Karl von Zeppelin

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Karl Reichsgraf von Zeppelin

Reichsgraf Johann Karl von Zeppelin (born October 15, 1766 in Güstrow , † June 14, 1801 in Stuttgart or Ludwigsburg ) was a German nobleman, adjutant, diplomat and from 1797 to 1801 the chief minister of state in the service of Duke Friedrich von Württemberg . The whole life and work of Karl von Zeppelin was determined in an unusually intense way by his employer and friend.

origin

Karl von Zeppelin came from the Mecklenburg nobility family von Zeppelin , which originally wrote itself Zepelin . Numerous members of this noble family entered the military service of various European powers. Zeppelin was the fifth of thirteen children of the retired electoral Hanoverian captain Melchior Johann Christoph von Zeppelin from Thürkow-Appelhagen and the Friedericke Charlotte von Walsleben from Lüsewitz near Rostock in Mecklenburg . Karl von Zeppelin was an older brother of the later Württemberg Foreign Minister Ferdinand Ludwig von Zeppelin , who was the grandfather of the important airship pioneer.

Career in the service of Friedrich von Württemberg

Karl von Zeppelin joined the ducal page corps in Schwerin in 1780 , as he was originally intended for military service in Mecklenburg. In 1783, the then Prince Friedrich von Württemberg visited the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and met the fifteen-year-old page Zeppelin there. The prince asked him to go to Russia with him. There Zeppelin was made lieutenant in the same year. He served Prince Friedrich, who was a Russian general in Cherson , as a wing adjutant. From this employment relationship an unbreakable friendship developed. When Zeppelin fell critically ill soon after arriving in Kherson, it was above all Prince Friedrich himself who nursed him back to health. In 1784 he moved with the prince to St. Petersburg and became a captain and adjutant general. In 1785 Zeppelin was promoted to major in the Tambow Regiment at the age of eighteen, but remained assigned to Prince Friedrich von Württemberg as a brigade major.

When the breakup between the Empress Catherine the Great and Prince Friedrich occurred in 1786 because of family upsets, the latter resigned from his service in Russia. Zeppelin followed his friend, but had to leave his newlywed bride behind with her in-laws to cross the Russian border with Prince Friedrich. In the following years from 1787 to 1789 Zeppelin accompanied the prince on his travels through Germany, the Netherlands and France and gained extensive diplomatic experience. Prince Friedrich granted him an annual pension of 1,600 guilders. In 1788, Duke Carl Eugen von Württemberg appointed Zeppelin the real chamberlain. In 1790 the Duke commissioned him to deliver the elective diploma to the new Roman Emperor Leopold II. In doing so, Zeppelin earned the benevolence of the imperial family. Leopold's successor, Emperor Franz II , elevated Zeppelin to hereditary imperial count with a diploma on September 18, 1792.

Since 1790, Prince Friedrich and Zeppelin took their permanent residence in Ludwigsburg. When Duke Friedrich Eugen took office in 1795, Zeppelin was appointed chief steward of the Hereditary Prince Friedrich and at the end of the year was sent to London as ambassador extraordinary . His task was to initiate the marriage of the hereditary prince with the English princess Charlotte Auguste Mathilde . Since Zeppelin was able to successfully complete this task, he was appointed a real aristocratic Privy Councilor by Duke Friedrich Eugen on January 12, 1796 .

Diplomat and Minister of State

The peace of Campo Formio and the imminent opening of the Rastatt Congress required a Wuerttemberg embassy to Vienna , which Duke Friedrich Eugen transferred to the Imperial Count von Zeppelin. This difficult mission also led Zeppelin to a good result for Württemberg. While Zeppelin was in Vienna, Duke Friedrich Eugen died unexpectedly on December 23, 1797 and Zeppelin's patron Friedrich became the reigning Duke of Württemberg. One of the first government acts of the new duke was the appointment of Zeppelin as his first state and conference minister and real secret council on December 24th, 1797, with which he put him at the head of state affairs. In addition, he made him responsible for all court departments and all ducal castles.

