Theodor von Kretschmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theodor von Kretschmann (around 1800)

Theodor Konrad Kretschmann , von Kretschmann since 1801 , (born November 8, 1762 in Bayreuth , † January 15, 1820 in Kassel ) was a German politician, lawyer and publicist. As a conducting minister he headed the administration of the Duchy of Saxony-Coburg-Saalfeld until 1808 ; In 1816 he was briefly absolute head of government of the principality of Sayn-Wittgenstein .

Life

origin

Kaulsdorf Castle on the Saale, paternal inheritance

Theodor Kretschmann was a son of the Bayreuth judiciary Johann Adam Kretschmann (1724–1772) and his wife Christiana Dorothea (1732–1798). The father Johann Adam already carried the title of nobility and was a son of the pastor Karl Wilhelm Kretschmann (1695–1745) and grandson of the Bayreuth court painter Carl Clemens Kretschmann (1651–1695) from Nuremberg . Theodor's father had previously owned the Feuln knight's fief , which he had sold to Major General von Hagen in 1767 . Johann Adam (von) Kretschmann was also the heir of the Kaulsdorf manor with Breternitz and Fischersdorf , which Theodor Kretschmann was later to sell to the Prussian state as an inheritance. Theodor's mother was a daughter of the Kulmbach archdeacon and castle preacher Johann Georg Keck (1687–1747).

education

Kretschmann studied law in Erlangen . In 1782 he went to Saalfeld , where he was then government secretary. Expressed openness to thoughts from revolutionary France led to a police investigation, which resulted in his departure in Saalfeld. In 1791 he went to Jena and soon successfully submitted his legal dissertation .

Prussian State Service

Erkersreuth Castle near Bayreuth, owned by Kretschmann for some time

Kretschmann accepted an offer from Hardenberg and entered the Prussian civil service in Bayreuth . In 1800 he acquired Gut Erkersreuth in the Prussian Principality of Bayreuth . As the royal Prussian chamber director in Bayreuth, he was awarded the Prussian nobility on July 8, 1801 in Berlin .

Coburg-Saalfeld civil service

The Coburg Prinzenpalais, home of the Minister 1803–1808

Since he was considered a financial expert, Duke Franz von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld brought him into his service in 1801. The Duke also bought the Erkersreuth estate from him. At that time, Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld was threatened in its existence by heavy debt and had been under an imperial debit commission for decades. A financial plan devised by Kretschmann resulted in the repeal of the debit commission; Kretschmann was placed at the head of the administration as the conducting minister. In these years he lived in the Coburg Prinzenpalais until 1808 . In 1803 Kretschmann demanded the Erkersreuth estate back from the Duke; however, he was to sell it again in 1811: to the manufacturer Riedel from Klingenthal .

Kretschmann's system collapsed when, in the second half of 1806, the end of the empire, the establishment of the Rhine Confederation , the war between France and Prussia and the death of the duke came together. Kretschmann succeeded in bringing the duchy into the Confederation of the Rhine and thus to sovereignty , but then the stay of the subsequent Duke Ernst I in Prussia led to the confiscation of his state by France. As a result, the state bank founded by Kretschmann, which is so relevant to his financial system, was so affected that it could only exist for a short time.

Kretschmann wanted to introduce the Code Napoléon in Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, but the duchess mother was entirely on the Prussian side. Kretschmann, previously almighty minister in the Duchy of Coburg, now faced a new monarch who, in contrast to his father, wanted to govern himself. After the Duke's restitution in 1807, Theodor von Kretschmann withdrew in 1808 to his Obertheres estate in Lower Franconia , which he had acquired during the secularization , and was therefore entered in the royal Bavarian aristocratic register on March 17, 1813 .

