Sigismund von Götze

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Sigismund von Götze (also Sigmund von Götze ; * 1576 in the Mark Brandenburg ; † December 15, 1650 ) was Chancellor of the Electorate of Brandenburg .

Life

He was the son of the Brunswick-Lüneburg court master Friedrich von Götzen (* 1540; † November 14, 1595) and his wife Lucretia von Quitzow († after 1585).

Sigismund was initially a page at the court in Wolfenbüttel with the Duchess Magdalena von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . From 1595 he studied at the universities of Frankfurt an der Oder , Leipzig , Jena and Strasbourg . Between 1601 and 1603 Sigismund von Götz was at the universities of Paris , Geneva and Basel . He became court master of Count Wolrad von Waldeck and through him acquired his first statesmanship education in France and Switzerland .

Götze turned to Calvinism and in 1607 went to the electoral Brandenburg service, where the chancellors Johann von Löben and Friedrich Pruckmann were his teachers in politics. In 1609 Götze was sent by Elector Johann Sigismund to the Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, and in doing so he managed to give Kurbrandenburg a free hand to a certain extent on the burning Jülich question . At the beginning of the reign of Johann Sigismunds he became a member of the Secret Council College founded in 1604 , a position he held with the exception of 1637-40 until his death in 1650.

During the Thirty Years' War under the reign of Elector Georg Wilhelm and the raids by the Danes and Swedes from 1624 to 1626, the court split into two parties; one imperial and one swedish. Together with Pruckmann and Samuel von Winterfeld, Götze was one of the main representatives of the Swedish party. This fact led to the most serious quarrels with Count Adam von Schwarzenberg . Schwarzenberg's intrigue against Winterfeld and the other reformed privy councilors led to a high treason trial . Götze was acquitted, but Schwarzenberg and his imperial-Austrian-minded friends were able to take over the management of the council for three years.

In 1627 Götze was sent to the court of Emperor Ferdinand II in order to mediate a reconciliation with the "winter king" Friedrich V of the Palatinate . The mission failed. His appearance before the Reichstag in Regensburg in 1630 was more effective. There he was able to prevent the emperor from gaining strength with the Protestant prince and was also involved in the deposition of Wallenstein as the imperial generalissimo .

The years 1630 to 1634 form the main focus of his political activities. During this time the Swedish King Gustav Adolf entered into the Thirty Years' War, the old Chancellor Pruckmann died in 1630 and Götze took over the leadership of the Privy Council. The successes of the Swedes made Count Schwarzenberg withdraw to his estates in Clevischen. However, neither the Märkische Estates nor the Elector wanted to openly take the Swedish side. So Prussia stayed with a policy of neutrality. With the death of Gustav Adolf, the Swedish defeat at Nördlingen and the fall of Electorate of Saxony from the Swedish side, Götze also came under great political pressure.

With the Peace of Prague , the imperial party in Prussia was given a boost and Count Schwarzenberg again determined the direction. And now he tried even more energetically than before to establish a protective and defensive alliance with the House of Austria against Sweden. The Brandenburg estates submitted to this direction with ever less resistance and so only Götze remained as the opposition. When the suspicions against him did not drive him from the place of his own accord, he was removed from his office in 1637 and compelled to retire to his captain Gramzow in the Uckermark, far from the residence .

When Elector Friedrich Wilhelm took office , politics turned again. One of the first measures taken by the elector was on December 15, 1640, Götze's reappointment to the post of chancellor. Adjusted to the changed situation, armed neutrality with a decided inclination towards Sweden was now a foreign policy goal. In addition, a marriage between the Swedish Queen Christina , the daughter of Gustav Adolf and the Elector was planned. The negotiations about the marriage and the armistice with the crown fell automatically to Götze, who stayed in Stockholm for a long time with Gerhard Romilian von Kalcheim for this purpose, but ultimately in vain.

Götze spent the last years of his life at the court of the elector. He had trained this himself and rendered him faithful service for many years. Götze continued tirelessly and conscientiously in the position of Chancellor. He could even dare to criticize the elector's policies. But the latter overlooked the small weaknesses of old age over the great merits of his loyal Chancellor, and although he had been busy for a long time with plans to reform the administration, which should also remove the Chancellery, he left Götze in the same until his resignation.

So Götze became the last of the Brandenburg chancellors in the old sense, because his next successors in the position of leading minister appear until the end of the century in the form of senior presidents of all colleges. In this position of his, however, he ranks on an equal footing with his two predecessors and forms a worthy conclusion to that series of men who, despite the bitterest and most sudden changes of happiness, devoted their whole being to the promotion of their fatherland whenever they were given the opportunity To take over management of the business.

family

In 1608, he married Hedwig von Röbel (1592–1631) the daughter of Zacharias von Röbel. The couple had three sons and several daughters, including:

  • Zacharias Friedrich († 1682), from 1660 chief steward of the reigning Electress and the Great Elector
⚭ Elisabeth von Saldern († September 24, 1679)
⚭ Eva Sophia von Dewitz († January 22, 1691)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ possibly also his sister to: http://geneagraphie.com/getperson.php?personID=I525801&tree=1
personal data
SURNAME Gotze, Sigismund von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Götze, Siegmund von; Götz, Siegmund von; Götzen, Sigismund von; Götz, Sigismund von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Elector of Brandenburg Chancellor
DATE OF BIRTH 1576
PLACE OF BIRTH Mark Brandenburg
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 1650