Catherine II from turning away from the Prussian alliance.

In October 1786 he was sent to Holland by King Friedrich Wilhelm II to try to settle the conflicts between the Orange family (that is, governor Wilhelm V ) and the patriots and to try to avoid a civil war . Görtz and Friedrich Wilhelm von Thulemeier (1735–1811) were unsuccessful, however, and Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand finally occupied the republic.

As kurbrandenburgischer Reichstag envoy in Regensburg 1788-1806 he participated in the Treaty of Rastatt Congress and at the Imperial Diet in part, after the Peace of Luneville had met.

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire ended his diplomatic life after the conclusion of the Tilsit Peace . Görtz continued to live in Regensburg and took part in the city's cultural life. In 1820 he was made Regensburg's first honorary citizen because of his services to the city during the Napoleonic Wars . He died here on August 7, 1821. A year later, a memorial was erected for him.

marriage and family

Count Görtz married Caroline von Uechtritz in October 1768 , the daughter of the Gotha minister Carl Emil von Uechtritz and his wife Dorothea von Oppel as well as granddaughter of the likewise Gotha chancellor Siegfried Ehrenfried von Oppel . Like her husband, Countess Caroline was a staunch supporter of the Enlightenment, read basic works by Rousseau and Basedow and took a keen interest in politics.

The couple had three daughters. The oldest, Caroline, died early. The second daughter Louise (1774-1832) married Hans von Labes (1763-1831), lord of Karstorf. At the time of marriage, he was adopted by his father-in-law and he then took the family name of von Schlitz . The couple built in Mecklenburg Hohen Demzin the Burg Schlitz .

Her youngest daughter Marianne (1778-1825) married the Bavarian diplomat and later Foreign Minister, Count Aloys von Rechberg , whom Görtz had trained as a diplomat.

The interest in politics and diplomacy remained in the following generation. His two grandsons Albert and Bernhard were also active diplomats, Johann Bernhard von Rechberg , as Austrian Foreign Minister, became an opponent of Bismarck .

Works (selection)

• Letters from a Printzen court master about Basedow's print education and mainly about his Agathokrator , Heilbronn 1771.
• Mémoire sur la Russie . 1786. Einel. u. ed. by Wolfgang Stribrny. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1969.
• Mémoire, ou précis historique sur la neutralité armée et son origine suivi de pièces justificatives . Basel. 1801.
  • The secret history of the armed neutrality. Together with memoirs, official letters & state-papers, illustrative of that celebrated confederacy: never before published. Written originally in French by a German nobleman. Translated by A ******** H ****. London: printed for J. Johnson, and R. Faulder, 1792. Microfilm - Woodbridge, Conn .: Research Publications, Inc., 1986.
• Mémoires et actes authentiques relatifs aux négociations qui ont précédé le partage de la Pologne . Weimar, 1810.
• Mémoire historique de la négociation en 1778 pour la succession de la Bavière . Frankfurt a. M., 1812.

Published from his estate: Historical and Political Memories . Stuttgart, 1827/1828, 2 vols.

• Volume 1 Google digitized version
• Volume 2 Google digitized

literature

• Paul Bailleu :  Görtz, Johann Eustach Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 393-395.
• Christian Kaserer: What is the value of the Goertz letters? . Munich: GRIN 2012 ISBN 978-3-656-27651-7
• Norbert Leithold : Count Goertz. The great stranger: A journey of discovery into Goethe's time . Osburg, 2010, ISBN 3940731390 .
• Volker Puthz: A son of our city became 1st honorary citizen of Regensburg , in: Schlitzer Bote. For Schlitz and Schlitzer Land December 18th / 19th December / 24. December / 27. December 2007
• Heinrich Sippel: The Prussian Minister of State Johann Eustach von Schlitz: A life for diplomacy . 1981. Slit in the Mirror of History; Issue 6.
• Wolfgang Stribrny:  Görtz, Johann Eustach Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 538 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Gabriele von Trauchburg: Two misunderstood Weimar aestheticians. Observations and comments by Countess Caroline Görtz and Count Johann Eustachius von Görtz on writers and philosophers between 1768 and 1778 , in: Ilse Nagelschmidt / Stefan Weiß / Jochanan Trilse-Finkelstein (eds.), Goethe's first Weimar decade. Anna Amalia and Goethe - conference proceedings with further research papers , Weimar 2010, pp. 57–130 ISBN 978-3-936177-15-2 .
• Gabriele von Trauchburg: Who was Countess Görtz? First biographical fragments on her 260th birthday, in: Ilse Nagelschmidt / Stefan Weiß / Jochanan Trilse-Finkelstein (eds.), Goethe's first Weimar decade. Anna Amalia and Goethe - conference proceedings with further research contributions , Weimar 2010, pp. 311–364 ISBN 978-3-936177-15-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Johann Eustach von Görtz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Johann Eustach von Görtz  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Main State Archives Hanover, German Chancellery in London
2. ↑ Information on the website of the city of Braunschweig on the history of the university , accessed on August 26, 2010
3. ↑ Arthur McCandless Wilson: Diderot. Oxford University Press, New York 1972, ISBN 0-19-501506-1 , p. 642
4. ↑ Trauchburg, Gabriele von, Two misunderstood beautiful spirits, 2010, pp. 66–70.
5. ^ Vehse, CE (1991) Der Hof zu Weimar, p. 37, 41-44, 47, 120.
6. ^ Trauchburg, Gabriele von, Two misunderstood beautiful spirits, 2010, pp. 82–92.
7. ^ Trauchburg, Gabriele von, Who was Countess Görtz, 2010, pp. 337–338.
8. ↑ Puthz, Volker, a son of our city became 1st honorary citizen of Regensburg, in: Schlitzer Bote. For Schlitz and Schlitzer Land December 24, 2007

predecessor	Office	successor
Victor Friedrich von Solms-Sonnenwalde	Prussian envoy to Russia 1779–1785	Leopold Heinrich von der Goltz
	Prussian envoy to the Netherlands 1786–1788
	Prussian envoy to the Holy Roman Empire 1788–1806	Office dissolved

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