Peter I (Oldenburg)

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Georg Friedrich Adolph Schöner , Portrait of Peter (I) von Oldenburg (1819).
Jakob Emanuel Handmann , Portrait of Peter (I) von Oldenburg (1766).
Peter Friedrich Ludwig monument by Karl Gundelach on the Schlossplatz in Oldenburg (1893).

Peter Friedrich Ludwig von Oldenburg (born January 17, 1755 in Riesenburg ( West Prussia ), † May 21, 1829 in Wiesbaden ) was regent of the Principality of Lübeck from 1785 to 1823 / from 1803 Principality of Lübeck and the Duchy of Oldenburg , from 1815 also of the Principality of Birkenfeld . From 1823 he ruled in his own name as Duke of Oldenburg.

Live and act

Education and early years

Peter Friedrich Ludwig was the youngest son of Georg Ludwig von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf (1719–1763) and Sophie Charlotte von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck (1722–1763). His father was a Prussian cavalry general under Frederick II ; In 1762 he was taken over by the Russian Emperor Peter III. appointed Russian Field Marshal General in St. Petersburg. From his mother's first marriage there were two half-siblings Peters, Sophie Charlotte married. von Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (1725–1803) and Friedrich Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten (1741–1825). He and his older brother Wilhelm August (1753–1774) witnessed the coup d'état by his cousin Catherine II against her husband Peter III. in St. Petersburg, in connection with which his father was arrested and his residence was looted. His father was rehabilitated afterwards and became the Russian governor of the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorf in Kiel, but died shortly after the death of his wife in 1763 in Hamburg.

The two orphans Wilhelm August and Peter were initially taken in by their uncle, Duke and Prince-Bishop Friedrich August von Holstein-Gottorf , in Eutin . Catherine II took over the guardianship of the two princes and initiated their education and training in Bern (1765–1769) and Bologna (1769–1773); its governor was the Baltic landlord and art collector Carl Friedrich von Staal , who was responsible for the appointment of tutors in both places. In Bern, the princes received a solid education, including reading, writing and arithmetic, which had been muddled up until then, as well as Latin, Russian and French as well as horse riding, dancing and fencing. About von Staal, the princes got to know Albrecht von Haller , a physician, poet and state thinker who was influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment and who had a great influence on the later development of the young brothers. In Bologna they received courtly polish and were introduced to art and literature. The stay in the Bologna of the Papal States at the time, the opposite of solid Bern, taught the princes to recognize and avoid the consequences of corruption and excessive lifestyle.

When the son of Catherine II, Grand Duke Paul , came of age at the end of 1772 and then married, his mother could no longer withhold Russian heirloom from him, the task of the two God-torpian princes as "dynastic reserves" was no longer necessary and the princes succeeded him St. Petersburg recalled. The prerequisite for a career in the Russian state administration was a traineeship in the Russian armed forces. The older, ambitious and serious August chose the navy, while the playful and supple Peter took part in the Russo-Ottoman war in what is now Romania and Bulgaria. When August had a fatal accident in the Navy, Peter, who had proven himself militarily in the campaign, traveled back to St. Petersburg. The Russian court with its intrigues repelled him, instead he decided to spend two years in London, where his former tutor von Staal accompanied him. There he mainly familiarized himself with the British state system and its economy.

In the meantime, the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo had been concluded in 1773 , which awarded Friedrich August von Holstein-Gottorf the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst in return for renouncing his claims to the Gottorf Duchy , which were united to form the Duchy of Oldenburg in 1774. A little later, Hereditary Prince Wilhelm (1754–1823) suffered from mental illness, schizophrenia and religious delusions, which is why his already concluded marriage contract with Charlotte von Hessen-Darmstadt (1755–1785) was dissolved. The prospect of an unreliable and possibly Catholic heir to the prince-bishopric of Lübeck prompted the courts of St. Petersburg and Copenhagen to take decisive countermeasures: Wilhelm had to renounce his successor as prince-bishop and was then declared incapable of governing, while Peter became coadjutor of without any personal assistance Lübeck was elected and, in a Gottorp family contract in 1777, he was designated as the regional administrator of the Duchy of Oldenburg to be the heir of Duke Friedrich August. In October 1777, Peter was advised by Catherine II to marry a princess of the House of Württemberg-Mömpelgard , one of the two sisters of her daughter-in-law, Grand Duchess Maria Feodorowna (1759-1828), the former Sophie Dorothea von Württemberg-Mömpelgard. Peter decided on the older Friederike von Württemberg , who was 13 years old at the time. Before the wedding, however, he had to wait three years for her confirmation . He used this time for an extended trip through France, Denmark and Sweden and for the construction of his future residence in Rastede . The wedding in 1781 made Peter the brother-in-law of the Russian heir to the throne, who ruled as Paul I of Russia from 1796-1801. Friederike gave birth to two sons, Paul Friedrich August von Oldenburg (1783-1853), the later Grand Duke of Oldenburg, and Peter Friedrich Georg von Oldenburg (1784-1812), who as governor general of Estonia married the Tsar's sister Katharina Pavlovna. After the birth of a third, stillborn child, Friederike died of breast cancer in Eutin in 1785, shortly after her husband took office.

