Leopold von Rauch

Leopold von Rauch, lithograph by Gabriel Decker , ca.1850

Gustav Adolf Leopold von Rauch (born February 27, 1787 in Königsberg i.Pr. , today Kaliningrad ; † November 26, 1860 in Trziblitz / Bohemia , today Třebívlice ) was a Prussian major general and member of the management of the General War School .

Life

Parents and siblings

Leopold von Rauch was the eighth of the twelve children of Major General Bonaventura von Rauch , Director of the Prussian Engineering Academy in Potsdam , and his wife Johanna, née Bandel (1752-1828).

His brothers included the Prussian war minister and honorary citizen of Berlin , Infantry General Gustav von Rauch , and the Prussian military representative in St. Petersburg and adjutant general of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV , Lieutenant General Friedrich Wilhelm von Rauch .

One of his nieces was Countess Rosalie von Hohenau, born von Rauch (1820–1879), since 1853 morganatic , second wife of Prince Albrecht of Prussia (1809–1872) , the youngest brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And Kaiser Wilhelm I.

As Amélie von Levetzow's husband , Rauch was the brother-in-law of Ulrike von Levetzow , who prompted Goethe to write his " Marienbader Elegy ".

Military background

Leopold von Rauch attended the Prussian cadet institutions in Stolp and Berlin from 1799 to 1803 . He was then assigned as portepee - ensign to the Puttkamer Infantry Regiment No. 36 in Brandenburg an der Havel . 1806/07 he took part in the coalition war against Napoleonic France . As a result of the Prussian surrender, he became inactive, but was promoted to secondary lieutenant, albeit at half his salary. In 1809 Leopold von Rauch had himself reactivated with the 8th Leib-Infanterie-Regiment . The regiment had been set up as a new association in Berlin. In 1811 Rauch was commanded as an adjutant to the normal infantry battalion, which was attached to the Guard Regiment on foot in Potsdam. In 1813 he was promoted to first lieutenant and that same year to staff captain . During the Wars of Liberation , he was employed as an adjutant of the Reserve Brigade of the Guard, the Chief of the General Staff of the II Army Corps and as an adjutant of the 1st Guard Brigade and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class . In the Battle of Kulm in 1813, Leopold von Rauch suffered such a severe wound that from then on he could only be used in adjutant offices or in military staff. Duke Karl zu Mecklenburg-Strelitz , commander of the guard brigade and brother of Queen Luise , judged his adjutants Rauch: “Equally active and capable. He has an excellent demeanor and is highly recommended. "

In 1819 Leopold von Rauch was appointed major . The 2nd Guards Regiment on foot aggregated , he was from 1822 to 1833 square Major at the location Potsdam.

In 1833 he switched to the management of the General War School in Berlin, which later became the Prussian War Academy, in order to train future staff officers and general staff there. After Rauch was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1834, he was given the job of Prussian commissioner for the Kalisch revue in 1834 , which the Russian Tsar Nicholas I and King Friedrich Wilhelm III. organized by Prussia in 1835 as a joint major maneuver in Congress Poland . At the end of the revue, Rauch received the Russian Order of Anne, 2nd class .

After being promoted to colonel in 1836 , Leopold von Rauch was promoted to major general in 1842 as a member of the management of the General War School. In 1848 he retired.

Wife Amélie von Levetzow and her sisters Ulrike and Bertha

Leopold von Rauch married on February 20, 1827 in Prague or Trziblitz / Böhmen (Třebívlice) Amélie von Levetzow from the house of Teschow - Koppelow (born February 6, 1805 in Leipzig , † October 1, 1831 in Potsdam), the second daughter of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Chamberlain and Court Marshal Otto von Levetzow , owner of the Hohen-Mistorf and Teschow manors, and his first wife Amalie , née von Brösigke .

After the divorce, Amélie's mother Amalie married the officer Friedrich Carl Ulrich von Levetzow and, after he had died in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, as a second marriage . Her third husband became Franz Graf von Klebelsberg-Thumburg in 1843 , former President of the Vienna Court Chamber and co-founder of the National Museum in Prague, which owned the Trziblitz (Třebívlice) estate in Bohemia .

Leopold von Rauch's wife Amélie had two sisters:

• The older, Ulrike von Levetzow (1804–1899), induced Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to write his poem “Marienbader Elegy” in 1823; she inherited the Trziblitz (Třebívlice) estate from her stepfather, Count Franz von Klebelsberg. Letters from Leopold von Rauch document his admiration for Ulrike von Levetzow. The widowed Rauch spent the last years of his life in Trziblitz (Třebívlice) and died there in 1860.

• Amélies younger half-sister from the second marriage of her mother Amalie with Friedrich Carl Ulrich von Levetzow, Bertha Baroness Mladota von Solopisk , born von Levetzow (1808–1839), acquired the Netluk (Pnětluky) estate in the neighborhood of Trziblitz (Třebívlice ) . It was important to her to live in close proximity to her mother and sister Ulrike. Netluk (Pnětluky) belongs to the Podsedice municipality .

