Wolfgang von Goldner

Wolfgang von Goldner, Paris 1806

Wolfgang von Goldner , born as Wolfgang Christian Carl Ludwig Goldner (* December 1, 1764 or 1765 in Wiesbaden or Hanau or Offenbach (?); †  February 23, 1837 in Frankfurt am Main ), imperial nobility 1801, was a German lawyer and diplomat in Service of Princes Wolfgang Ernst II and Carl von Isenburg-Birstein . From 1794 he held various political and administrative offices in their residence in Offenbach .

Origin, youth and first job in Hanau

Goldner was the son of the government councilor Ludwig Philipp Wolfgang Goldner († 1770), a princely Isenburg government and court judge. His grandfather was Wolfgang Goldner, Chamber Councilor in Zweibrücken (he was also his godfather). His mother was Johanna Charlotta Philippina Roessler (born August 8, 1742). Goldner was an orphan in childhood and grew up in the family of his godmother and her husband in Wiesbaden. There he attended grammar school and then studied law at the universities in Göttingen and Giessen . After several educational trips , he first entered service in the Hanau region . In Hanau County, he bought several pieces of land, exchanged some (including with members of the von Savigny family), met his future wife and married there.

family

On January 22nd, 1793 Goldner married Amalie Wilhelmine Ledderhose from Hanau. Soon after, the family moved to Offenbach. The couple had six children:

• Wolfgang Philipp Karl (born August 26, 1793; † May 24, 1847), secret legation councilor for Hesse-Darmstadt in Frankfurt
• Antoinette Maria Friederike Ernestine (born January 16, 1795 in Offenbach; † June 12, 1816), married to Joseph Anton Franz Maria Forsboom-Goldner (* 1794; † 1839), member of the Legislative Assembly of the Free City of Frankfurt 1832–1839
• Charlotte ("Lotte") Auguste Wilhelmine (born September 7, 1796 in Offenbach; † January 17, 1868 in Frankfurt am Main), married to Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Speyer (* 1790; † 1878), composer
• Karoline Susanne Polyxene (born April 3, 1798 in Offenbach; † September 28, 1835 in Frankfurt am Main)
• Victoria ("Victoire") Isabella (* December 7, 1799; † December 22/24 (?) December 1838 in Frankfurt am Main)
• Wolfgang Ernst (born January 22, 1803 in Offenbach, † April 11, 1864 in Darmstadt)

The married couple Carl (Hereditary Prince of Isenburg-Birstein) and Charlotte as well as Wolfgang Goldner and Amalie Wilhelmine were about the same age, their children were born in the same decade. The children played together almost every day. A hundred years later, the family chronicler Richard Forsboom speculated that the children might not have had too many other friends in Offenbach if they had been together almost all the time.

Secret council in Isenburg

Goldner followed the call of Prince Wolfgang Ernst II of Isenburg-Birstein in 1794 and went to Offenbach as a councilor. There he worked to the satisfaction of his sovereign, who commissioned him to represent his interests at the Rastatt Congress in 1797. In 1801 the prince succeeded in having the Secret Council Goldner ennobled by Emperor Franz II . In 1801 Goldner traveled with Hereditary Prince Carl to Paris to negotiate an intended swap of territory: Isenburg wanted to swap his share, the left side of the stream of the village of Gelnhaar , for the village of Fechenheim on the right side of the Main - Offenbach directly opposite - (today a district of Frankfurt am Main, then belonging to the County of Hanau-Münzenberg ). In 1802 and 1803 Goldner was the Privy Council Plenipotentiary of the Wetterau Grafenkolleg at the Reich Deputation in Regensburg .

Chief Minister in Isenburg

In 1803, the new sovereign, Prince Carl , appointed him head of the highest authority of the Cabinets Department when the Isenburg administration was reorganized, to which all offices with the exception of the government dicastery and the government college were subordinated. The intercourse between Prince and Goldner was familiar, and Goldner decided many important questions without asking his Prince, because both of them shared their basic views. Later authors exaggerated the claim that Goldner was the politician and Prince Carl was his envoy.

Frankfurt Union

In 1803 the smaller imperial houses of the Wetterau and the neighboring areas merged to form the Frankfurter Union in order to maintain their independence, supported by France. The predominantly covered association was directed against the efforts of the larger German powers to round off their territories at the expense of the smaller ones. The organizers, the soul and the driving force of this small federation of princes and counts , were Count Friedrich zu Solms-Laubach and Goldner. Count Friedrich judged Goldner: Goldner is the only usable man, his knowledge, his passion in business, his knowledge in our affairs make him important to us and Wetterau can achieve a lot if he is the first businessman to be at the forefront of work! . After an order received on the “Unification Day” in Rödelheim on February 6, 1806, Goldner negotiated with Talleyrand in Paris about a permanent political and military organization of this union, which would then be joined by other small imperial estates; but it did not come about.

