Ulrich Adolph Count of Holstein

Ulrich Adolph Graf von Holstein (born February 4, 1731 in Flensburg , † November 1, 1789 in Altona ) was an officer and chief president of Copenhagen .

Military training and service

Ulrich Adolph von Holstein came from the noble family of those von Holstein . His father Christian Detlev Graf von Holstein (* March 6, 1707 in Hamburg ; † May 20, 1760) was bailiff of Flensburg and secret conference councilor. He was married to Catharina Elisabeth, née von Holstein (born August 30, 1712, † March 8, 1750 in Flensburg).

Von Holstein spent his childhood in Flensburg, where he received private lessons. From 1747 he attended the Brunswick Collegium Carolinum . In 1742 he joined a Danish cavalry regiment and served as a cornet. In 1749 he was promoted to Rittmeister and three years later to adjutant general. Before that, he himself had chosen to be a French lieutenant colonel. Due to financial problems, he returned to the Danish military in 1756. During the Seven Years' War he fought briefly for France and Austria. His military career ended in 1760. He was officially adopted in 1763. According to his own statement, he detested life in the military. However, he liked the civil administration very much. The cameralistic sciences in particular were of particular interest to him.

Entry into civil administration

As a member of an important noble family, von Holstein made professional advancement in civil administration easy. His mentor was Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff , who had married his cousin. In 1762, von Holstein lived as a Danish envoy in Schwerin due to the invasion of Danish troops . The Danes assumed that the Russians after the enthronement of Peter III. wanted to attack and therefore chose the offensive to forestall them. Before that, von Holstein had met officers Schack Carl von Rantzau and Peter Elias von Gähler in Altona . He had probably also contacted the medical officer Johann Friedrich Struensee and Enevold von Brandt here . Like von Holstein, they were close to modern reform ideas and frequented the circles of Claude-Louis, comte de Saint-Germain .

When a new General War Directory was set up as part of the reform of the Danish Army, von Holstein took part as a deputy. It quickly became apparent that it would not be sustainable in the long term, as his wishes were contrary to the intended reforms of the Danish government. The Danish government expected him to ensure that the reforms were not too far-reaching. He himself, however, was of the same opinion as Peter Elias von Gähler. Therefore, the activity in the directorate ended in the following year. As part of the enthronement and marriage of King Christian VII at the end of 1766, von Holstein tried unsuccessfully to be appointed envoy in Berlin. On February 3, 1767 he became the new bailiff of Tondern, which was almost a reprimand from the Danish court.

Despite this offense on the part of the Danes, von Holstein tried to do constructive work in the new office. So he put forward plans for reforms, especially in economic matters. Although he had the traits of a project manager, he was impatient and unable to cooperate with the higher bureaucracy. So the proposals only led to the detailed cameralistic-economic description of the Tondern office . This work was printed by Adam Christian Gaspari . The basis for this were exclusively reports from the Hardesvögte, which von Holstein had initiated.

Service in Copenhagen

At the end of 1770, von Holstein followed a call from Johann Friedrich Struensee to Copenhagen. On March 23, 1771, he was appointed the city's chief president. Struensee regarded the local city administration as corrupt and incompetent and commissioned Holstein to reform it. Since no remuneration was planned for the position, von Holstein became a deputy on May 1 in the newly established Finance College. It appeared that he did not have sufficient expertise for this college. In the magistrate he proved unable to cooperate with others and was only insufficiently familiar with the conditions in Copenhagen. The fact that he only stayed in office for a short time may have contributed to the fact that he was unsuccessful in both offices. The only lasting result of his activity was a legal reform. This simplified and optimized the administration of justice in Copenhagen and led to the fact that on April 26, 1771 a new court and city court was set up. The content of the reform, however, is unlikely to be attributable to him.

Queen Caroline Mathilde , whose closest circle included the von Holstein couple, appointed Ulrich Adolph von Holstein as provisional agent for Vallø Abbey. After that, his area of ​​responsibility in financial administration was increasingly restricted. In the last months of his service he indulged in simple amusements in the streets of the Danish capital. Andreas Peter von Bernstorff reported on "obvious debauchery and scandals". His dismissal took place after the loss of power in Struensee. He and his wife had to leave Copenhagen.

Literary works

Von Holstein was now able to “put on paper whatever came to mind”, as he wrote in the Anecdotes historiques sur le Danmark , which had autobiographical parts. So he wrote a Histoire de la naissance au directoire général de guerre . He gave Adam Christian Gaspari, who was homeschooling his son, some files for him to hand over. The Danish government was angry when the works were published. The reprimanded von Holstein then stated that the documents had been stolen from him. In his will he decreed that his landlord Heinrich Wilhelm Lawaetz from Altona should receive the documents and letters. The Danish government bought them back in 1798 and moved them to the Copenhagen Imperial Archives, where they can still be found today.

Von Holstein admired French intellectual life and was very well read. Even so, he couldn't write properly in French. This can be seen in the letters and manuscripts he wrote to Peter Elias von Gähler, including 500 pages in the "Inkvisition Commissions ..."

Honors

Von Holstein was appointed chamberlain in 1758. Ten years later he received the Dannebrogden.

family

Von Holstein married Amalie Sophie von Buchwald in Lübeck in 1763 (* May 9, 1748 in Gotha ; † May 29, 1823 in Altona). Her father Schack Hermann von Buchwald auf Johannstorf (1705–1761) was a Saxon-Gotha privy councilor and high court master and canon in Lübeck. The couple had a son.

literature

• Svend Cedergreen Bech: Holstein, Ulrich Adolph Graf von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, pp. 101-103.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e} Svend Cedergreen Bech: Holstein, Ulrich Adolph Graf von. In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck. Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, p. 101.
2. ^ ^{A b c d e} Svend Cedergreen Bech: Holstein, Ulrich Adolph Graf von. In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck. Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, p. 102.