Johann von Pechlin

Johann Freiherr von Pechlin, Edler von Löwenbach, (* 1677 , probably in Kiel ; † 9/10 February 1757 ) was a Schleswig-Holstein statesman and chancellor in the first half of the 18th century.

biography

Johann Pechlin was the son of the ducal physician, librarian and prince educator Johann Nikolaus Pechlin ; the Pechlin family had ancestors on the island of Fehmarn . Johann began his career in 1703 as an assessor at the Gottorfische Justice and Government Chancellery in Schleswig, and in 1710 he became a judicial and chancellery advisor and chief librarian of the ducal library. As early as 1707 he had compiled the catalog of the manuscripts kept in the library and in 1709 the complete catalog Catalogus Bibliothecae Gottorpiensis . The house of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf lived through the troubled times of the Great Northern War at the beginning of the 18th century . The Duke Friedrich IV, expelled from the country , died in 1702 in the Battle of Klissow . The four-year-old heir, Duke Karl Friedrich , was brought to Stockholm in 1704 with his mother, who came from there, under the care of Johann Nikolaus Pechlin. The Gottorf library became Danish in 1718, so that Johann Pechlin put himself at the disposal of the government of the Duchy of Gottorf, which was based in Kiel after the loss of the Schleswig region. This used him several times as a messenger to the imperial court in Vienna. After that, after Duke Karl Friedrich (1719) took office, he was appointed Schleswig-Holstein State Councilor (1720) and subsequently rose to become the Secret Legation Councilor and Envoy in Stockholm and ultimately Chancellor of the Duchy.

After Karl Friedrich's death in 1739, a guardianship government had to be set up again. Pechlin was raised to the German nobility in 1740 for his services to date and in 1743, under the further name of Edler von Löwenbach, also baron. Duke (Karl) Peter (Ulrich) was declared of age on June 17, 1745 and was thus able to personally take over government power over Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp. However, since he had meanwhile been appointed heir to the Russian throne and, as a later tsar, was required to reside in Russia, the new government was settled in distant St. Petersburg. Pechlin became court chancellor of the duchy in 1746 and was in charge of the secret council ( Conseil ) for the next eleven years until his death.

During his term of office, the important foreign policy negotiations with the Kingdom of Denmark because of the exchange of the prince's share of Holstein for the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst fell. There were disagreements with the Duke about the conduct of Pechlin's negotiations, who was skeptical of the goal anyway. The interests of the Russian heir to the throne also did not coincide with the official interests of Russia. Denmark's representative in the negotiations, Count Lynar, knew how to use this and further weakened Pechlin through discrediting. This led to a considerable resentment of the duke and Russian heir to the throne. This broke off negotiations with Denmark. His court chancellor, Pechlin, was forbidden to return to the matter with the greatest disgrace. - The matter could only be settled and concluded by the Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo in 1783 after Peter's death . Domestically, during Pechlin's term in office in Holstein, he practiced cabinet justice against Ernst Joachim Westphal, the head of administration in Kiel .

Johann von Pechlin was married to Margareta Amalia, a daughter of General von Flohr from Mecklenburg. Two sons of the couple's children became known: one, Detlev Philip (1718–1772), like his father, became a privy councilor and grand princely councilor ; his grandson was the later Danish ambassador Friedrich Christian Ferdinand von Pechlin . The other, Karl Friedrich von Pechlin , however, became an officer, Swedish general and politician and was involved in the murder of King Gustav III. involved.

literature

• Friedrich von Krogh:  Pechlin, Johann Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, p. 307 f.
• Continued new genealogical-historical news, 1757, p.664f
• Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck (1987), p. 270–272 (corrections: Volume 9/1991, p. 380)

Individual evidence

1. ^ After Emil Steffenhagen: The abbey library at Bordesholm and the Gottorf library. Two bibliographic studies. (2), in: ZSHG 14 (1884), pp. 1-40, here p. 8. The catalog is preserved in the Kiel University Library; the catalog from 1709 has been preserved in two copies in Oldenburg and Eutin. (ibid., p. 4; see also Ulrich Kuder et al. (Ed.): The library of the Gottorfer dukes. Nordhausen: Bautz 2008 ISBN 3-88309-459-5 , p. 11)
2. ↑ See ADB Johann von Pechlin Volume 25, p. 308.
3. ↑ After Ferdinand Christian Herman von Krogh: Den høiere danske adel. Copenhagen: C. Steen & søn 1866, p. 150 ( limited preview in Google book search)