Wilhelm von Schack

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Ferdinand Wilhelm Karl (Carl) von Schack (born March 18, 1786 in Magdeburg , † December 6, 1831 in Berlin ) was a Prussian major general .

Life

family

Wilhelm comes from the Müssen branch of the Lüneburg nobility of the Lords of Schack . He was the eldest son of the Prussian major general Wilhelm Georg von Schack (1752-1827) and his wife Auguste Elisabeth Henriette, née von Borcke (1764-1830). His brothers were Major General and Herr auf Treten Ferdinand von Schack (1787–1846), General of the Infantry and Herr auf Stechau Hans Wilhelm von Schack (1791–1866) and Major General August von Schack (1793–1864). His brothers-in-law were Major General Florian von Seydlitz (1777–1832) and the court marshal of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia , Hans Karl Dietrich von Rochow (1791–1857). His cousin and close friend was Johann Georg Emil von Brause .

Wilhelm married on November 18, 1810 in Berlin Wilhelmine Auguste, née von Schütz (1790–1862), daughter of the secret finance councilor Georg Karl Gotthelf von Schütz (1758–1805) and his wife Katharina Philippine Johanna, née von Woedtke . His wife was a niece of Johann Friedrich von Schütz . The marriage remained childless.

education

He received his first school education from his father, who was then director of the Cadet Institute in Kalisch . In 1795 he was accepted into his father's cadet institute. In 1796 he entered the Berlin Cadet House , where excellent instruction was given at that time. When he was twelve, Wilhelm began to keep small diaries. He was an eager to learn, precocious boy with the fine handwriting of a scholar; his love for the fine arts was pronounced even then. In 1802 he joined the "von Owstin" infantry regiment in Stettin as an ensign .

Encounter with Wieland and Goethe

In 1805 the mobilization took place and on October 18 his regiment moved to Thuringia . Schack was in Weimar as a quartermaker . I inquired about the worthy veteran Wieland , about Goethe , about the ( Bertuchschen ) industrial office and about Schiller's grave. He wrote about his first meeting with Goethe on December 22nd, 1805: After a while, Goethe comes in, a handsome man whose age falls between 40 and 50. All his decency was that of a courtier; his curly hair, which forms the head of a Titus, with the rest of his fine, elegant morning clothes suggested the man of the world. On January 9, 1806, he was invited to lunch at Goethe's: he received me very well and, like so many others, I cannot complain about his reception; but it is founded that he sometimes behaves extremely strangely towards visiting strangers, which, however, is not to be blamed for him, since he is extremely crowded. (...) Our conversation was mostly limited to the theater and the current circumstances. He entertained us splendidly, got involved in explanations of the most insignificant matters, and did not show us the pride of which he is usually accused. When the troops received the order to march to Lübeck at the end of January 1806 , they met Wieland again: After the parade, Wrangel and I went to Wieland on behalf of the officers' corps and recommended us to his memory. The good old man took this politeness very well and talked to us for a good half hour about the current political situation and our stay here, joking in a witty way about the political advances. I will never forget this interview with Wieland, it will probably be the last and I will hardly be so happy to see him again.

In the Schill Freikorps

During the Battle of Lübeck he was taken prisoner by the French . On his word of honor not to fight against France, he was released from captivity. He succeeded in making his way with his brother August via Berlin to Memel , where his father was in the retinue of the king who had fled to East Prussia . In accordance with his word of honor, he was initially employed in the administration. After he was officially exchanged with French prisoners of war, he joined the Schill Free Corps (" Schillsche Jäger ") and proved himself in the defense of the Kolberg fortress .

After the Peace of Tilsit in 1807 he was led as Adjutant Schills in his newly formed Freikorps. After being integrated into the Prussian Army , he joined the 8th Leib-Grenadier Regiment . Schack used the peacetime for further training. At the Berlin Military Academy he heard lectures by Scharnhorst and Clausewitz .

Adjutant at Yorck

After his marriage and promotion to Prime Lieutenant took place on November 2, 1811, he was appointed as adjutant to Major General Yorck . In the staff of the humanly difficult commander in chief of all troops in East and West Prussia , he took part in the Russian campaign in 1812 . For his use in the battles of Mesothen and Garossenkrug on October 29 and November 1, 1812, he received the order Pour le Mérite at the suggestion of Yorck and was appointed captain of the general staff . Above all, it remained Schack, the loyal Seydlitz brother-in-law, soon the soul of the headquarters and the darling of Yorck. In the full strength of the years, of noble ambition, created for big business, it grew with the size of the tasks; in his manner there was no trace of the petty, disgruntled, insecure; With a preference for all details, he was always focused on the whole and certain of it; the most confused things became clear, simple, arranged for purpose; and explaining or instructing he knew how to convince with simple words; in sudden resolutions he immediately found the right thing, the decisive factor, and he carried it out with such certainty and joy that success seemed to be taken for granted.

