Wolf Heinrich von Baudissin (General, 1579)

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Wolf Heinrich von Baudissin in a picture from 1633

Wolf Heinrich von Baudissin , sometimes also called Wulf Heinrich von Bauditz, (* 1579 in Luppa ; † July 24, 1646 near Rosenberg ) was a general and field marshal in the Thirty Years War , who was in Danish, Swedish and Electoral Saxon service one after the other .

Military career

Wolf Heinrich von Baudissin , who came from the old Silesian-Lusatian nobility, spent part of his youth at the imperial court in Vienna and began his military career by participating in campaigns in Hungary. In 1613 he was recruited from Venice and served as a lieutenant in the Friulian War . After the beginning of the Thirty Years' War he went to Bohemia, where he fought as Rittmeister for King Friedrich of the Palatinate in the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 . He escaped the defeat there to Glatz , where he is said to have stood out for his great bravery during the siege of the city in 1622. In 1625, at the age of 28, he entered Danish service and was promoted to colonel the following year . He initially fought under Ernst von Mansfeld and after his death in 1626 received supreme command of the troops. As a general of the cavalry he saved the Danish cavalry from destruction by Wallenstein near Koschau an der Oder in the summer of 1627 and led them back to Denmark in heavy fighting. Before the Peace of Lübeck he finished his service for the King of Denmark and entered Swedish service in 1628. He fought for Gustav Adolf first in the Polish-Swedish War in Poland. After being captured by Polish troops, Baudissin was charged with looting, but was saved from execution by the intercession of King Sigismund and soon released because of the Swedish victory.

Contemporary illustration of the Battle of Werben (1631)

After the Swedes entered the Thirty Years War, Baudissin commanded the Swedish cavalry as a general in the Battle of Werben in August 1631 and was instrumental in Gustav Adolf's victory over Count Tilly there . He also contributed to the happy outcome of the battle in the subsequent great Swedish victory at Breitenfeld .

After the death of the Swedish king, in autumn 1632 he led a Swedish army of around 8,000 foot soldiers and 2,800 horsemen from Frankfurt via the Westerwald to the Rhineland. The aim of the campaign was to deter the neutral Rhenish principalities from entering the war on the Catholic side. In addition, the Rhineland, which had been spared from the war until then, offered good prospects for the collection of contributions that were needed to finance the mercenary troops. After his troops had conquered Bingen , they moved north and captured the Castle of the Electorate of Cologne on the Drachenfels , which gave them control of the Middle Rhine Valley. After the conquest of Linz on the Rhine , his troops crossed the Rhine and occupied the cities of Remagen , Sinzig and Ahrweiler in the Electorate of Cologne with little resistance. On November 16, Andernach was conquered and looted because a Swedish parliamentarian is said to have been injured there. On October 27, 1632, he stormed the city of Siegburg , which became a Swedish base for the following years. With Blankenberg , Wipperfürth , Radevormwald and Solingen , other cities in the Bergisches Land were occupied. The old residence of the Dukes of Berg in Schloss Burg was also shot at by his troops and briefly besieged, but not conquered. He asked the Duke of Berg for the fantastic sum of 6 million Reichsthalers in contributions, which the latter refused. On December 21, 1632, he attacked the city of Deutz , opposite Cologne , because he assessed its fortification by the Free Imperial City of Cologne as a breach of its neutrality. However, the strong resistance from Cologne forced him to retreat the next day. Baudissin continued to occupy large parts of Kurköln and the Duchy of Jülich-Berg , disregarding their neutrality, but refrained from attacking their strongly fortified royal cities of Bonn and Düsseldorf .

In March 1633, Baudissin fell out with the Swedish Imperial Council because he saw his services being rewarded too little. While the Swedish troops on the Rhine came under increasing pressure from Spanish and Cologne associations, he ended his services for the Swedes.

Baudissin first went to Schleswig-Holstein, where he married for the second time in the same year and was accepted into the knighthood. After numerous Protestant principalities broke away from the Swedes in the Peace of Prague , Baudissin entered the Electoral Saxon service for Johann Georg I of Saxony in 1635 . But on October 22 of the same year he suffered a heavy defeat against the Swedes at Dömitz . In 1636 he was seriously wounded by a shot in the hip during the siege of Magdeburg and had to quit military service on June 30 of the same year. In 1635, Count Anton Günther from Oldenburg gave him the Neuenfelde estate near Elsfleth .

According to a contemporary account, Baudissin is said to have suffered a total of 13 gunshot wounds in the course of his military career in addition to numerous blows, of which two bullets were still stuck in his body when he died. Baudissin was regarded by allies and opponents as a courageous, sometimes also a daring soldier, but who is not certified as having the strategic foresight of a great general. Other sources write about Baudissin that his greed for money and unscrupulousness were despised by friends and foes alike.

Diplomatic services

Bellschwitz manor around 1860, Duncker collection

After completing his military service, Baudissin took over several administrative posts and was entrusted with diplomatic tasks. He was the Royal Polish Really Privy Council of War and subsequently worked as the Saxon envoy for Denmark and Poland at the Danish royal court. For his services he received the Danish Elephant Order . After his death on June 24, 1646 at Gut Bellschwitz near Rosenberg , he found his final resting place in the Marien Church in Elbing .

family

Wolf-Heinrich was the son of Christoph von Baudissin, the progenitor of the Baudissins in Schleswig-Holstein and Austria who were later elevated to the rank of count. He was married twice. In 1625 he married Anna Sophia von Kißleben († October 4, 1629) daughter of Drosten von Övelgönne Bernhard von Kißleben and his wife Maria von Thal in Oldenburg. His wife died giving birth to their son Gustav Adolf . After her death, on August 5, 1633, he married Sophia von Rantzau (1620–1697), a daughter of Gerdt von Rantzau-Breitenburg .

children

  • Gustaf Adolf ("Bauditz") (* October 1629 in Elbing, † April 10, 1695 in Aurich ), Danish general
  • Heinrich Günther (1636–1673) father of the first Count von Baudissin; Wolf Heinrich, (1671–1748)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gustav Adolf von Baudissin. In: Biographical Lexicon for East Frisia. 2001, Volume 3, pp. 32-35. ostfriesenelandschaft.de (PDF)
personal data
SURNAME Baudissin, Wolf Heinrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Electorate General in the Thirty Years' War
DATE OF BIRTH 1579
PLACE OF BIRTH Luppa
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1646
Place of death Elblag