Hessian House Foundation

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The Hessische Hausstiftung ( Kurhessische Hausstiftung from 1928 to 1986 ) is a family foundation of the House of Hesse , from which the former Landgraves , Electors and Grand Dukes of Hesse came from. Your task is to maintain the cultural values ​​of the Hessian princely house. The foundation, based in Kronberg im Taunus, also endeavors to preserve the memory of the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt as well as the Electors and Grand Dukes of Hesse.

prehistory

In 1830/31 the ruling house of Hessen-Kassel set up a family entrepre- neurship in which the private property of the house was combined. When the Kingdom of Prussia annexed the Electorate of Hesse after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 , the Prussian government under Bismarck confiscated this private property - consisting of significant real estate, a gold and silver treasure and art historical objects - and had these goods administered by the " Reptile Fund". The Prussian Crown now claimed ownership of the entails. This claim was unjustified according to the Electoral Hesse constitution of 1831 , since the confiscated assets were private property of the House of Hessen-Kassel, which had been separated from the Electoral Hesse state property.

After the Peace of Prague and the annexation of Electorate Hesse by Prussia, a treaty was concluded between the latter and the dethroned Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Hessen-Kassel († 1875) in Stettin on September 17, 1866, in which Friedrich Wilhelm, without, however, definitely granted his sovereign rights renounce, in return for a financial compensation (disputed from the reptile fund) relieved his subjects of their duties towards him. He went into exile at his Bohemian castle in Hořovice .

In 1873, while the Elector was still alive, Prussia secured his second cousin, Landgrave Friedrich Wilhelm von Hessen (1820-1884) from the Hessen-Kassel-Rumpenheim branch , an annual income of 606,000 Mk for the respective boss of the House of Hessen-Kassel to maintain a princely lifestyle. The administration of the Fideikommiss was entrusted to the provincial government in Kassel in 1876 , which also had to maintain the castles, parks, etc. belonging to the Fideikommiss. The elector died in 1875; According to the house law, his children from a morganatic marriage were not eligible for succession for entails, but were entitled to inherit his private assets (see: Prince of Hanau ). His successor as head of the Hessen-Kassel family was his cousin, the Landgrave, who had been married to Princess Maria Anna of Prussia since 1853 . The Prussian State transferred this now parts of the confiscated Fideikommissvermögens to property , in particular the Stadtschloss City Palace , the Fasanerie near Fulda and the castle Philipp peace in Hanau with the associated pheasant at Wilhelmsbad , also the silver treasure and the family jewels and other movable property from the Bellevue Palace in Kassel and the hunting lodge Wabern . On the basis of the contract of 1873, Landgrave Friedrich Wilhelm set up a new family entourage of the former Hessian house in 1878 , into which he brought these transferred assets as well as other family property (such as the castles Rumpenheim , Philippsruhe or the Gut Panker den Holstein).

History of the foundation

The foundation was established as Kurhessische Hausstiftung in 1928, when the Weimar Constitution demanded the dissolution of the family entails and the property would otherwise have been nationalized. In 1950 the foundation sold the Philippsruhe Palace , in 1956 the Palais Bellevue (Kassel) and in 1965 the Rumpenheimer Schloss . In 1957 she acquired the Prinz von Hessen winery in the Rheingau and expanded it in the following years.

Moritz von Hessen -Kassel (1926-2013) was adopted in 1960 by Ludwig Prince of Hesse and near Rhine († 1968), the childless head of the other main line, the Grand Dukes of Hesse and the Rhine , and adopted as heir . Through this inheritance, the two main lines of the House of Hesse, which had been separate since 1567 - Kassel and Darmstadt - were reunited in his person. He brought a considerable part of the family assets, including those of the Darmstadt line, into what is now the Hessian House Foundation and, as chairman of the foundation, headed the administration of the historical cultural property.

Today, in addition to Wolfsgarten Castle in Langen, Hesse , the foundation owns an extensive art collection , most of which is exhibited in the foundation's own Museum Schloss Fasanerie in Eichenzell near Fulda, as well as Schloss Friedrichshof (Schlosshotel Kronberg) in Kronberg im Taunus , and the Hotel Hessischer Hof in Frankfurt am Main , the Prinz von Hessen winery in Johannisberg in the Rheingau and the Panker estate, an agricultural property in Schleswig-Holstein . Until 2016, Tarasp Castle in the Lower Engadine, which was part of the Darmstadt heritage, was privately owned by the House of Hesse .

The most important art possession was the Darmstadt Madonna . This was sold to entrepreneur and art collector Reinhold Würth in July 2011 at an undisclosed price, which is said to be around 50 million euros, in order to finance tax and building costs.

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Friedrich Renner: The family entails of the Electoral Hessian House in its historical development, in: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies 39, Kassel 1905, pp. 91-120 , pp. 100 ff.
  2. ↑ Friedrich Renner, p. 105 f.
  3. ↑ Friedrich Renner, p. 108.
  4. ^ Genealogical handbook of the nobility , Princely Houses, Volume XVI, Limburg a. d. Lahn, 2001, p. 33.
  5. ↑ RM Gropp: Holbein-Madonna - Germany's most expensive work of art. In: FAZ of July 14, 2011.