In the Second Coalition War

Zeppelin mausoleum in the old cemetery of Ludwigsburg

In the first years of his reign, Duke Friedrich von Württemberg took an extremely loyal attitude to the Reich. On April 7, 1798, the Emperor declared war on the French Republic. The Württemberg estates and parts of the Secret Council opposed Württemberg's participation in the new Reich War . Zeppelin campaigned for Württemberg to meet its military obligations and fought the stance of the estates that was concerned with maintaining peace. Zeppelin traveled to Vienna to personally negotiate the terms of Württemberg's participation in the Imperial War. It was also about the compensation of Württemberg in the First Coalition War by the Austrian army incurred war loads. Zeppelin also sought imperial support in the conflict that had broken out with the estates. On July 12, 1798, an imperial court decree was issued in which the Württemberg estates were requested to fulfill their duties for the empire . The Duke countered the opposition in the Privy Council by dismissing three members, including the President in particular. On August 12, 1798, he appointed Zeppelin President of the Privy Council. The resistance of the estates was broken on November 30, 1798 by their forced dissolution. On December 17, 1798, the imperial general command received instructions to provide the Württemberg government with military support if the state states in Stuttgart continued to resist. Württemberg pushed ahead with his rearmament and deployed the duke's troops in accordance with the agreements made between Zeppelin, the imperial court and the Russian ambassador in Vienna. At the farewell audience in Vienna, the Kaiser appointed Zeppelin to be his Real Secret Councilor. In recognition of Zeppelin's services, Duke Friedrich set a lifelong annual salary of 2,000 guilders. The war that was initially successful for the empire took a more unfavorable turn when General Bonaparte, who had returned from Egypt, was able to bind the Austrians in Italy and at the same time Moreau pushed back the Austrian field warden baron Paul Kray von Krajova, who was in command in southern Germany. In the course of this Second Coalition War , Württemberg was completely occupied by French troops. The complete exposure of Swabia from imperial troops as a result of Moreau's victory at Ulm did not allow the Duke of Württemberg to stay longer in his country. He went to neutral territory in Prussian Erlangen , where Zeppelin also followed him. The great efforts that the course of the war demanded of Zeppelin favored the outbreak of a fever that threw him down in Erlangen in April 1801. Although he recovered by caring for the duke so far that he was soon able to join him. With the conclusion of the Peace of Luneville , the return to Württemberg became possible. On May 25, 1801, Zeppelin witnessed Duke Friedrich's entry into his residence in Stuttgart. Then Zeppelin fell again into a severe fever, to which he succumbed on June 14th.

Statue of “grieving friendship” at Zeppelin's tomb - study by Eduard von Kallee , 1838

Zeppelin's funeral took place on June 17, 1801 with a large military presence in Ludwigsburg. First, Zeppelin was buried in the Protestant palace chapel. In what is now the Old Cemetery in Ludwigsburg, Duke Friedrich had a mausoleum built by the court architect Thouret . A female figure, executed in Carrara marble by Johann Heinrich Dannecker in 1804 and intended to symbolize “grieving friendship”, rests on the magnificent coffin . The figure, leaning upright against the sarcophagus, with his head tilted to one side, is supposed to express the duke's serious and deep, but not bewildered, grief for his friend.

aftermath

Zeppelin's successes in negotiations in Vienna only showed their full effect after his death. They laid the reason for the compensation of Württemberg on the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , which brought for Württemberg not only territorial expansion as compensation for losses on the left bank of the Rhine, but also the electoral dignity for the duke and the transfer of various imperial offices.

family

Karl von Zeppelin married Katharine Ulrike Freiin von Delwigk (* 1770; † 1802) in Russia on January 2, 1787 . She was the daughter of Lieutenant General Thure Karl Freiherr von Delwigk, who was in Russian service. After the wedding, it was a year and a half before Zeppelin's in-laws released their already wed daughter from their care and let her join him in Germany. The Zeppelin couple had two children who were orphaned by the Württemberg royal couple since 1802 . The son Johann Friedrich Carl von Zeppelin-Aschhausen was enfeoffed with the manors Aschhausen and Buchhof. The daughter Wilhelmine (* January 8, 1791; † December 22, 1872) was married to Count Ludwig von Taube in 1807 , after the death of her first husband she married Baron Philipp Ludwig von Haynau († June 5, 1821) on February 24, 1821 1843).

Honors

  • Awarded the great ducal order in 1796
  • The city of Oxford made Zeppelin an honorary citizen on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Frederick and Princess Charlotte Mathilde on May 3, 1797.
  • The Emperor of Russia awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of Malta on August 12, 1799

Remarks

  1. ↑ NOT 1767, as it has long been stated in the literature. His date of birth cannot be determined by the church registry, but it may follow older family traditions. In the church register of the Güstrow cathedral parish only his baptism date is recorded: October 16, 1766.
  2. ↑ Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg are named as places of death in the literature . Ludwigsburg is definitely his burial place, where his mausoleum is preserved in the old cemetery. Ludwigslust as a burial place, as it is also called in the literature, is wrong.
  3. ↑ Paul Sauer: The Swabian Tsar. Friedrich - Württemberg's first king. Stuttgart 1984, p. 100
  4. ^ Philipp Ludwig von Haynau

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Zeppelin, Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zeppelin, Johann Karl von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nobleman, adjutant, diplomat, leading minister of state in the service of Duke Friedrich von Württemberg
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Guestrow
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1801
Place of death Stuttgart or Ludwigsburg