Karoline Amalie from Hessen-Kassel

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Duchess Karoline Amalie of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, b. Princess of Hessen-Kassel, in 1804 (portrait by Josef Maria Grassi )

Karoline Amalie (born July 11, 1771 in Hanau , † February 22, 1848 in Gotha ) was the wife of Duke August's Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and was particularly respected for her charitable work.

Life

Karoline Amalie was born the princess of Hessen-Kassel . Her father was the Landgrave and later Elector Wilhelm IX./I. , her mother was Princess Wilhelmine Karoline of Denmark and Norway , daughter of King Frederick V.

After Prince Friedrich von Hessen-Kassel , the eldest son of her uncle Karl von Hessen-Kassel from his marriage to Louise of Denmark, broke the engagement with his cousin Karoline Amalie in 1799, she rejected the advertisement of Prince Friedrich von Hessen-Homburg the following year from. The reason for this was the improper affair of the princess with the Hesse-Kassel chamberlain Count Ludwig von Taube , which her father Wilhelm ended with the transfer of Taube and his subsequent dismissal. In the summer of 1801, Karoline Amalie met Hereditary Prince August of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg while he was in Kassel. In January of the following year, August's father, Duke Ernst II, asked Elector Wilhelm on behalf of his son for the hand of the princess. The marriage was concluded on April 24, 1802, but remained childless. Karoline Amalie, who became Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg after the death of her father-in-law in 1804, devoted herself to the daughter of her husband from his first marriage, Princess Luise .

The well-known painter Caroline Louise Seidler , who stayed at the Gothaer Hof in the winter of 1811 to portray the ducal family, described Karoline Amalie rather unflatteringly as a “good, benevolent, but not exactly outstanding lady”. Regarding the relationship between the Duchess and her husband August, she said: "She loved her husband enthusiastically, whose spirit she marveled at."

But “since the mutual outlook on life offered absolutely no points of contact”, after a few years of marriage Karoline Amalie alienated herself from her, often emphatically feminine and lavish husband August, who was described as an eccentric, and from around 1810 increasingly withdrew from the public. One reason for this was her husband's enthusiasm for Napoleon , which Karoline Amalie did not share, as her parents, the Elector couple of Hesse-Kassel , had to flee into exile after Napoleon occupied Hesse-Kassel in 1806.

View of the Winter Palace, also called Witwenpalais , from Karolinenplatz ( Heinrich Justus Schneider , around 1840)

After the expansion of the Gotha Winter Palace as a widow's residence (hence the once common name Witwenpalais ), Karoline Amalie moved into the city ​​palace next to the orangery , which her Duke had given in August 1821. Here she also visited the British royal couple Victoria and Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in August 1845 during their stay in Germany. The Privileged Gothaische Zeitung wrote on the occasion of this visit: “... every Gothan was heartily delighted with the happiness that the honored noble princess, the widowed Duchess Carolina Amalia, the noble wife of her beloved grandson, Prince Albert, was to share in her motherly Close arms. "

Prince Albert (son of Karoline Amalie's stepdaughter Luise ) was the Dowager's favorite grandson all his life. From 1822 to 1835 he and his brother Ernst spent several weeks each year in the care of Karoline Amalies in the Winter Palace. Until her death he was in lively correspondence with her, always addressing her as “Beloved Grandmama” and his letters as “Your faithful grandson Albert”.

Albert's brother, Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , remembered his step-grandmother with the words: "In her long life she had hardly an enemy and enjoyed a truly rare admiration until her death [...]."

On February 22, 1848, Karoline Amalie died in the Winter Palace , as the Privileged Gothaische Zeitung reported on the same day: “When, on the 14th of the present month, Her Highness the widowed Duchess v. S. Gotha and Altenburg was afflicted with a breast ailment, we had only a slight concern that it would be removed very soon and happily. The more sensitive is the pain, the deeper the mourning, that so soon, so too early, the deceased princess has left our midst. Her Highness ended her earthly existence this afternoon after 2 o'clock. "

Five days later, on February 27th, the deceased was buried as the last member of the ducal family on the burial island in the park pond in Gotha Castle Park . Her burial in the crypt, in which her husband Duke August rested, took place at her express request "without pomp". Like all graves of the ducal family located here, Karoline Amalies is not designated by any monument. The simple oval of flowers, which once marked the grave, has not existed for decades, so that the exact burial place of Karoline Amalies is unknown today.

