Josef Friedrich Wilhelm (Hohenzollern-Hechingen)

Prince Josef Friedrich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Hechingen

Josef Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern-Hechingen (* (baptized) November 12, 1717 in Bayreuth ; † April 9, 1798 in Hechingen ) was the sixth Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen from 1750 .

Life

Joseph Friedrich Wilhelm was a son of the Imperial Field Marshal Hermann Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Hechingen (1665–1733) from his marriage to Josepha (1694–1738), daughter of Count Franz Albrecht von Oettingen zu Spielberg .

Prince Josef Wilhelm, an officer in the imperial service, succeeded his unmarried cousin Friedrich Ludwig in 1750 . He was a friend of representation, court life, hunting and traveling. On June 25, 1750 he married the wealthy Spanish heirloom Maria Theresa Folch de Cardona y Sylva, Countess of Guadalest and Castilnovo (1732–1750). The later Hechingen rabbi Dr. Samuel Mayer wrote in one of his books in 1844 that the young princess had demanded the expulsion of all Jews from the principality as a condition of marriage . The Jews are said to have taken precautions - in order to forestall their deportation - before the news arrived that the princess drowned in Vienna on September 25th . He is said to have later shown himself to be tolerant of Protestants and Jews. An example of this is that in the same year he took on the sponsorship of a Jew baptized in the name of Joseph Wilhelm.

On January 7, 1751, Prince Joseph Wilhelm married Countess Maria Theresa von Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach . In May the royal couple went on a pilgrimage to Einsiedeln . In the first years of his reign he abolished the wine publishing house, so that “our subjects may get an honest drink of wine at a cheap price”. Furthermore, he built an avenue from Lindich Castle to Martinsberg and expanded the Marstall south of Friedrichsburg. In 1764, during a stay in Wildbad , the prince made the acquaintance of a staff captain who had been released from the Prussian army after the end of the war . The officer he offered a court charge was Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730–1794), who spent the following twelve years as court marshal in the immediate vicinity of Josef Wilhelm before he was a successful inspector general and organizer of the American army at the side of George Washington Played role in the American Revolutionary War . He promoted the agricultural economy in the country, renewed dilapidated farm buildings and had wasteland converted into new arable land. From 1766 Joseph Wilhelm tried to introduce potato cultivation . In 1768 he released Count Oswald von Hohenzollern-Berg, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and who owned a lordship in the Netherlands , on probation. One of the conditions was that he was not allowed to leave his newly assigned place of residence, Haigerloch . In the same year he laid out a second zoo across the district between Rangendingen , Grosselfingen , Owingen and Lindich Castle.

Steuben was there when the prince concocted his adventurous projects to make money or to save money. This included, among other things, the idea in 1772 to dissolve the court in order to save money and to go incognito with the princess, accompanied by Steuben. In Strasbourg , Montpellier and Lyon stay was taken longer. In societies, at dinners, at the gaming table, in the comedy, at carnival and on the hunt, Josef Wilhelm made his time and money. This unsteady life lasted for three full years before the princess, with the help of Steuben, succeeded in persuading the prince to end the masquerade.

In later years, the prince liked the role of an enlightened father of the country, created model estates, introduced compulsory schooling , founded a grammar school and a Latin school in the old castle in 1775 and, against the continuing resistance of the population, ordered the reduction of church holidays. His wife founded a hospital .

The new collegiate church in Hechingen owes its creation to his need for representation . In 1764, the well-known French architect Pierre Michel d'Ixnard , who was then based in Strasbourg and who later built the collegiate church, entered the service of the princely as building director.

Although the prince tried to appear paternal and jovial, he remained adamant and suspicious of the mediating course of his successor in the subjects' conflict. On April 9, 1798, Prince Josef Wilhelm died after 48 years of reign. Since he left no male descendants, the government passed to his nephew, Prince Hermann Friedrich Otto .

Marriages and offspring

Josef Friedrich Wilhelm was married twice. In 1750 he married the eighteen-year-old Maria Theresia Folch de Cardona y Silva (1732–1750), daughter and heiress of Margrave Franz Silvii Fokhard von Guadalest and Castellnovo , who died after three months of marriage and left her entire Cardonian fiduciary ability to the widower. For reasons of self-preservation, such marriages based on dowry and inheritance were sought in the Hechingen Princely House.

On January 7, 1751, the prince in Hechingen married Maria Theresia (1732–1802), daughter of Count Franz Ernst von Waldburg zu Zeil and Wurzach , who bore him six children, of which only the youngest daughter survived childhood:

Maria Antonia Anna (1760–1797)

⚭ 1778 Prince Joseph Maria zu Fürstenberg (1758–1796)

literature

Philipp Matthäus Hahn : Brief description of a small, mobile world-MACHINE, which Sr. Hochfürstl. Your highness to the ruling Prince [Joseph Friedrich Wilhelm] zu Hohenzollern-Hechingen under the DIRECTION of Pastor M [agistri]. Hahns von Onstmettingen was made there by the schoolmaster Schaudten [that is Philipp Gottfried Schaudt ]. 1770. [Vignette] Printed for Constanz by Johann Gerhard Lüdolph.
- Facsimile reprint: Philipp Matthäus Hahn: Brief description of a small, mobile world machine. Facsimile reprint of the rediscovered Constance 1770 edition . Ed. By Reinhard Breymayer . With a foreword by Alfred Munz. Tübingen: Nôus-Verlag Thomas Leon Heck 1988. - XXXIV, [IV], 14 p. 4 °. - Partial edition with addition: Special edition for the Württembergisches Landesmuseum [Stuttgart].