In 1805 Goldner had one of several encounters with Napoleon in Strasbourg . His foreign minister, Talleyrand, suggested joining the territories represented by Goldner to France - like the Mayence, which had already been annexed . Goldner refused because he wanted to save his prince sovereignty over Isenburg. France then created the Confederation of the Rhine .

Rhine Confederation State

→ Main article : Principality of Isenburg (Rhine Confederation)

The Prince of Isenburg was one of the founding members of the Rhine Confederation. It was only possible for him to join if the small principality was not to be mediatized . In 1810 Goldner became head of the Principality's General Commission, whose government was taken over by the sovereign, who was absent from French military service from 1805 to 1809, because he could no longer perform active military service as a result of his gout .

End of the principality

When the anti-Napoleonic troops moved into the principality at the end of 1813, it was subordinated to the central administration for the occupied territories ( Département Central d'Administration temporaire ) of the conquered German lands under Freiherr von und zum Stein and assigned to the newly formed General-Gouvernement Frankfurt am Main . In vain had the prince declared his resignation from the French service and applied for his country to join the alliance of the victors of the Leipzig Battle of the Nations . Goldner was interned in his Offenbach house for seven weeks on suspicion of "secret consent" and correspondence with France , but a house search did not uncover any incriminating papers. Under pressure from Freiherr von und zum Stein, Goldner was dismissed on March 17, 1814 by the regent , the wife of Prince Carl . Stein's judgment of Goldner was not exactly benevolent: "Mr. von Goldner should be hung up!"

After his release, Goldner retired - like his prince - into private life and occupied himself with agriculture on the Bibelsmühle estate (also: Biblismühle) west of Offenbach, which was lent to him in October 1807 by the prince in inheritance ; He spent the winter months of his last years in Frankfurt am Main.

Others

One of Goldner's sons-in-law was the song composer Wilhelm Speyer (* June 21, 1790; † 1878), son of the banker Georg Speyer (JM Speyer bank, Frankfurt am Main), who married the second eldest of Goldner's four daughters, Charlotte. Speyer also gave music lessons, including in the house of the cantor of the Jewish community in Offenbach, Isaac Ben-Juda Eberst (or Eberscht). After moving to Cologne, he took the name Offenbach , and his son Jakob became world-famous as Jacques Offenbach .

literature

• Richard Forsboom: Memories of the von Goldner family - my descendants Helene, Wolfgang and Franz. Mannheim (typescript, hardback) 1906 (presented to the Frankfurt am Main City Library on June 22, 1931 by Wolfgang Forsboom, today: Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library, Frankfurt am Main), manuscript collection (Ms.Ff.W.Ch.CLvGoldner)
• Bernd Müller: The Principality of Isenburg in the Rhenish Confederation - From Territory to State. Fürstlich Ysenburg and Büdingische Rentkammer, Büdingen 1978, 271 pages
• Manfred Mayer: History of the Mediatization of the Principality of Isenburg. M. Rieger'sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, Munich 1891, 267 pages; Digitized

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Richard Forsboom Memories of the von Goldner family - my descendants Helene, Wolfgang and Franz Mannheim ( typescript , bound) 1906 (presented to the Frankfurt am Main city library on June 22, 1931 by Wolfgang Forsboom, today: Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library Frankfurt am Main), manuscript collection (Ms.Ff.W.Ch.CLvGoldner).
2. ^ Jochen Lengemann : MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 131 (keyword: Forsboom-Goldner).
3. ↑ Unification acts of the less powerful estates of August 29, 1803. In: Manfred Mayer History of Mediatization of the Principality of Isenburg M. Rieger'sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, Munich 1891, Supplement I, No. 2, p. 162 f.
4. ↑ Article “Goldner, Wolfgang von” by Rudolf Jung in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, edited by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Volume 49 (1904), pp. 434–435, digital full-text edition in Wikisource (version from May 30, 2013, 3:27 p.m. UTC).
5. ^ Manfred Mayer: History of the Mediatization of the Principality of Isenburg , M. Rieger'sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, Munich 1891, p. 46; Digitized.
6. ^ Lothar R. Braun: 1773: Ministers Goldenes (sic!) House on Frankfurter Strasse. (This is most likely meant: Minister Goldner's house on Frankfurter Strasse ). From: offenbach.de, April 22, 2008, accessed May 4, 2016.
7. ^ ^{A b} Edward Speyer Wilhelm Speyer, the song composer, 1790–1878 Drei Masken Verlag, Munich 1925, p. 16.
8. ↑ Lothar R. Braun: 1900: The dream of a beach promenade (sic!). From: Offenbach-Post . In: offenbach.de. May 9, 2008, accessed April 29, 2016 (original title: The dream of a city promenade ). 
9. ↑ Lothar R. Braun: 1903: A lot of history under the block of flats - memory of a hospital that has disappeared. From: Offenbach-Post , on: offenbach.de, from January 3, 2012, accessed on April 30, 2016.