Karoline Amalie was the last duchess of the duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg founded by Ernst I, the pious , and the last bearer of the nobility of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg . The male line of the house had already expired in 1825 with the death of her brother-in-law, Duke Friedrich IV .

Act

Karoline Amalie was known for her great sense of charity. Especially after the wedding of her stepdaughter Princess Luise with Ernst III. von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld in 1817 and the death of her husband Duke August in 1822, she became a true "mother of the needy and poor" who enjoyed the highest esteem among the population.

In 1824 she founded the Karolinenschule, named after her from 1828 in the royal seat of Gotha , in which the daughters of less well-off parents were taught and trained as servants after confirmation. The Karolinenstiftung, which she also set up, paid 438 marks annually from the interest of the legacy for poor needs and 300 marks as scholarships for high school students.

The Gotha superintendent and honorary citizen Otto Dreyer attested to Karoline Amalie "a willingness to make sacrifices flowing from a truly motherly heart, where it was necessary to alleviate hardship and to wipe tears, a willingness to help that did not decrease even under the most difficult circumstances".

Karoline Amalie was also a passionate music lover who created ideal conditions in Gotha for the aspiring composer and violin virtuoso Louis Spohr . At her instigation, Spohr was appointed concertmaster at the Gotha court in 1805, which he held until 1813.

Honors

The admiration that Karoline Amalie was bestowed on in Gotha was expressed, among other things, in the fact that the square next to the Winter Palace was named after her as Karolinenplatz during her lifetime . The street from Schloss Friedenstein down to the Winter Palace was named Karolinenstraße in her honor. After her death, however, Karoline Amalie was quickly forgotten. Karolinenstrasse was renamed Friedrich-Jacobs- Strasse as early as 1858 , the tradition of the Karolinenschule ended in the first half of the 20th century and in 1950 the Karolinenplatz was renamed Leninplatz (today Ekhofplatz). The city only remembered the last duchess of the House of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg in 2010 as part of the preparations for the German-English year in Gotha . On September 5, 2011, Karoline Amalies was commemorated with a lecture under the motto “The last of a big name”, which was held after the laying of the foundation stone for the new Winter Palace. In June 2013 the city council decided to name the inner courtyard of the Winter Palace in honor of the Duchess Karolinenhof .

In Altenburg , the second major city of the Duchy of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg , the private secondary school for girls founded in 1810 was named after the Duchess in 1819, who left the educational institution with a large amount in her will. In 2000 the school, which was no longer allowed to be called Karolinum during the GDR era , got its old name back and has been officially called the Karolinum State Elementary School ever since .

Others

In 2009, Andreas M. Cramer, Gothaer saga collector and dialect researcher, and Ralph-Uwe Heinz, actor from Gotha, resurrected the person Karoline Amalies for the theater in their New Year's Eve sketch Dar ninezschsde Gebordsdaach or Dinner for One in Goth'sch . In the dialect adaptation of the cult classic, she celebrates her 90th birthday as Duchess Sophie Karoline Amalie (Duchess Sophie for short) in the Winter Palace with her four long-dead, prominent friends. In addition, it is claimed in the preface to the play and in Andreas M. Cramer's novel Dinner for One in Goth'sch that the Dowager Duchess and her servant Schluder were the actual role models for the characters of Miss Sophie and the butler James. The anecdote of the Duchess 'strange birthday ritual only came to Great Britain in 1845 after Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Duchess' favorite grandson, visited Gotha, where the playwright Lauri Wylie accidentally rediscovered it in the 1930s and for the first time as a dinner for One adapted for the stage.