For the prince see pp. VII – XII: Alfred Munz: Preface, here pp. VII – XI; P. XIII – XXXIV: Reinhard Breymayer: Foreword by the editor, here P. XIII. XVIII, XXI. XXIV; also pp. XXX.XXXII & XXXIV references; S. [XXXVI] Portrait, S. (1) Title page facsimile.

Jürgen Brüstle: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben - A biography. Marburg 2006.
Gustav Schilling: History of the House of Hohenzollern, in genealogically continuous biographies of all its rulers from the oldest to the most recent times, according to documents and other authentic sources , F. Fleischer, 1843, p. 245 ff.
EG Johler: History, geography and local studies of the sovereign German principalities of Hohenzollern, Hechingen and Sigmaringen , 1824, p. 58 ff. ( Digitized version )
Ludwig Egler : Chronicle of the City of Hechingen , 1889, pp. 158–167.

predecessor	Office	successor
Friedrich Ludwig	Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen 1750–1798	Hermann

References and comments

↑ A nephew of the prince, who himself was connected to Vienna through his first marriage, commissioned an astronomical machine by Philipp Matthäus Hahn: The mechanics-friendly Franz Joseph Reichsgraf von Thun und Hohenstein (* 1734). His wife, Maria Wilhelmina, b. Comtesse von Uhlfeld (1744–1800), maintained a musical salon in her husband's palace in Vienna, in which Mozart , Beethoven and the Roman-German Emperor Joseph II, who had known Hahn personally since 1777 , frequented. Likewise, their son-in-law Karl Alois was Prince of Lichnowsky at times an important patron of Mozart and Beethoven. Concerning Hahn's importance, compare Reinhard Breymayer: Erhard Weigel's student Detlev Clüver and his influence on Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782) […] .. In: Katharina Habermann, Klaus-Dieter Herbst (ed.): Erhard Weigel (1625–1699) and his students. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2016, pp. (269) –323 p .; here p. 317–322: "Evidence of a connection between Franz Joseph Reichsgraf von Thun and Hohenstein, who was familiar with Mozart and Beethoven, the mechanic Philipp Gottfried Schaudt and the pastor Philipp Matthäus Hahn. A trace of Hahn's theology can be found in Schiller's Ode ' An the joy '? " The theology of love of the mechanic pastor and pioneer of the Evangelical Brethren Churches Korntal and Wilhelmsdorf (Württemberg) Philipp Matthäus Hahn evidently echoes in the love philosophy of Schiller's verses "Brothers - above the starry tent / a dear father must live", which Beethoven in the 4th movement, the Finale, his 9th symphony has recorded. An instrumental version of the main theme Ode to Joy in this last movement is the anthem of the European Union and the Council of Europe . The coincidence that Hahn and Schaudt's office of Onstmettingen was very close (as the crow flies: 5 kilometers) to Hechingen has had significant effects.

personal data
SURNAME	Josef Friedrich Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Josef Friedrich Wilhelm von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen (1750–1798)
DATE OF BIRTH	baptized November 12, 1717
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bayreuth
DATE OF DEATH	April 9, 1798
Place of death	Hechingen

[1] A nephew of the prince, who himself was connected to Vienna through his first marriage, commissioned an astronomical machine by Philipp Matthäus Hahn: The mechanics-friendly Franz Joseph Reichsgraf von Thun und Hohenstein (* 1734). His wife, Maria Wilhelmina, b. Comtesse von Uhlfeld (1744–1800), maintained a musical salon in her husband's palace in Vienna, in which Mozart , Beethoven and the Roman-German Emperor Joseph II, who had known Hahn personally since 1777 , frequented. Likewise, their son-in-law Karl Alois was Prince of Lichnowsky at times an important patron of Mozart and Beethoven. Concerning Hahn's importance, compare Reinhard Breymayer: Erhard Weigel's student Detlev Clüver and his influence on Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782) […] .. In: Katharina Habermann, Klaus-Dieter Herbst (ed.): Erhard Weigel (1625–1699) and his students. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2016, pp. (269) –323 p .; here p. 317–322: "Evidence of a connection between Franz Joseph Reichsgraf von Thun and Hohenstein, who was familiar with Mozart and Beethoven, the mechanic Philipp Gottfried Schaudt and the pastor Philipp Matthäus Hahn. A trace of Hahn's theology can be found in Schiller's Ode ' An the joy '? " The theology of love of the mechanic pastor and pioneer of the Evangelical Brethren Churches Korntal and Wilhelmsdorf (Württemberg) Philipp Matthäus Hahn evidently echoes in the love philosophy of Schiller's verses "Brothers - above the starry tent / a dear father must live", which Beethoven in the 4th movement, the Finale, his 9th symphony has recorded. An instrumental version of the main theme Ode to Joy in this last movement is the anthem of the European Union and the Council of Europe . The coincidence that Hahn and Schaudt's office of Onstmettingen was very close (as the crow flies: 5 kilometers) to Hechingen has had significant effects.