Ludwig von Schmidberg

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Schmidberg

Ludwig von Schmidberg (* 1594 in Weißenburg in Bavaria , † 1657 in Lehrensteinsfeld ) was a military person in the Thirty Years War . In Swedish service he was city commander of Heilbronn in 1631/32 , later he became field marshal in French service and finally commander in chief of all French-occupied places in Germany. In 1649 he acquired goods in the area around Heilbronn, so that after his release from French service from 1651 he was local lord of Lehrensteinsfeld, which belonged to his family until 1778.

Life

In December 1631 Ludwig von Schmidberg was a lieutenant colonel in the entourage of the Swedish field marshal Gustaf Horn during the siege and subsequent occupation of Heilbronn . After the successful occupation, Horn moved on with a large part of the Swedish troops on December 25, 1631 and appointed Schmidberg as city commander of Heilbronn. Schmidberg's task was in particular to expand the fortifications of the city of Heilbronn. In January 1632 he had entrenchments built in front of the Sülmertor and a bulwark at the northeast corner of the city, and in March 1632, on his orders, the Heilbronn Carmelite monastery located in front of the city gates was demolished, as it was one of the few buildings outside the city walls Sweden had served well in the siege of the city and was no longer to serve any other troops. In the same year, King Gustav Adolf of Sweden presented Schmidberg with goods belonging to Hans Heinrich von Ehrenberg (from the Ehrenberg family ) that had fallen to Sweden during the war. Schmidberg seems to have never taken possession of the donation, however, after the Protestant defeat in the Battle of Nördlingen in 1634 it became obsolete anyway.

Under Duke Bernhard von Weimar , Schmidberg advanced to field marshal as the war progressed . He was involved in the siege of the fortress Philippsburg and was temporarily city commander of Speyer . After the death of Bernhard von Weimar and the transition of his army under French rule, Schmidberg was in French service from 1639. In 1641 he reported to King Ludwig XIII. about the warfare in Alsace. In 1645 he fought under Turenne against the imperial troops and was captured in the battle of Herbsthausen , which he eked out in Ingolstadt . After the armistice between Bavaria and France in 1647 he was released again. At the same time Heilbronn came under French occupation again, whereupon Schmidberg returned there. In 1649 he was raised by Turenne to the position of commander-in-chief of all French-occupied places in Germany and acquired the town of Lehrensteinsfeld and shares in Adersbach and Ittlingen . He took up residence in Lehrensteinsfeld Castle . In 1651 he was released from the French service. He then devoted himself to expanding the local rule in Lehrensteinsfeld. The village and Schloss Lehrensteinsfeld remained in the possession of the Schmidberg family until the death of his last male descendant, Johann Friedrich Carl von Schmidberg († 1777) .

Schmidberg died in 1657 at the age of 63 and was buried in the crypt of the old Laurentius Church in Lehrensteinsfeld. The tomb, which his coat of arms and his wife Maria Magdalena of Mentzingen shows the early 20th century, together with other Schmidberg-epitaphs into the lapidary of the Historical Museum in Heilbronn given and after the Second World War in the Kilianskirche established, but in 2010 came as On permanent loan back to the Lehrensteinsfeld defense tower , the tower of the old Laurentius Church.

coat of arms

Schmidberg's coat of arms shows three wavy bars in the middle . Above the bars there is a full moon flanked by two stars of David . In 1959, two corrugated beams were taken from this coat of arms into the coat of arms of Lehrensteinsfeld .

literature

  • Wilhelm Spahmann: Field Marshal Ludwig von Schmidberg . In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history supplement of the Heilbronn voice . 17th year, no. 1 . Heilbronner Voice publishing house, January 9, 1971, ZDB -ID 128017-X .
  • Helmut Schmolz, Hubert Weckbach: Heilbronn. History and life of a city . 2nd Edition. Konrad, Weißenhorn 1973, ISBN 3-87437-062-3 , pp. 58, 78 and 119
  • Karl Walter: The great grave monument of the von Schmidberg family and its reconstruction . In: heilbronnica 5. Contributions to the town and regional history , Heilbronn town archive, Heilbronn 2013, pp. 425–435.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedhelm Römer: A memorial returns . In: Heilbronn voice . August 5, 2010 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 5, 2010]).
  2. ↑ Eberhard Gönner: Book of arms of the city and district of Heilbronn with a territorial history of this area . Stuttgart, 1965 ( Publications of the State Archive Administration Baden-Württemberg . Issue 9), p. 108
personal data
SURNAME Schmidberg, Ludwig von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lieutenant-Colonel in the Thirty Years War in the Swedish service, later Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief in the French service
DATE OF BIRTH 1594
PLACE OF BIRTH Weißenburg in Bavaria
DATE OF DEATH 1657
Place of death Lehrenstein field