Nicola Kretz

Nicola Kretz (also: Nikel Gretz , Grätz , Krätz ; * July 19, 1757 in Neunkirken , Lorraine , † September 27, 1830 in Blieskastel ) was a master baker , revolutionary of the French Revolution, and mayor and city deputy of Blieskastel.

family

His parents were Franz Grätz (* 1719) and Regina Mohr (1729–1775). On July 25, 1786, he married Franziska Stetter, daughter of Peter Stetter (* 1731) and Elisabetha Billiard († 1793) from Aßweiler in Lautzkirchen . Her marriage to Franziska gave birth to four daughters and four boys, three of whom had died at an early age, the fourth emigrated to Reading , Pennsylvania , around 1833, probably after the death of his father, where he also worked as a baker.

Life

Marianne von der Leyen's feudal rule, which was coming to an end, under the tutelage of her underage son Philipp , who fled from the French revolutionary troops in 1791, created political leeway that Kretz partially knew how to occupy. He was only accepted as a citizen in the town of Blieskastel in 1787, but on October 24th of the same year he bought the two-storey, tile-roofed house Wies for 1620 florins , which he had borrowed from the Oberamtkasse and with the usual interest of 81 fl. repaid. According to Blieskasteler ban books, Nicola Kretz had acquired property more than 15 times by 1813, thereby increasing his holdings. At the turn of the century, he benefited from the fact that the political turmoil and the resulting flight and displacement made real estate prices extremely attractive. In 1805, the customs officer's house was added to his own house. He is thus considered a war profiteer par excellence.

The representatives of the authorities also followed with concern that the revolutionary events had spread to the German border region. In November 1789, the Reich Chamber Court Secretary Johann Melchior Hoscher, who had to take up the Blieskastelers' complaint against their authorities, wrote in his report:

“The indignation prevailing in the French provinces, which has already caused so much mischief, has, unfortunately! only too richly knowable, spread as far as our German fatherland; and the countries bordering on France are most exposed to the unfortunate effect of that bad example. "

- Johann Melchior Hoscher

A good dozen lawsuits against the von der Leyens authorities were pending in Wetzlar , including the St. Ingbert forest dispute . Von der Leyen saw her subjects "delusional" in a resolution she wrote . With her escape on the 26th Floréal 1793 (May 15th), during which she was helped by her cook, but she was afraid of the master baker Kretz, who lived in the same house, and some volunteers whom she described as patriots in her diary the processes also become obsolete. Nicola Kretz is said to have founded a new municipality immediately afterwards . The community procurator Johann Peter Saal (1762-1813), former Leyen'scher government attorney, referred to him in a letter to government assessor Cordier in November 1793 as the leader who "looted a few houses up to H. Wiesten Hauß". According to Chamber Councilor Brixius Kretz was appointed Meier on December 6, 1793. He writes: “The municipality has been restored. Kretz is Meier, that is what he has long wanted, and the other patriots have shared the other offices among themselves. In the meantime Kretz should be quite tidy and have collected the stately papers and bills, which were scattered around after the chamber and office doors were blown open, and slammed the open doors, an act I would not have expected from a patriot. "

Since the spring of 1794 there have been efforts to be united with the French Republic or at least to be placed under protection. A first letter of appeal to the National Council went unanswered. On March 3, 1794, the municipal assembly elects Mayor Kretz as deputy for the whole country, “who should present the joint request to the convention in Paris.” His speech there on March 15, can be described as “committed”, was given by other deputies from other parts of the country supported, but was also unsuccessful.

