Karl von Hahn (theater manager)

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Karl Friedrich Graf von Hahn , until 1802: Karl Friedrich Hahn , also von Hahn-Neuhaus (* May 18, 1782 in Remplin , † May 21, 1857 in Altona ) was a German landowner, theater director and Mecklenburg hereditary marshal. He was known as the "Theatergraf", directed various theaters and acting groups in Northern Germany and occasionally appeared as an actor . For his passion for the theater, which lasted all his life, he sacrificed all of his fortune.

Life

Karl (von) Hahn (No. 363 of the gender census, also affected by the father's count in 1802) was the fourth son of the landowner, natural philosopher and astronomer Friedrich II. Count von Hahn and his wife Wilhelmine Christine, née. von Both (1744–1801). With excellent financial resources, Hahn grew up as the middle of three remaining sons of his parents in the old Remplin Castle .

In 1790 his father sent him to Stockholm , where he became the personal page of King Gustav III. of Sweden became. In 1792 he witnessed the assassination attempt on the king during a masked ball. Hahn returned to Remplin after the king's death and was soon sent to the Schwerin court, where he made friends with the later Hereditary Grand Duke Friedrich Ludwig of Mecklenburg-Schwerin .

In 1799 Hahn and his brother Ferdinand (1779–1805) lived in Hamburg . From autumn 1799 both brothers studied philosophy (and camera sciences ) at the University of Greifswald .

Due to the death of his father (1805) and a few other inheritances due to deaths in his close family environment, Hahn became the largest private landowner that ever existed in old Mecklenburg in the first decade of the 19th century. The legend goes around that Hahn owned 99 goods and pertinents in Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Contemporary sources saw his private wealth in the old empire as one of the foremost places after that of the Esterházy dynasty.

His passion for the theater had already arisen at the court of the Swedish king and was able to develop further in Hamburg and Greifswald . He initially used the fortune that had accrued to him after his father's death in 1805 to convert a former glassworks in Remplin into his own theater in 1806. At the lovers' theater, which was built for 60,000 thalers, he had his own theater troupe and had famous actors such as August Wilhelm Iffland , Ferdinand Eßlair and Friederike Bethmann-Unzelmann perform for good salaries . A spontaneous visit by the Prussian Queen Luise to the theater count in Remplin (around 1805) with a theater performance specially arranged for her in the local castle park, which Hahn's biographer (Meyer) stages very theatrically according to reports from second hand and which has haunted literature ever since, never took place and belongs in the realm of the legends about Hahn.

Since 1804 he was involved as a sponsor in traveling drama companies and directed the court theater in Schwerin from 1806 to 1807 . At his own expense he followed the Duke in 1806 with the theater troupe to Altona and in 1807 back to Mecklenburg . Around 1807 he lived in one of the largest townhouses in Neubrandenburg "in its heyday" , but without having become its owner.

His financial situation deteriorated to such an extent through his excessive extravagance that his family declared him incapable of doing business in 1808, placed him under curate and removed him from all offices. From then on Hahn had to make do with an annual pension of - at least - 6000 thalers. In just three years he had used up almost all of his family's huge fortune, which had made his father one of the largest private landowners in Mecklenburg, for his pathological obsession with the theater. In 1808 the officially determined debt level amounted to 1,175,471 Reichstaler, the list of creditors had about 400 names. In the great Hahn property bankruptcy, which could no longer be averted, the Remplin family and numerous other estates in Mecklenburg were lost forever in 1816.

former Hahn-Neuhaus'sches house in Lübeck

In 1813 Karl von Hahn went to Russia and took part in the Wars of Liberation from 1813 to 1814 . For this he was awarded the Order of St. John and the Order of Vladimir .

In 1816 Hahn visited Putbus , the residence of his Greifswald friend Prince Malte zu Putbus , which was currently being built on the island of Rügen , where he built a representative town house on a market corner and next to it the first Putbus theater . Hahn is considered to be the "initiator of Putbus's first theater ambitions" . His proposal led to the construction of today's theater building in Putbus with 324 seats in 1821.

In 1817 he took over the Altona Theater, which he had officially directed by the actor Mrs. A. Ruhland. He hired the best actors and singers, which gave the city theater a glamorous but short period. From 1821 to 1824 he was theater director in Lübeck , from 1829 to 1831 in Stralsund and Greifswald, 1833 in Magdeburg and 1834 to 1836 in Altenburg , Erfurt , Meiningen and other places. He was again in Altona from 1837 to 1838. Recovered from an illness, he returned to Lübeck from 1839 to 1841, and then worked in Kiel from 1841 to 1843 . This was followed by the stock theater in Hamburg-Sankt Pauli , Hildesheim , Verden and finally in 1856 Sommerhude near Altona.

Because of a gout disease , he spent the last decade of his life there in isolation. For the theater he was still active as a consultant and patron , for which he used the rest of his fortune. He died miserable and utterly impoverished.

As an actor, Karl von Hahn appeared primarily at his theater in Remplin, later he only occasionally took on minor roles. For this he mainly devoted himself to organizational matters, but also to activities such as prop master and make- up artist . His theater projects mostly failed because of his economic inability. Numerous anecdotes have been recorded about his life story, but they are not always verifiable.

