Hans Rudolf von Bischoffwerder

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Rudolf von Bischoffwerder
Ostramondra manor around 1860, Duncker collection

Johann "Hans" Rudolf von Bischoffwerder (born November 13, 1741 in Ostramondra ; † October 30 or 31, 1803 in Marquardt ) was a Prussian major general as well as a favorite and advisor to Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Life

Bischoffwerder came from a Saxon noble family . His father Hans Rudolf von Bischoffwerder (1707–1754) was a cavalry master in Electoral Saxony , became Major and Adjutant Moritz von Saxony in France and died as a Dutch colonel in The Hague . Through his wife, Henriette Wilhelmine von Bünau, the manor Ostramondra came into the possession of the von Bischoffwerder.

From 1756 Hans Rudolf studied law at the University of Halle . On November 25, 1758 he was admitted to the Masonic Lodge "Philadelphia to the three golden arms" in Halle. In 1760 he joined the cuirassier regiment "Leib-Carabiniers" , where he was appointed ensign in 1761 . In 1762 he took part in the battle of Freiberg . After the Peace of Hubertusburg , Bischoffwerder took his leave in July 1763 and became chamberlain at the Electoral Saxon court and stable master of Duke Karl von Kurland . In 1764 he married Christiane von Wilcke, the daughter of an electoral chamberlain. In 1765 he joined the Scottish lodge “To the crowned snake” in Görlitz , which was part of the Strict Observance , and soon afterwards took on the position of a superior and protector of the VII Province in Saxony in this system . As a knight "Eques a grypho" (Latin: knight of the griffin) he became one of the leading personalities of the strict observance in Saxony .

He was fond of magic, alchemy and mysticism and fell into the betrayal of Gottlieb Franz von Gugomos ' (1742-1816) and the evocations of Johann Georg Schrepfers , at whose mysterious death in 1774 he was present. Later he allegedly used Schrepfer's apparatus for producing ghostly apparitions for his own purposes. He also had contact with the Count of Saint Germain , whom he visited in 1777 on behalf of his intimate friend, the Duke of Friedrich August von Braunschweig-Oels , in order to form a personal judgment about him and his familiarity with the Rosicrucians .

In 1778 Bischoffwerder returned to Prussian service and came into the vicinity of the Crown Prince, later King Friedrich Wilhelm II , whose trust he won. Together with the influential minister Johann Christoph von Wöllner , he took advantage of the Crown Prince's gullibility and interested him in evocations of spirits, which he staged in a tricky manner. Bischoffwerder, a member of the Order of Gold and Rosicrucians in Berlin-Potsdam, finally managed to get the Crown Prince to be accepted into the Order of Gold and Rosicrucians in 1781 under the name Ormerus Magnus .

After ascending the throne in 1786, Frederick William II. Bischoffwerder promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed him his wing and 1789 Adjutant General , 1790 Chief of the riding ends Military Police Corps and in 1791 to Major General . Bischoffwerder gained ever greater influence at the court. For his services he received the Order of the Black Eagle .

In Briesnitz near Dresden, the country residence of the Kabbalist Wolf Benjamin Eibeschütz , meetings with Austrian diplomats took place in order to strengthen the Dresden-Berlin-Vienna axis. At the same time, Kabbalistic and Rosicrucian matters were discussed.

As a trusted advisor, he persuaded the king to come closer to Austria in 1790 and to come to an understanding on the stance against revolutionary France in the Reichenbach Convention , which in 1792 led to the first coalition war. Its negative course led to the rejection of the king of Bischoffwerder, but as Prussian foreign minister he still received large goods complexes from the king when Poland was partitioned in 1793. After Friedrich Wilhelm II's death in 1797, he brought the regal insignia to the new ruler, but was dismissed and retired in 1798 and died on October 30 or 31, 1803 on his Marquardt estate near Potsdam.

family

He was married twice. His first wife was Luise Christiane von Wilcke in 1764, from whom he was divorced in 1794. They had three daughters:

  • Marianne (1767–1789)
  • Charlotte (1767–1812), lady-in-waiting
  • Caroline Erdmuthe Christiane († 1842), lady-in-waiting

His second wife was Wilhelmine Katharine von Tarrach (1757-1833) in 1795. Her father was the Tarrach Secret Finance Council in Tilsit. It was also her second marriage. Her first husband was Count Franz Ignatz von Pinto (1725–1788). The couple had a son and three daughters:

  • Johanna Rudolfine Luitgarde (1794–1869) ⚭ Konstantin von Witzleben (1784–1845), Prussian lieutenant general
  • Anna Blanca Hedwig (1797–1824) ⚭ 1816 August Friedrich Karl von Maltzahn (1793–1825)
  • Bertha (1799–1824) ⚭ Heinrich von Ostau (1790–1872), Prussian major general

With his son Lieutenant General Hans Rudolf Wilhelm Ferdinand (1795-1858), the family of Bischoffwerder in Prussia went out.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Detlev Schwennicke : European family tables. New episode . Volume XXI: Brandenburg and Prussia 2. Verlag Vittorio Klostermann , Frankfurt am Main 2002, Tfl. 19th
  2. ^ A b Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurerlexikon. FA Herbig, 2000, p. 135, p. 718f and p. 758f.
  3. Paweł Maciejko: A Portrait of the Kabbalist as a Young Man: Count Joseph Carl Emmanuel Waldstein and His Retinue, in: Jewish Quarterly Review, Volume 106, Number 4, Fall 2016, University of Pennsylvania Press Project MUSE [accessed May 28, 2020 ]