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was not only in contact with Ulrike von Levetzow, but also with her mother and her two sisters. In 1827, Goethe therefore also took part in the marriage of Amélie von Levetzow to Leopold von Rauch.

Son Franz von Rauch

The couple Leopold and Amélie von Rauch had two sons.

The elder, Franz von Rauch (* 1828 in Potsdam; † 1911 in Netluk - Pnětluky), grew up after the early death of his mother until he was 18 with his aunt Ulrike von Levetzow in Trziblitz (Třebívlice). There was a close family connection between Ulrike von Levetzow and her nephew Franz von Rauch; it found its expression in a lively, extensive correspondence.

Franz von Rauch initially performed his military service in the Prussian army and then served as an officer in the Imperial and Royal Army. There he rose to major.

Franz von Rauch inherited the Netluk (Pnětluky) estate from his second aunt Bertha Baroness Mladota von Solopisk, née von Levetzow. In Netluk he put on an archaeological-mineralogical collection, which in 1912 came to the museum of the city of Aussig ( Ústí nad Labem ).

Franz von Rauch was married to Aminka Züllich von Zülborn (1833-1893), daughter of the kk major Emanuel Züllich von Zülborn and his wife Eleonore, née Countess Wratislaw von Mitrowitz .

The grave of Franz and Aminka von Rauch in the cemetery of the neighboring Dlažkovice (German Dlaschkowitz) persists, as does the adjoining grave of their son Joseph von Rauch (1862–1911).

After Franz's death, Netluk (Pnětluky) inherited his daughter Louise von Rauch (1860–1946), who remained unmarried.

Son Adalbert von Rauch

The younger son of Leopold and Amélie von Rauch, Adalbert von Rauch (* 1829 in Potsdam; † 1907 in Ramholz near Schlüchtern / Hessen), achieved the rank of first lieutenant in the Prussian army, and then - a very rare case - transferred to the Imperial and Royal Army and finally to retire there as an Austro-Hungarian colonel.

Adalbert von Rauch inherited the Trziblitz (Třebívlice) estate from his aunt Ulrike von Levetzow.

After the death of his aunt Ulrike in 1899, Adalbert and his brother Franz were anxious to preserve Ulrike von Levetzow's estate and memories of her encounters with Goethe and to make them accessible to the public. In today's permanent exhibition of the regional museum of Most, the Trziblitzer Salon Ulrike von Levetzow is reproduced with parts of the original inventory. Paintings, engravings and photos of Ulrike von Levetzow's relatives Levetzow-Rauch are also presented.

In 1901 Adalbert Gut Trziblitz sold to the city of Brüx (Most) .

Adalbert von Rauch was married to Ludovika Freiin von Blittersdorff (1827-1918), daughter of the Baden State Minister Friedrich Freiherr von Blittersdorff and his wife Maximiliane, née Brentano . Maximiliane Brentano was the granddaughter of the merchant and banker Franz Brentano (half-brother of Clemens Brentano and Bettina von Arnims, née Brentano ) and his wife Antonie Brentano , née Edle von Birkenstock (addressee of Ludwig van Beethoven's " Letter to the Immortal Beloved ").

Granddaughter Ludovica Freifrau von Stumm-Ramholz, née von Rauch, and other descendants

Adalbert and Ludovika von Rauch's daughter was Ludovica Baroness von Stumm , born von Rauch (1866–1945), since 1882 the wife of the industrialist Hugo Freiherr von Stumm-Ramholz .

The granddaughter of the Rauch couple, Margarete Freiin von Stumm (1884–1917), married Richard von Kühlmann (1873–1948), who later became Secretary of State for the Foreign Office , in 1906 .

Her great-grandson was the FDP and CDU federal politician Knut Freiherr von Kühlmann-Stumm (1916–1977).

Adalbert and Ludovika von Rauch and their descendants are buried in the Kühlmann-Stumm hereditary funeral, which is located in Ramholz Park.

literature

• J. Schott: The family v. Rauch in the Prussian Army , In: Militär-Wochenblatt No. 79, 1893, p. 1981.
• Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldier leadership . Volume 6, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1938], DNB 367632810 , p. 39f., No. 1678.
• Gothaische Adeliges Taschenbuch Volumes B 1928 (older genealogy) to 1939, 471.
• Genealogical manual of the nobility, volumes B VII. (1965), p. 337 f.
• Adolf Kirschner: Memories of Goethe's Ulrike and the von Levetzow-Rauch family . Aussig (Ústí nad Labem), 1904
• Contributions to the local history of the Aussig-Karbitzer district. Published in Aussig, 1929, pp. 119–124.
• Klaus Hansel: The ladies of honor from Heiligengrabe Abbey, in: Der HEROLD Heft 11/1992, pp. 303–309.
• Dagmar von Gersdorff : Goethe's late love. The story of Ulrike von Levetzow . Insel-Bücherei No. 1265, 2005, pp. 100-109.
• Trebivlicko 99 - Osudova Laska JWGoetha a Ulriky von Levetzow v Trebivlicich.

Web links

• Leopold von Rauch in the German biography