As a confidante of Yorck, he and his brother-in-law Florian von Seydlitz and Oldwig von Natzmer made a decisive contribution to the success of the Tauroggen Convention , the secret negotiations between Prussia and Russia and the conclusion of the Kalisch Treaty . Schack was awarded the Order of Anne II class with diamonds by the Russian Tsar Alexander for his diplomatic missions .

As a major in the General Staff of the Yorck Corps, Schack took part in all the major battles and skirmishes of 1813 and 1814. He always tried to mediate in the disputes between General Yorck and his now superior General Blücher as leader of the Silesian Army . The fact that the spirits on his staff did not get lost in righteousness and jealousy was probably due to Wilhelm Schack, who was devoted to the ideal and great. When the officers of Yorck's staff read plays by Schiller and Shakespeare with assigned roles during this hard time during free evening hours - on the evening before the Battle of Laon in a hallway of Shakespeare's "Henry IV." - this is proof of the striving for education among the people Prussian officers and also for the educative influence of the young high-minded quartermaster. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars , he traveled to England on behalf of the Prussian Finance Minister Hans Graf von Bülow .

Adjutant to the Crown Prince

On May 31, 1814, Schack was promoted to lieutenant colonel and on August 9, he was appointed adjutant to the Prussian Crown Prince , with whom he took part in the march to Paris in 1815 . The stay in Paris (from July 11th to September 28th) offered Wilhelm a lot of interesting things at the side of the Crown Prince. During the protracted peace negotiations, he gained deep insights into the political workings of Europe and came into personal contact with the monarchs, generals, statesmen and artists gathered there. An intoxicating peace life developed. Large field services, revues and maneuvers, brilliant dinners and balls, visits to churches, castles, museums, artists' studios and theaters followed suit.

Despite his poor health, he continued to accompany the Crown Prince on various trips, for example on a trip to the Rhine in 1817 to visit the Westphalian provinces, in spring 1818 through the eastern provinces to visit the Russian court, whose pseudo-liberalism Schack saw through. In 1819 he accompanied the Crown Prince on a long journey through Silesia , which also took the two of them to the old General Yorck in Klein-Öls . Via Bavaria , where the Crown Prince, accompanied by Schack, met his future bride for the first time , and the Black Forest , the journey finally took her to Switzerland .

Sickness and death

As a result of overexertion when climbing the Rigi , Schack's unstable health suddenly deteriorated. He suffered from severe rheumatism , which mainly affected the head and eyes. Together with Seydlitz he worked on the diary of the operations of the Royal Prussian I. Army Corps under the command of the General of Infantry v. Yorck .

In 1820, the king honored him on the occasion of the promotion of the Crown Prince to Commanding General of the II Army Corps by appointing him as Chief of Staff .

On the advice of a doctor, he traveled to Italy in the spring of 1822. Niebuhr and Bunsen became friends with him in Rome. In 1823 Schack was promoted to major general.

On March 30, 1829, Schack finally had to retire. How many just hopes for the fatherland are drowned out with this man so wonderfully endowed by nature , wrote Yorck, who had always seen Schack as the future leading general of the Prussian army.

Schack died blind and paralyzed after seven years of sickness in his Berlin apartment at Oranienburger Strasse 17. On December 9, 1831, he was buried in the crypt of v. Schütz's hereditary funeral was buried in Cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Churches . On the order of his cousin Johann Georg Emil von Brause, Christian Daniel Rauch made Schack's death mask - which was placed on his coffin in the v. Schütz'schen and v. Schack's crypt - a marble bust that is now in the possession of the German Historical Museum .

Orders and decorations

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch : New Prussian Adels Lexicon . Volume 1, Leipzig 1836, p. 406.
  2. ^ A b Waldemar von Schack: The privy councilor Johann Georg von Schack (must) and his descendants. P. 23.
  3. ↑ a b Waldemar von Schack: The Privy Councilor , p. 24.
  4. ↑ Waldemar von Schack: The Privy Councilor , p. 25.
  5. ^ Johann Gustav Droysen: The life of Field Marshal Count Yorck , Vol. 2, p. 20.
  6. ↑ Waldemar von Schack: The Privy Councilor , p. 38.
  7. ^ Waldemar von Schack: The Privy Councilor , p. 41.
  8. ^ Anton Friedrich Florian von Seydlitz: Diary of the Royal Prussian Army Corps under the command of the Lieutenant General von York in the campaign of 1812 , Mittler, Berlin and Posen 1823.
  9. ↑ Waldemar von Schack: The Privy Councilor , p. 46.
  10. ↑ After the crypt fell into disrepair, the coffins in it were buried in the ground in 1932 at a nearby location. The new terracotta tombstones for the von Schack couple and for v. Schack's mother-in-law von Schütz born. von Woedtke were destroyed in 1945. The former v. Schütz'sche and von Schack'sche crypt house on the south wall of the III. The cemetery of the New and Jerusalem Parish facing Baruther Strasse was restored for the banker Keichel. Already badly dilapidated in 1982, the sepulkral Biedermeier building was demolished after 1999.
personal data
SURNAME Schack, Wilhelm von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schack, Ferdinand Wilhelm Karl von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian major general
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1786
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1831
Place of death Berlin