Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange

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Book cover page, 1830

Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange (* 1799 in Magdeburg ; † August 26, 1868 in Rome ) was a natural son of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia , papal or royal Neapolitan officer and religious writer .

biography

Theodor Friedrich was the son of a liaison between Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia and the French émigré Countess Maria Adelaide de la Grange, whose parents had died in German exile. He also had a twin brother named Wilhelm (1799-1820).

The father, Prince Louis Ferdinand, was killed in action near Saalfeld on October 10, 1806 , and the mother died before the children had reached the age of eight. The two brothers were raised by strangers, but King Friedrich Wilhelm III paid . from Prussia a small apanage for them.

At the age of 16, the boys took part in the battles against Napoleon on the Prussian side . Theodor Friedrich was wounded in the battle of Ligny in 1815 , Wilhelm suffered severe injuries during the campaign, of which he died in 1820. Both brothers were baptized Catholics according to their mother's will, but then raised Protestants. On his deathbed, Wilhelm Klitsche warned his brother Theodor Friedrich to return to his mother's religion.

In 1822 Theodor Friedrich Klitsche stayed in Hildesheim , where he came into contact with the president of the local seminary, Father Franz Xaver Lüsken (1750–1841). This refreshed the aristocrat's Catholic faith and taught him. When it became known that Theodor Friedrich Klitsche had become Catholic again, the Prussian king stopped his maintenance payments.

Theodor Friedrich had been on friendly terms with his relatives Countess Sophie Julie von Brandenburg (1793-1848), natural daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia , and with her husband, Duke Ferdinand Friedrich von Anhalt-Köthen (1769-1830). The couple converted to the Catholic Church in 1825. The Duke appointed Klitsche 1826 to its charge d'affaires at the Holy. Chair .

When his sovereign died in 1830, Theodor Friedrich Klitsche joined the general staff of the papal army as captain , in which he served until 1851. At times he worked as the commandant of Ancona . Already in 1846 Pope Gregory XVI allowed him . , through a breve , the use of the maternal nobility name "de la Grange" , which is why he called himself Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange from then on .

From 1855 the nobleman lived in Caserta near Naples . When King Francis II of Naples-Sicily fought for his political survival against Garibaldi's troops in 1860 , Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange joined his army as colonel and brigade commander. In the almost hopeless fight he organized u. a. formed a volunteer corps and on October 6, 1860, in the battle near Civitella Roveto ( Abruzzo ), defeated enemy forces who outnumbered him three times. In November 1860 the king appointed him brigadier general .

After the war was lost, King Franz retreated into exile in Rome, where General Klitsche de la Grange also followed. From then on, he lived here as a private citizen and devoted himself mainly to religious writing, which he had already pursued when there was occasional opportunity. In addition to his own work on celibacy, he translated mostly Italian books into German. a. a multi-volume history of the Council of Trent .

When the Strasbourg Bishop Andreas Räß came to Rome in 1854 on the occasion of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception , he met Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange personally and became friends with him. During the bishop's next visit to Rome, for the canonization of the martyrs of Nagasaki in 1862, the general gave him his handwritten biography as a contribution to Räß's planned work on the converts. Andreas Räß used this biography in Volume XII in 1875. of convertites since the Reformation (pages 563-565).

Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange died on August 26, 1868 in Rome. He was married to the Italian Teresa Costanzi, with whom he had a son and six daughters, including Antonietta Klitsche de la Grange (1832–1912), the first female journalist for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and well-known author of historical novels.

In 1861 the Speyer magazine Palatina said about Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange and his family:

“ ... Klitsche is big and looks good, but squinted. He has military talents. He has 6 daughters, true grenadiers according to stature and manners; one of them gave fencing lessons in Naples and had many pupils from the nobility. He also has a son who was a noncommitted cavalry officer in the Bourbon army for a long time until he was made a real officer by Francis II. "

- Palatina (supplement to the Pfälzer Zeitung), No. 12, Speyer, January 29, 1861

Klitsche de la Grange was also referred to there as "the head of the Bourbon uprising in Abruzzo" and as "Garibaldi of the Reaction."

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nikolaus von Weis : Der Katholik , Speyer 1841, page 54 ff, Nekrolog auf Franz Xaver Lüsken; Digital scan
  2. ^ Digital scan of the work on celibacy
  3. ^ Digital scan of a volume from the history of the Council
  4. ^ Frank Rutger Hausmann, Volker Kapp: Bibliography of German translations from Italian, from the beginnings to the present, Volume 2, page 727, Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2005, ISBN 3-11-093629-1 ; Digital scan
  5. ↑ digital scan
personal data
SURNAME Klitsche de la Grange, Theodor Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klitsche, Theodor Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Italian writer and diplomat, Neapolitan general, natural Hohenzoller
DATE OF BIRTH 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1868
Place of death Rome