As administrator in the Duchy of Oldenburg

After the death of Duke Friedrich August von Oldenburg in July 1785, Peter Friedrich Ludwig succeeded him as Prince-Bishop of Lübeck and as government administrator of the Duchy of Oldenburg. When the duchy was established in 1774, the Secret Council and the minister of conduct, Friedrich Levin von Holmer , was able to hand over an orderly little state to the government administrator thanks to his careful administrative work. He moved the previous residence of the Prince-Bishop from Eutin to the city ​​of Oldenburg . He took over all government affairs without having the title of duke, which continued to belong to the Hereditary Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. Only in 1823 after his death did he rule in his own name.

His wife died in Eutin in November 1785 at the age of 20, three weeks after the stillbirth of their third son. In 1791 the Duke had it transferred from Eutin to a newly built mausoleum on the Gertrudenfriedhof , as the previous princely crypt was no longer to be used due to the planned renovation of the Lamberti Church . The mausoleum is the first classicist building in Oldenburg; it was followed by other buildings in the same style, which still shape the face of the city today.

Domestic policy until 1803 - the education laws

In 1786, Peter Friedrich Ludwig founded the oldest savings bank in the world that has existed since then ; the former savings bank still exists today as the Landessparkasse zu Oldenburg . The purpose of the foundation was to support the widows and orphans of seafarers and Dutch travelers . The establishment of the Ersparungs-Casse can be understood as a real product of the Enlightenment, as it enabled the common people to invest their income securely at a favorable interest rate, so that in times of need it did not become a burden on the church institutions.

On August 1, 1786, Peter also implemented a state poor regime. Even before he took office, he had begun to reform the poor system previously supported by the church and to integrate it into the state administration as an efficiently organized and centrally controlled branch.

With a further ordinance of January 27, 1789, Peter Friedrich Ludwig tried to speed up the state's very slow and costly public jurisdiction and to make it more transparent for the parties.

The aforementioned ordinances and laws of the Duke, which were also referred to as educational laws , had the aim of disciplining and educating the state people from pure supplicants in the case of poverty to a people active in the service of the economy of the state and feeling responsible for the state.

However, the introduction of a criminal code, which is important for the judiciary, only succeeded after the French occupation on September 10, 1814, whereby the emancipation of the Oldenburg courts from their sovereign, which had already existed for some time, was only then fixed in a codex.

In the scientific field of the completion of the already under Duke Friedrich August von succeeded in Peter Friedrich Ludwig's reign Georg Christian Oeder started astronomical and trigonometric land surveying.

In 1803 Peter obtained the Hanoverian office of Wildeshausen as compensation in the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in exchange for the Elsflether Weserzoll as compensation as well as the offices of Vechta and Cloppenburg from prince-bishop-münster property . The Diocese of Lübeck was secularized and converted into the Oldenburg Hereditary Principality of Lübeck .

French period and Congress of Vienna

On November 12, 1806, the duchy, which initially did not belong to the Rhine Confederation because of its good relations with Prussia and Peters's relationship with Russia, was occupied by French troops. Varel and Kniphausen , which belonged to Oldenburg, were assigned to the Kingdom of Holland , which at that time was under the reign of Louis Bonaparte , a brother of Napoleon I. In January 1807, the French troops were withdrawn from Oldenburg at short notice and Peter, who had previously moved to Eutin had evaded, was able to return to Oldenburg. In the Treaty of Tilsit concluded in July 1807 , France and Russia agreed on the sovereignty of Oldenburg. However, Peter lost the rule of Jever , Varel and, for a short time, the rule of Kniphausen through a Treaty of Fontainebleau concluded on November 11th. In February 1808 Peter traveled to Paris to introduce himself to Napoleon in person and finally he had to join the Confederation of the Rhine as the last German prince at the Erfurt Fürstentag in 1808. Nevertheless, by decision of the French Senate on December 13, 1810, Oldenburg, along with the entire North Sea coast between Holland and Holstein, became part of the French Empire and was occupied by the French (→  Oldenburg French Period ). Peter was offered the Principality of Erfurt as a replacement . However, he refused and went into exile in Russia with his family on February 27, 1811 .

During his exile, Peter promoted the formation of the Russian-German Legion to reinforce the Allied troops in the fight against Napoleon , but was not very successful because the troops were only used to a limited extent.

After the fall of Napoleon in 1813, Peter returned on November 27th of that year and took over the government in Oldenburg. He abolished the French reforms with the exception of the stronger control of the authorities and set up a government for the Grand Duchy in addition to the cabinet. He also introduced general conscription by implementing the military constitution drawn up by Hereditary Prince Paul Friedrich August . He set up the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment , which came too late for the campaign of 1814 in France. Oldenburg was the only German state that did not take part in the campaign. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, in which Peter did not personally take part, Oldenburg won the previously Prussian principality of Birkenfeld (an der Nahe), but not, as hoped, East Friesland and the Emsland , which went from Prussia to the Kingdom of Hanover . He never bore the title of Grand Duke , which Peter received instead, only his son Paul Friedrich August called himself Grand Duke from 1829. In 1818 Tsar Alexander I left him the rule of Jever including the glory of Kniphausen. However, from 1820 onwards, Oldenburg had to do without the Weser toll. Under Peter's government, Oldenburg formally joined the final act of the Congress of Vienna in 1821 .

