Joseph Gottfried Pargfrieder

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Joseph Gottfried Pargfrieder

Joseph Gottfried Ritter von Pargfrieder , also Pargfrider (* around 1787 in Hungary ; † 30 January 1863 in Kleinwetzdorf, municipality of Heldenberg ), was an army supplier and builder of the Heldenberg memorial in Lower Austria .

Life

The origin of Pargfrieders is still in the dark today and there are numerous legends around him, some of which go back to himself. His father is unknown; Pargfrieder's own claim that it was Emperor Joseph II has not been proven. A DNA analysis that could clarify this has not yet been carried out. According to these stories, he is said to have been born in 1782 - according to other sources, in 1775 - as the illegitimate child of Joseph II with a beautiful Jewess in the courtyard and later ran a small grocery store in Znojmo ; According to other sources, he was the (illegitimate) son of a certain Anna Moser, wife of a forester in Marchegg Castle , where the Habsburgs and the Austrian nobility pursued their hunting fun at that time. The fact that he had the citizenship of the cities of Buda and Pest from an early age could indicate close family ties there; there are also reasons to believe that he has connections with the city of Freudenthal in Bohemia.

From the Napoleonic Wars onwards, he supplied food, shoes and fabrics to the Austro-Hungarian army and thus became wealthy. Around 1830 he lived in Pest ( Hungary ), where he owned a factory. In 1832 he bought Wetzdorf Castle , which he renovated and renewed. He generously supported the population of Großwetzdorf and Kleinwetzdorf by paying medical expenses, medicine and school fees.

After the battle of Custozza and the suppression of the uprisings in Hungary , he had a heroes memorial built in his palace gardens in 1849 . He was friends with Field Marshal Maximilian von Wimpffen († 1854) and Field Marshal Radetzky , to whom he paid their high gambling debts . For this, they had to order in their wills to be buried on Heldenberg. Field Marshal Radetzky was solemnly buried on January 19, 1858 in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph on Heldenberg.

Pargfrieder donated the memorial to the emperor in 1858. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order and raised to the Austrian knighthood . The ennoblement of Pargfrieder did not take place because of the award of the order, since according to the statutes of this order there was no entitlement to a noble title associated with an award.

Pargfrieder, who personally lived very modestly and was unmarried, had himself taken to the crypt on Heldenberg in a milk cart without mourners after his death and buried there, dressed in knight armor and a red cloak. He had had all the promissory notes destroyed beforehand so that his heirs could no longer collect the debt. During the National Socialist rule Pargfrieder was almost exhumed as a Jew.

Pargfrieder had two (unofficially) recognized illegitimate children, with Elisabeth von Mottoni (nee v. Urbanovich): he should soon have fallen out with his son Joseph Freudenthal (later Joseph Mayer); his daughter Josephine Freudenthal († 1862) married Heinrich von Drasche-Wartinberg , the owner of the brickworks on Wienerberg, who also inherited Pargfrieder's considerable fortune.

literature

Non-fiction
Fiction

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.gedaechtnisdeslandes.at/haben/action/show/controller/Person/person/pargfrieder.html
  2. ^ Provincial Museum of Lower Austria: Kleinwetzdorf (Heldenberg) ; accessed on Sep 9. 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Pargfrieder, Joseph Gottfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pargfrider, Josef Gottfried Ritter von; Pargfrider, Josef Gottfried Ritter von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Army supplier and builder of the Heldenberg Memorial, Lower Austria
DATE OF BIRTH around 1787
PLACE OF BIRTH Hungary
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1863
Place of death Kleinwetzdorf, municipality of Heldenberg , Lower Austria