Johann Georg von Langen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Georg von Langen around 1750

Johann Georg von Langen (born March 22, 1699 in Oberstadt , † May 25, 1776 in Jægersborg near Copenhagen ) was a German forest and chief hunter and Norwegian general forest master.

Life

Johann Georg von Langen's porcelain snuffbox (around 1760): It shows an allegory of porcelain production and Langen's coat of arms . The buildings of the Fürstenberg porcelain factory, which he founded in 1747, can be seen on the right.

Langen was born as the eldest son of the von Langen family from the Emsland region in the Oberstadt manor house , which his ancestor Humpert von Langen († 1614) had acquired in 1606. His father was the feudal lord of Oberstadt and his mother was a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Saxony-Meiningen . In his youth von Langen worked as a court page. When the Duchess died, he moved to the court of her brother, Duke Ludwig Rudolf of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in Blankenburg in the Harz region . As early as 1716 he was referred to as a hunting page. In 1719 the duke allowed him to go on an educational trip a. a. to the farms in Stuttgart , Munich and Vienna for further training in hunting. When he returned to Blankenburg after many years, he carried out the appraisal and measurement of the Harz forests here .

In 1737 he went to Norway through the mediation of Count Christian Ernst zu Stolberg-Wernigerode , where he was commissioned by King Christian VI. of Denmark to promote mining and forestry. Its main place of activity was Kongsberg . In 1742 he returned to Braunschweig due to various difficulties and initially stayed for some time in Wernigerode and Blankenburg before becoming head of the forest in Fürstenberg in the Weser district. Due to unrest in the Seven Years' War , he returned to the Harz in 1760. Due to an intrigue that he was the victim of, he decided in 1763 to enter Danish service a second time. There he arranged, among other things, the forestry conditions on the island of Zealand .

plant

Johann Georg von Langen around 1760, porcelain bust as a model by Simon Feilner

Together with Count Heinrich Ernst zu Stolberg-Wernigerode and Chief Forester Hans Dietrich von Zanthier in 1743 he supported the construction of peat plants on the Brocken . One of these works was named Langenswerk . In the following year he wrote the forest regulations for the Hohnstein Forest of Count Christian Ernst zu Stolberg-Wernigerode , in which the later so-called pole wood operation was established. In 1747 he had the first potatoes grown near Braunlage and himself wrote a memorandum on the use of "potatoes".

Johann Georg von Langen founded on behalf of Duke Charles I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel on 11 January 1747 Fürstenberg the Fürstenberg porcelain factory , which produced from 1753 to the market and which he headed until the 1763rd

He had also excelled in the paper industry from around 1750 and tried to reduce the need for rags - in paper manufacture there was a “rag problem” - with “a new type of paper from Holtz Materie” .

In 1755 Langen wrote a memorandum in which he advocated the upbringing of mixed tree populations and recommended spruce as the main tree species to be cultivated. The subsequent reforestation of many run-down forest areas with the spruce is largely due to him.

In 1764 he founded a forest school in Jägersborg near Copenhagen. Langen's student Wilhelm Gottfried von Moser described him as the father of regular forestry. Carl Ludwig von Lassberg , Oberlandforstmeister in the Electorate of Saxony from 1763, is another student of Langens.

The fact that the Danish name maple for the sycamore maple was borrowed from the German is due to the fact that von Langen preferred to use this species among the deciduous trees in order to achieve rapid afforestation. In popular parlance, the sycamore maple still bears the nickname of Langen's fodspor (Langen's footsteps).

Monuments

  • In Braunlage there is a memorial stone for Johann Georg von Langen on the stone cliff in the spa park as well as a “Von-Langen-Straße”. There is also a “potato monument” that commemorates the first attempts to grow potatoes and a memorial stone for Johann Georg's brother Franz-Philipp von Langen.
  • In Treseburg in Harz a memorial to Johann Georg erected by Langen.
  • A memorial stone can also be found in Kongsberg , Norway , on which the names of the employees of the former General Forestry Office from 1739 to 1746 are recorded. Von Langen tops this list of names.
  • The permanent exhibition, the life and work of the chief hunter Johann Georg von Langen from 1699–1776 , founded by Hermann Hebbel, is housed in the Boffzen Glass Museum .
  • In addition, there is a memorial at the house in which he was born in Oberstadt, the moated castle Oberstadt, which was renovated from 2006 onwards. V. was established.

literature

  • Wilhelm Evers : Johann Georg von Langen (1699–1776) - His life and work in the Harz and Weserbergland, in Denmark and Norway (lecture on the occasion of the conference of the Northwest German Forest Association on September 9, 1971 in Flensburg). In: The forest and wood host. Issue 26/1971, pp. 478-482.
  • Wilhelm Evers:  Langen, Johann Georg von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , pp. 575-578 ( digitized version ).
  • Richard Hess:  Langen, Johann Georg von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 656-659.
  • Franziska Hirschmann: Forms of noble existence in the 18th century. Nobility between criticism and reforms. Munich 2009.
  • Kurt Mantel : Johann Georg von Langen 1699–1776. In: General forest and hunting newspaper. 147th year, issue 12/1976, ISSN  0002-5852 , pp. 225-226.
  • Wolfgang Melzer: Langen, Johann Georg von . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Dieter Lent et al. (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 8th to 18th century . Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-46-7 , p. 427-428 .
  • Zoltán Rozsnyay: Johann Georg von Langen (1699–1776) and its importance for forestry - On the 200th anniversary of his death and Zoltán Rozsnyay, Frank Kropp: Johann Georg von Langen (short biography with sources), in this: Lower Saxony Forest Biography. A source volume. From the forest (1998): Messages from the Lower Saxony State Forest Administration (Issue 51). Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forests (MELF), Wolfenbüttel 1998. pp. 284–287 and pp. 504–524.
  • Erich Sander: Johann Georg von Langen (1699–1776). In: Forest Archive. 32nd year, issue 4/1961, pp. 76–81.

Web links

Commons : Johann Georg von Langen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Achterberg: Braunschweigische Staatsbank. Braunschweig, 1965, p. 45.
  2. ↑ Joachim Lehrmann : Helmstedter and Räbker book and paper history. Lehrte 1994, ISBN 3-9803642-0-8 , p. 283.
  3. ↑ Joachim Lehrmann: Braunschweigische Pioneers - and the invention of "a new kind of paper from Holtz matter" by Johann Georg von Langen . In: Braunschweigischer Landesverein Geschichte-Heimat-Natur e. V. (Ed.): Braunschweigische Heimat . 103rd volume, no. 3/2017 , p. 13–20 , doi : 10.24355 / dbbs.084-201710231021-2 ( tu-braunschweig.de [PDF; 28.5 MB ; accessed on March 5, 2019]).
  4. ↑ Ahorn (Danish), Randers Naturcenter, accessed on March 23, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Langen, Johann Georg von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German forest and chief hunter master
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1699
PLACE OF BIRTH Upper town , district of Hildburghausen
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1776
Place of death Jægersborg near Copenhagen