Kajetan Sweth

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Kajetan Sweth, oil painting by Georg Köck, 1866

Kajetan Sweth (born August 18, 1785 in Graz , † March 21, 1864 in Innsbruck ) was an Austrian freedom fighter and civil servant . He became known as the secretary and confidante of Andreas Hofer .

Life

Kajetan Sweth (left, seated) with Josef Speckbacher , Andreas Hofer and Joachim Haspinger . Oil painting Tyrolean Heroes by Franz Defregger , 1894

The son of the Graz city doctor Georg Sweth and his wife Katharina, b. Mazarella was given care in the country immediately after birth. Later the father brought the son back into his parents' house and made it possible for him to attend four classes of grammar school in Graz. After graduating, he did an apprenticeship with a surgeon and hired a farmer. In 1806/07 he attended high schools in Marburg and Warasdin and from 1808 studied philosophy at the University of Salzburg .

When Salzburg was occupied by the Bavarians allied with Napoleon in 1809 , he fled to Tyrol to avoid being drafted into the Bavarian army. He tried to join the Capuchin order, but the order, threatened with revocation, did not accept new novices. In August 1809 he met Andreas Hofer and was won over by him for the Tyrolean uprising . Sweth fought in the third battle at Bergisel and was then appointed chief hunter of the Passeir rifle company . He won Hofer's trust and worked as his secretary and advisor during his reign. He was wounded in the last lost Bergisel Battle on November 1st, 1809. He fled with Hofer to the Pfandleralm above St. Martin in Passeier , where he was captured on January 28, 1810 together with Hofer, his wife and son. Like Hofer in Mantua, Sweth was sentenced to death by a Napoleonic tribunal, but then pardoned and forcibly drafted into the Foreign Legion. After three years he managed to escape, to join Austrian units in Livorno and to get to Vienna. After a brief activity as a clerk in the Lower Austrian state accounting department, he returned to Innsbruck in 1816, where he worked as an official in the provincial state accounting department until his retirement in 1860.

In 1816 he married Johanna Liebl in Vienna and the couple had 13 children. In 1823 he received the small gold civilian medal of honor. In 1824 he published under the title Des CCS, been fellow sufferers of the Oberkmdt. A. Hofer, now k. k. Accounting officer of the k. k. Tyrolean Prov. State bookkeeping life story of himself described in 1824 his memories of the Tyrolean uprising.

After his death, Kajetan Sweth was buried in a grave of honor in Innsbruck's Westfriedhof in 1864 . In 1975 he was transferred to the Innsbruck Court Church and buried next to Andreas Hofer and Father Haspinger . The grave at Westfriedhof was closed and the tombstone was moved to the depot. In 2009 it was re-erected on Tummelplatz and given a plaque that identifies it as a memorial for the fallen freedom fighters in 1809.

Commemoration

Plaque at the birthplace in Graz

At Sweth's birthplace at Sporgasse  14 in Graz there is a memorial plaque that was erected in 1909 by the Association of Tyroleans in Graz. In 1966, in Innsbruck's Olympic Village district , Kajetan-Sweth-Strasse was named after him.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tummelplatz State Memorial - History ( Memento from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Josefine Justic: Innsbruckerstraße name. Where do they come from and what they mean . Tyrolia-Verlag, Innsbruck 2012, ISBN 978-3-7022-3213-9 , p. 240 .
personal data
SURNAME Sweth, Kajetan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sweth, Cajetan Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian freedom fighter and civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1785
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1864
Place of death innsbruck