Late government phase

During Peter's late government, the Grand Duchy was hit by several severe storm surges, the damage of which Peter had quickly repaired in part with his own funds, and by an economic depression as a result of the Napoleonic wars. Furthermore, he personally suffered a number of strokes of fate through the death of some close family members, such as his remarried daughter-in-law Katharina Pawlowna in 1819. After the death of his cousin Peter Friedrich Wilhelm on July 2, 1823, Peter was finally able to continue the government of the duchy in his own name. Peter died of a stroke on May 21, 1829 in Wiesbaden. Following the example of Frederick the Great , he was buried on July 10, before sunrise, in a simple ceremony in the mausoleum he had built for his wife on the Gertrudenfriedhof. Peter was the first Oldenburg monarch since Count Anton Günther to be buried in Oldenburg.

Significant achievements

During the reign of Peter Friedrich Ludwig the establishment of the first regional rabbinate for the Duchy of Oldenburg fell with the appointment of Nathan Marcus Adler as regional rabbi in 1828. In addition, the duke pushed ahead with the reform of the pilotage system on the Weser as well as improvements in the infrastructure and the education system: the Oldenburger Teachers ' seminar , founded from a country school fund initiated by Peter in 1792, became the forerunner of the later Pedagogical University , from the Ducal Public Library , which he donated and which received its foundation in 1792 through the purchase of the extensive scientific and fiction library of the Hanoverian court counselor Georg Friedrich Brandes , today's Oldenburg State Library developed . The creation of the palace garden, which is still heavily frequented today, is also thanks to Peter Friedrich Ludwig. He acquired several paintings from his long-time court painter Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein , several of which are exhibited in the Oldenburg Palace. The Duke set up a fund to finance a new hospital building in 1826 , but it was only after his death that the Peter Friedrich Ludwigs Hospital could be completed in 1841 with these funds and other grants .

progeny

From her marriage to Friederike von Württemberg (* July 27, 1765; † November 24, 1785) two sons were born:

literature

Web links

Commons : Peter I. (Oldenburg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Müller: The early years of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig von Holstein-Oldenburg 1755-1785. Isensee, Oldenburg 2016, p. 161 u. 169.
  2. ^ Timetable Stadt-Land-Oldenburg, early modern 18th century, accessed on November 6, 2010
  3. ^ Andreas Lombard: House and Land. The Duchy and Grand Duchy of Oldenburg from 1773 to 1918. Published in: History of the Oldenburger Land - Duchy, Grand Duchy of the Free State . Edited by Jörg Michael Henneberg and Horst-Günther Lucke. Aschendorff publishing house. Muenster. 2014. ISBN 978-3-402-12942-5 . Page 60.
  4. ↑ Biography of Heinrich Ernst Lentz In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg. Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 417-418 ( online ).
  5. ^ Andreas Lombard: House and Land. The Duchy and Grand Duchy of Oldenburg from 1773 to 1918. Published in: History of the Oldenburger Land - Duchy, Grand Duchy of the Free State . Edited by Jörg Michael Henneberg and Horst-Günther Lucke. Aschendorff publishing house. Muenster. 2014. ISBN 978-3-402-12942-5 . Page 70.
  6. ^ Andreas Lombard: House and Land. The Duchy and Grand Duchy of Oldenburg from 1773 to 1918. Published in: History of the Oldenburger Land - Duchy, Grand Duchy of the Free State . Edited by Jörg Michael Henneberg and Horst-Günther Lucke. Aschendorff publishing house. Muenster. 2014. ISBN 978-3-402-12942-5 . Pages 81-82.
  7. ^ Andreas Lombard: House and Land. The Duchy and Grand Duchy of Oldenburg from 1773 to 1918. Published in: History of the Oldenburger Land - Duchy, Grand Duchy of the Free State . Edited by Jörg Michael Henneberg and Horst-Günther Lucke. Aschendorff publishing house. Muenster. 2014. ISBN 978-3-402-12942-5 . Pages 86-91.
  8. ^ Klaus Dede: Oldenburg & Ammerland . Verlag Atelier im Bauernhaus, Fischerhude 1977, pp. 59–61
  9. ^ E. Heinemeyer: Monuments of the fine arts. In: Geschichte des Landes Oldenburg , p. 873
predecessor Office successor
Friedrich August Prince-Bishop of Lübeck
1785–1803 		secularized and as the Principality of Lübeck to the Duchy of Oldenburg
Friedrich August Prince Regent of the Duchy of Oldenburg
1785–1810 		French occupation and government
French occupation and government Prince Regent of the Duchy of Oldenburg
1813–1823 		himself as Grand Duke
Peter Friedrich Wilhelm Grand Duke of Oldenburg
1823–1829 		Paul Friedrich August
personal data
SURNAME Peter I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Peter Friedrich Ludwig of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Grand Duke of Oldenburg
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Giant castle
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1829
Place of death Wiesbaden