The reason for this may be that the new rulers did not see the new conquests as an original part of France. The conquered, on the other hand, dreamed of the “pays réuni”, primarily to limit requisitions and war costs. The Blieskasteler remained excluded from the new freedoms. In the summer of 1794, government attorney Saal gave Cordier a good assessment of Kretz:… Blieskastel “performs so well that she takes all possible paths to make the burden of war bearable for Blieskastel. You have to hear them justify their actions in order to have to admit that nothing can be contradicted. Then the French are behaving much better now than before. ”And it goes on to say:“ that [the Blieskastel municipalities] are doing well and doing everything to make things easier, even when there was a shortage of bread and high prices in June ”

For a short time in June 1794, the Prussian troops were able to regain lost ground and in Blieskastel people believed that the former rule would return. A letter with desperate opportunism to Philipp von der Leyen, who had been denigrated a few weeks earlier as a “little despot”, formulated entirely in the old style with a submissive attitude, solicits the favor of the fled ruler. Kretz writes that it only looks as if they are patriots, in their innermost hearts they are "the most loyal subjects of Germany". In addition, they acted to "avert general ruin" and assume responsibility for it and fear no reprisals or charges of treason. By the turn of the year 1794/95 the tide turned again, now finally in favor of the French.

Extract from the Blieskasteler tax card from 1797

designation	size	Tax class	Estimate
House and Hofgering, plot 188 ("located in the middle of the city")	6½ rods	A.	11 fl.
Blickweiler Weg garden	12½ rods	A.	6 alb. 2 pf.
Farmland on the right at Biesinger Weg	3 mornings	B.	1 fl. 26 alb. 2 pf.
"Innkeeper" food stand		1	8 fl. 26 alb.
total			22 fl. 4 alb. 4 pf.

As far as Nicola Kretz's personal belongings are concerned, one can assume that he bumped himself into health during the war and occupation. He was one of those bidders who were almost always present at auctions of displaced, fled or extinct families and who owned far more land and real estate than he needed. There is also evidence that when the French marched in during an auction, Kretz became the owner of eight pigs, several tables and other effects that had previously belonged to the Franciscan monastery in Blieskastel . When the Prussian troops returned, he had to give back the pigs, which were then confiscated and consumed by the French when they were retaken. His real estate is listed in the Blieskastel tax cadastre - the first tax calculation for the city of Blieskastel - as shown in the table. Of the 105 people who were taxed at over 10 florins, Kretz was one of the 21 wealthiest men in town. More plots were added later.

With the Peace of Campo Formio at the end of 1797, Prussia de facto ceded the countries west of the Rhine to France; de ​​facto this had already happened in 1795 with the Peace of Basel , in which Prussia was the first great power to recognize the French Revolution as a fact. The far-reaching reorganization that went hand in hand with the civil administration brought Kretz the office of head of the state and thus additional powers. On November 17, 1797, Saal wrote to his employer in Giessen: “Without Grätz's consent, no more requisition tours should be advertised in the country. The office got a guardian, although I have to say that he behaved sensibly and in a relaxed manner at every opportunity. ”The Département de la Sarre , based in Trier, was divided into four arrondissements , which in turn were divided into cantons. The canton of Blieskastel was one of eight in the Arrondissement de Saarbrücken . At the end of 1797, Kretz was nominated as president, i.e. the highest employee of the canton, and appointed on April 3, 1798. 1798 was also the year in which the French Revolutionary Calendar was introduced in the Rhineland. This was accompanied by the 10-day week (decade), which replaced the Christian Sunday as the day of rest. On this day French laws and regulations were read, there were political speeches and music.

On the occasion of the new national holiday, the festival of freedom on the 10th Thermidor 1798, Kretz gave a moving speech and defined: “Freedom is one of the most sacred rights of the citizen, it consists in the citizen being subject to none but the law ... That Law is the general will of the nation, and the nation can want nothing but what is agreed with the general user of the citizens. "

At the end of the year, on December 21, 1797, Nicola Kretz announced his resignation from the office of canton president, after his secretary had been deposed in September, with whom Kretz had worked well. His successor was the doctor Friedrich Jakob Schilling (approx. 1780-1852) from Burrweiler near Landau .