Karl Graf von Hahn was married to Sophie (Louise) von Behr since 1804 . In 1809 she filed for divorce and moved with the children to Rostock, Neubrandenburg and finally to Greifswald. Of his four children, his eldest daughter, Ida Hahn-Hahn, became known as a writer.

About a meeting with her father almost a year before his death, Ida Hahn-Hahn reported to her brother Ferdinand: “The day before yesterday, father came over from Wiesbaden for an hour - sadly on his feet, so it is frightening to see him walking; but otherwise completely unchanged and without any trace of the so-called stroke, which was certainly just dizziness. The Dr. Schubart is a small, bright-eyed man; whether an able doctor? but there is no remedy for gout u 74 years! How funny it is when father talks about how he should restrict himself, e.g. B. occupy low rooms because of the heating; Traveling on the 3rd railroad station, etc. I cannot describe at all. ” And after Karl Hahn's death she wrote to her brother: “ Oh, dear brother, what other pain we might feel at this death than that which was wasted by the deceased Life. Certainly it is sad not to have a father; but never having it a million times sadder! - He now had to give an account of his soul and the souls of his children before God! May he have found a gracious judgment. May the time and the world in which he was born and grew up have made an excuse for the horrible alienation of his entire life; - because it is well certain that the one, the full truth, never came close to him. "

progeny

Karl von Hahn married Sophie (Louise), b. von Behr (1783–1857), daughter of the landscape director Felix Gustav von Behr , heir to Vargatz and Dönnie , and his wife Hedwig Louise von Genzkow . The couple, who divorced in 1809, had the following children:

  • Ida (Marie Louise Gustave) (1805–1880; No. 367 of the gender census)
  • (Adolphine Auguste Antonie Sophie) Clara (1806–1858; No. 368 of the gender census)
  • Louise (Caroline Francisca), wed Wollenburg (1808–1871; No. 369 of the gender census)
  • Ferdinand (Götz Gustav Adolph Otto Leopold) (1809–1888; No. 370 of the gender census), Danish court hunter master

Letters

  • 1 letter from Karl v. Hahn to his daughter Ida Hahn-Hahn . December 10, 1855

literature

  • Adam Otto von Vieregg: Overview of the assets and debts of the Herr Erblandmarschall Count von Hahn auf Remplin and suggestions for the correction of the latter. Dedicated to the interests of the creditors. Printed by Adlers Erben, Rostock 1809 ( digital copy from Rostock University Library)
  • Friedrich Adolf Meyer: Character traits from the life of Count Carl Hahn-Neuhaus. Kayser, Hamburg 1858. ( digitized from SUB Hamburg)
  • Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 385, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Arwed Bouvier: An entertainer from Uradel. The "theater count" Carl von Hahn died 150 years ago. In: Heimatkurier. Supplement to Nordkurier , July 23, 2007, p. 22
  • Günther Hansen:  Hahn, Karl Friedrich Graf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 498 ( digitized version ).
  • Joseph Kürschner:  Hahn, Karl Friedrich Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 369-371.
  • Meyers Konversationslexikon , Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna, fourth edition, 1885–1892, p. 1014 ( digitized at www.retrobibliothek.de )
  • Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 3774 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Two older brothers died as children in 1779 and 1782, respectively.
  2. ^ University of Greifswald. - See the matriculation entries of the brothers Ferdinand and Carl v. Hahn in Greifswald on September 14, 1799. [No. 11/1799 and 12/1799]. The following year saw the beginning of Hahn's friendship with Prince Malte zu Putbus , who had been studying in Greifswald since October 20, 1800 [matriculation entry no. 21/1800] and in 1801 moved to Göttingen.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Ahlers: Historical-topographical sketches from the prehistory of the Vorderstadt Neubrandenburg. Neubrandenburg 1876. [Reprint: Federchen-Verlag, Neubrandenburg 1995]. Pp. 110-111.
  4. ↑ At that time: Kleine Wollweberstrasse 3 (house # 415), the property later known as the "Mayor Brückner House" .
  5. ^ Taken from the Festschrift: For the 150th anniversary of the Lübeck advertisements / 1751 *** March 6th *** 1901 / and / and / and the 75th anniversary of the Borchers Brothers' lithographic printing company / 1826 *** May 30th *** 1901
  6. ↑ Markt 1, later referred to as "Hahn'sche Theaterhaus" ; now demolished.
  7. ↑ Princely residence town of Putbus at a glance. Ed .: Rugendruck GmbH and Tourism and Trade Association Putsbus eV, Putbus 2015. P. 17 f.
  8. ↑ Heinz Lehmann; Renate Meyer: Rügen AZ. Wähmann-Verlag, Schwerin 1976. p. 34.
  9. ^ Letter of July 20, 1856 in the Fritz Reuter Literature Archive Berlin
  10. ^ Letter of May 28, 1857 in the Fritz Reuter Literature Archive Berlin
  11. ^ Fritz Reuter Literature Archive Berlin
personal data
SURNAME Hahn, Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hahn, Karl Friedrich von (full name); Hahn-Neuhaus, Karl Friedrich von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater director, landowner and hereditary marshal
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH Remplin
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1857
Place of death Altona