Albert II of Germany
Albrecht II von Habsburg ( Albert Hungarian, Croatian Albreht; * August 16, 1397 in Vienna, † October 27, 1439 in Neszmély near Esztergom ) was from 1404, as well as Albert V, Duke of Austria, and in 1438 Roman- German King King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia.
Life
Albrecht was the son of Duke Albrecht IV of Austria († 1404) and Duchess Johanna Sophie of Bavaria- Straubing.
During his minority managed his three great-uncle, William the first -behaved ( until 1405), then the thickness and last Duke Leopold Ernst the Iron of Styria, under continual disputes his hereditary lands. It was not until the sudden death of Leopold enabled his throne 1411. His teacher was Berthold of Wehingen, later Prince-Bishop of Freising, and Reinprecht ( II ) of Walsee.
Albrecht assisted his father Emperor Sigismund in his fight against the Hussites, what hineinzog the Austrian lands in these disputes. In particular, the areas north of the Danube were hit between November 1425 and 1431/1432 by marauding combat units. He also tried to meet the Hussite church by the faithful Melker monastic reform. In 1423 he was invested as a reward with Moravia. Jews and heretics he pursued with fanatical hatred. The large-scale expulsion and murder of Jews in Vienna 1420/1421 and the demolition of the Or- Sarua Synagogue at the Jewish place went not least to his initiative. After his troops had been defeated at the Battle of Taus in 1431 by the Hussites, Albrecht took a more moderate course. Sigismund Albrecht II designated as his successor.
Emperor Sigismund died in 1437 and Albrecht was crowned on January 1, 1438 to the King of Hungary in Székesfehérvár, after the Hungarian estates had already chosen him on December 18, 1437. Already on June 29, 1438 he was also crowned in Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral as King of Bohemia, but could not take possession of the land. The Hussite Bohemia influenced and their Polish allies made war on him in time when he was elected on March 18, 1438 in Frankfurt am Main as Holy Roman German king. To a coronation but it never came. He called a diet and joined the electoral neutrality in the dispute between the Pope and the Council of Basel. Greater political activity he was not deployed because it went against the Turks in Hungary already in 1439. There he met with considerable resistance of the native nobility against his attempts to assert his royal power, as well as clashes between German settlers and Hungarian inhabitants. This unrest prevented that he could strengthen his army by local forces. Not least because of Serbia fell to the Turks.
Albrecht II died in 1439 in Neszmély ( Langendorf ) probably due to the Ruhr and was buried in Székesfehérvár ( Szekesfehervar ).
As a quadruple King Albert II already took a similar position, as they held the Habsburgs in later times; but with him it was only inherited by the Luxembourgers and therefore for the time being ephemeral. After all started with him over the centuries-long reign of the Holy Roman Empire by the Habsburgs.
Motto: Amicus optima vitae possessio ( "A friend is the best possession of life" ).
Marriage and descendants
On September 28, 1421 he married in Prague Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Hungary (c. 1409, † 1442 ), daughter of Emperor Sigismund and his wife Countess Barbara von Cilli. The couple had four children:
- Anna (* 1432, † 1462 ) ∞ 1446 William III, Duke of Saxony.;
- Georg (* / † 1435 );
- Elisabeth ( * 1437, † 1505) ∞ 1454 Casimir IV Andreas, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania;
- Ladislaus Postumus (* 1440, † 1457 ), King of Hungary and Bohemia.