A few years later there were allegations against Kretz for improper housekeeping during his tenure. For example, there was insufficient evidence for “Mayer Kretz for the tear to Paris”, which he had acted as an agent for his hometown. One thousand seven hundred and fifty livres in assignats is open. In addition, in mid-August 1801 four people asked for errands, copies and the like, summarized in the "Directory of Kösten, which signed deputies from Blieskastell In Klagschen of the Blieskastell community against the former president of the municipal administration citizen Niklas Krätz, secretary B. Baur and agents Bürger Johann Hauck from there and still had to demand ”, a total of 294 guilders. Until 1824, Kretz was still a member of the city council. Until his death he pursued his profession as an innkeeper, which his son Christian initially continued.

Maximiliansäule in Tiergartenstrasse

Kretz, who signs with Nicolaus Kretz there , is one of the signatories of a letter to the Bavarian King Maximilian Joseph , in which he is informed about the erection of the Maximilian column named after him in Blieskastel:

"Most submissive letter of February 16, 1825 Most Serene King, Most Gracious King, And Lord, Pure love for your Most Exalted King inspires the citizens of the town of Bliescastel to immortalize them on their descendants in the most recent times. They built a permanent one on the great road there Monument with the inscription according to the enclosed drawing.
Maximiliano Josepho Patri Patriae Cives Bliescastelliani MDCCCXXIII.
Deign Your Royal Majesty this pure sincere pledge of love aund attachment for by His Majesty Dero sublime person allerhuldreichst to accept from the Allerunterthänigsten loyal obedient mayor and city council
Blieskastel, the 16 ^th February 1825 "

- Bavarian Main State Archives Munich: MInn 59883, copy: StA Blieskastel, inventory 41, inv. # 206

This column in Tiergartenstrasse is now a listed building.

literature

• Kurt Legrum: Nicola Kretz, a Blieskasteler patriot, Jacobin or opportunist? Attempting a first approximation , Saarpfalz, 2012 No. 1, ISSN  0930-1011 , pp. 11–52

Individual evidence

1. ↑ GeneaNet
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Kurt Legrum: Nicola Kretz, etc. , 2012
3. ↑ ^{a b} Contributions to the latest history of the outrage of German subjects against their sovereignty , Gießen 1790, pp. 190f.
4. ^ Jürgen Müller: Personnel change in the Rhineland. The municipal administrations on the left bank of the Rhine during the Revolution (1792–1799) . In: Francia. Research on Western European History, Vol. 24/1997, pp. 121-136
5. ↑ Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz : Best .: 48 No. 2913. Quoted from Wolfgang Laufer: Munizipalisierung und Runionsgesuch, p. 354f.
6. ↑ Paul Bourson: La Grande Revolution in La Sarre français, 4th year 1927, issue 1, pp 40f.
7. ↑ Wolfgang Krämer : "Events and conditions in the Counts of Leyen Blieskastel and Glanmünchweiler 1793 to 1794 according to contemporary letters and reports." Homburg, p. 62, letter from Saal to Cordier dated June 14, 1794
8. ↑ Ludwig Eid : Countess Marianne von der Leyen , Westpfälzische Verlagsdruckerei 1980, in: Das Saarlandbuch , Dieter Staerk (ed.), Saarbrücken, Minerva-Verlag 1990, p. 300
9. ↑ Wolfgang Laufer: Municipalization and Reunion petition . In: Yearbook for West German State History, Vol. 36, Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, 2010, p. 322
10. ^ Theresia Zimmer: A deportation judgment from 1798 for a monk in Blieskastel . In: Saarbrücker Hefte, No. 12/1960, p. 82
11. ^ StA Blieskastel: Best. 53, Inv. 49
12. ↑ LA Saarbrücken: Best: von der Leyen No. 2718
13. ↑ Wolfgang Hans Stein: Revolutionskalender, Dekadi, and Justice in the annexed Rhineland, 1798-1801 . In: Francia. Research on Western European History. Vol. 27/2000, p. 144

Remarks

1. ↑ According to Wolfgang Krämer (1964) it is called Weis . Obviously there is a typo.
2. ↑ It was not until the 1780s, that is, under the von Leyen rule, that some communities such as Urweiler, Altheim, Neualtheim, Niedergailbach or, most recently, Mengen, Bolchen, Auersmacher and Blittersdorf became Leyen again by swapping territories.