Guelph Fund

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The Welfenfonds is the term used to describe the assets of 16 million club talers that were formed from the confiscated assets of the Hanoverian royal family and assigned to the former King George V of Hanover by contract of September 29, 1867 , but were sequestered again on March 2, 1868 , by a special Prussian Commission in Hanover and whose income was used "to combat Guelf activities".

history

After the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover in the German War in 1866, King George V of Hanover and his family fled first to Austria and later to Paris . The exiled king, who refused to accept the loss of his kingdom, stoked hatred against Prussia in France by publishing a newspaper (called "Situation") which attacked the new conditions in Germany in the sharpest tones. He also tried to set up the so-called Welf Legion from Hanoverian refugees and officers , an army that would fight on the French side in a possible war and recapture his lost kingdom. Thereupon the already promised compensation was suspended and his private assets were confiscated in order to deprive him of his financial basis. Since his son Ernst August , Duke of Cumberland , maintained his claim to the throne in Hanover, the property was not paid out to him either.

The proceeds from the secret Guelph Fund were used for various purposes. Since 1879, the widow of George V, Queen Marie , and her daughters, received an annual pension of 240,000 marks from the Guelph Fund. The largest part, however, was used by the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to make the press submissive by means of financial pressure and bribery (see also Reptile Fund ). The Bavarian king Ludwig II also received several million marks under strict secrecy in the form of a regular annual donation of 300,000 marks for his palace buildings, in return for the imperial letter , brokered by Count Max von Holnstein . Not least because of this annuity, King Ludwig never called a government under the leadership of the anti-Prussian Bavarian Patriot Party until his death .

It was not until Emperor Wilhelm II. In 1892 that the interest from the Guelph Fund should be paid to the head of the House of Hanover in future. The dispute over the Guelph funds as early was terminated definitively Prince expropriation ending litigation after nearly 10 years - - but only in the year 1933. The Supreme Court said the former reigning Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg Ernst August 8 million Reichsmark, the family possessions Calenberg at Marienburg Castle near Hanover and two other farms at Salzgitter as compensation.

The Welf Treasure must be distinguished from the Guelph Fund as a financial asset .

Web links

Wikisource: Der Welfenfonds  - Sources and full texts

literature

  • Dieter Brosius: Welfenfonds and press in the service of Prussian politics in Hanover after 1866. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Volume 36 (1964), pp. 172-206.
  • Helmut Maatz: Bismarck and Hanover. 1866-1898. Hildesheim 1970.
  • Hans Philippi: On the history of the Welfenfonds. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Volume 31 (1959), pp. 190–254.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ PRINCIPAL HOUSES / WELFEN: The Prussian fell into the country . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 1958 ( online ).
  2. ^ Gordon A. Craig: Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1945. From the English by Karl Heinz Siber, 2nd edition, Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-42106-7 , p. 87.