Regional correspondent Ruth Breer, MDR 1 Radio Thuringia, puts it : “In the […] book, history and legend are wonderfully interwoven. In it, Andreas Cramer […] redesigns facts so charmingly that a coherent story emerges - an almost true one… ”. An example of Cramer's creative handling of facts is the statement that the Dowager Duchess died on February 22, 1869 at the age of 98. However, the real Duchess Karoline Amalie (her name was never Sophie) had died 21 years earlier, on February 22nd, 1848 at the age of 77, and did not live to see her nineteen- year-old Gebordsdaach . "The action is absolutely credible due to the mixture of real names, dates, events and quotations.", Judges Matthias Wenzel in the Gothaer Tagespost / TLZ. Cramer himself notes in the foreword of his novel that the plot is "nothing but almost the truth".

ancestors

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wilhelm VIII. Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1682–1760)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Friedrich II. Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1720–1785)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dorothea Wilhelmine of Saxony-Zeitz (1691–1743)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse-Kassel (1743–1821)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 George II King of Great Britain (1683–1760)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mary of Great Britain (1723–1772)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1683–1737)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Karoline of Hessen-Kassel
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Christian VI. King of Denmark , (1699–1746)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Frederick V King of Denmark (1723–1766)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sophie Magdalene of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1700–1770)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wilhelmine Karoline of Denmark (1747-1820)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 George II King of Great Britain (1683–1760)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Louise of Great Britain (1724–1751)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1683–1737)
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks to inter-family marriages, King George II of Great Britain and his wife Caroline are two-time great-grandparents of Wilhelm II of Hessen-Kassel.

literature

  • Max Berbig : Karoline Amalie von Hessen-Kassel. In: ders., The Wives of the Regents of the Gothaische Land. Gotha 1890, p. 139ff. ( Digitized version ).
  • Andreas M. Cramer: Dinner for One in Goth'sch. The almost true story of the dinner. KreativWerkstatt, Gotha 2011.
  • Otto Dreyer: The memory of the just remains a blessing. Speech at the centenary birthday party of the Duchess of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg Caroline Amalie organized by the Carolinenschule. Gotha 1871.
  • Carl Knetsch: The Brabant House. Genealogy of the Dukes of Brabant and the Landgraves of Hesse. Darmstadt 1929, p. 160.
  • Matthias Wenzel: The history of the Winter Palace in Friedrichstrasse 2. In: Thüringische Landeszeitung Gotha. July 13 and 20, 2002.
  • Matthias Wenzel: True mother of the needy and poor. In: Thuringian General Gotha. June 6, 1996.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Rosemarie Bartel: Princess Luise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Gotha 2009, p. 23.
  2. ^ Max Berbig: Karoline Amalie von Hessen-Kassel. In: The wives of the regents of the Gotha land. Gotha 1890, p. 142.
  3. ^ Privileged Gothaische Zeitung. Vol. 154, No. 173, August 30, 1845.
  4. ^ Charles Gray: The youth of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Gotha 1868.
  5. ^ Max Berbig: Karoline Amalie von Hessen-Kassel. In: The wives of the regents of the Gotha land. Gotha 1890, p. 142.
  6. ^ Privileged Gothaische Zeitung. Vol. 157, No. 38, February 22, 1848.
  7. ↑ Richard Waitz: The ducal park in Gotha from its creation to the present day. Gotha 1854, p. 17.
  8. ^ Max Berbig: Karoline Amalie von Hessen-Kassel. In: The wives of the regents of the Gotha land. Gotha 1890, p. 140.
  9. ↑ Otto Dreyer: The memory of the righteous remains a blessing. Speech at the centenary birthday party of the Duchess of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg Caroline Amalie organized by the Carolinenschule. Gotha 1871, p. 6.
  10. ↑ Matthias Wenzel: True mother of the needy and poor. In: Thuringian General. June 6, 1996.
  11. ↑ Conny Möller: Gotha's city library relies on modern technology. In: Gothaer Tagespost. / TLZ, June 7, 2013.
  12. ↑ 200 years of Karolinum on Hospitalplatz. Page on the homepage of the Karolinum Altenburg, accessed on November 28, 2010.
  13. ↑ Dinner for one in Goth'sch. History.
  14. ^ Andreas M. Cramer: Dinner for One in Goth'sch. Gotha 2011, pp. 74f.
  15. ↑ Press comments on the book
  16. ^ Andreas M. Cramer: Dinner for One in Goth'sch. Gotha 2011, pp. 60f.
  17. ^ Andreas M. Cramer: Dinner for One in Goth'sch. Gotha 2011, p. 8.
personal data
SURNAME Karoline Amalie from Hessen-Kassel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Princess of Hessen-Kassel, by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1771
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanau
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1848
Place of death Gotha