Obertheres Castle, country residence and refuge in Lower Franconia

Time after his career in Coburg-Saalfeld

In the last years of his life he worked as a consultant for various noble houses . After he was not safe from the Duke of Coburg's petty vindictiveness even in Bavaria, Hardenberg brought him back the Prussian indigenous community in 1816 . His last major undertaking was his attempt to prevent the incorporation of the Principality of Wittgenstein , which had been mediatized since 1806 and belonged to Hesse-Darmstadt , into the newly formed Prussian province of Westphalia ; In fact, Theodor von Kretschmann ruled the Laasphe residence in November 1816 instead of Prince Friedrich Karl zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein (1766–1837) , who had been mediatized for a whole decade but was also practically incapacitated due to heavy debt . The Prussian State Chancellor Prince Hardenberg saved him from any embarrassing consequences . At the end of December 1816, however, the chief president of the Prussian province of Westphalia, Ludwig von Vincke , had Kretschmann and the royal Wittgenstein domain director, Kölle, arrested. In September 1817 Kretschmann came to Düsseldorf under Prussian city ​​arrest . He was sentenced to 3,000 fl. Rhenish on December 17, 1817 for inducing unauthorized unlawful interventions in the police and financial administration of the County of Wittgenstein , but if he was unable to do so, a prison sentence of two years and ten and a half months should be imposed instead of the fine . In this sad situation, Kretschmann turned to the Prussian king, emphasizing his services in the Frankish principalities, and asked for mercy, which Friedrich Wilhelm III. granted him in full by cabinet order of October 5, 1819. In mid-December 1819 Theodor von Kretschmann was allowed to leave Düsseldorf and travel to his Franconian homeland. There he continued his work as a consultant, which led him to frequent trips. On his last he fell ill and died 57 years old after a short period of malaise on January 15, 1820 in Kassel .

family

Kretschmann family coat of arms

Theodor Kretschmann married in 1785 in Kahla Friederike (1766–1829), daughter of Johann von Stern, ducal Saxon court advocate and municipal lawyer in Kahla, and Christiana Friederike Dorothea von Eichelberg. They had three sons and seven daughters, including Moritz von Kretschmann (1790–1868), Royal Bavarian Major General and Commander of the Cadet Corps, and Bertha (1795–1862), married to Ernst Edler von Braun (1788–1863), Saxony-Altenburg director Minister.

One grandson was Hans von Kretschmann (1832–1899), Prussian infantry general, another Arthur von Kretschmann (1836–1889), Prussian major general. A great-granddaughter was the socially critical writer Lily Braun geb. von Kretschmann (1865–1916). Marianne von Weizsäcker b. von Kretschmann, widow of former German Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker (1920–2015), is a great-great-great-granddaughter.

Works

  • Theodor von Kretschmann, The Organization of the Coburg-Saalfeldische Lande , Volume 1, Leipzig 1803 ( digitized version )
  • Theodor von Kretschmann, report from the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to the Imperial Councilor on the dismissal of the former Vice President (Carl) von Wangenheim , Coburg 1805 ( digitized version )

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lower Saxony Regional Association for Family Studies , Karl Wilhelm KRETSCHMANN
  2. ↑ Daniela Pannicke (2001), The descendants of the von Gründlach family from Franconia (accessed February 14, 2015)
  3. ↑ Manfred H. Grieb, Nürnberger Künstlerlexikon: visual artists, artisans, scholars , Munich 2007, p. 851
  4. ^ State Archives Bamberg, Markgraftum Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Secret Archives Bayreuth No. 5470: Sale of the feuln knight's fiefdom from Justizrat von Kretschmann to Major General von Hagen  in the German Digital Library
  5. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 529 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Karl Heinrich von Lang, Adelsbuch des Kingdom of Baiern , Munich 1815, p. 417 f.
  7. ↑ Peter Jungblut, A demonized life: Simson Alexander David - Karriere eines Feindbilds (2012), p. 133
  8. ^ Lower Saxony State Association for Family Studies eV, Johann Georg KECK
  9. ^ A b Theodor von Kretschmann, Report of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to the Imperial Reichshofrath about the dismissal of the former Vice President (Carl) von Wangenheim , Coburg 1805, pp. 82–91
  10. ↑ a b Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelslexikon Volume VII, Volume 97 of the complete series, Limburg an der Lahn, p. 9
  11. ↑ a b Theodor von Kretschmann, Hof und Staat: A magazine in casual notebooks , Volume 3, p. 13 f.
  12. ^ Theodor von Kretschmann, Report of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to the Imperial Reichshofrath about the dismissal of the former Vice President (Carl) von Wangenheim , Coburg 1805, p. 10 f.
  13. ↑ Chronicle of Erkersreuth, p. 1
  14. ↑ Monument of the Month - December 2006, Southern Westphalia and Münsterland, Wittgenstein Castle (Bad Laasphe) ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hist-stadt.nrw.de
  15. ^ Genealogisches Staats-Handbuch, Volume 66, Frankfurt am Main 1835, p. 666
  16. ^ Johann August Ritter von Eisenhart:  Kretschmann, Theodor Konrad v. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 132-140.
  17. ↑ Klaus Freiherr von Andrian-Werburg :  Kretschmann, Theodor von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 12 f. ( Digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Kretschmann, Theodor von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kretschmann, Theodor Konrad; Kretschmann, from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, lawyer and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH Bayreuth
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1820
Place of death kassel