Peter Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Oldenburg

Peter Friedrich Wilhelm von Oldenburg ( born January 3, 1754 Eutin, † July 2, 1823 in Plön ) was formally the second Duke of Oldenburg from the house of Schleswig -Holstein - Gottorp, however, stood the entire time his government due to a mental illness regency of his cousin Peter Friedrich Ludwig von Oldenburg.

Family

Peter Friedrich Wilhelm von Oldenburg was the only son of Frederick Augustus, Prince-Bishop of Lübeck and the first Duke of Oldenburg.

Life

He studied 1769/1770 for one year at the University of Kiel and then went for a year on a grand tour. Accompanied by Johann Gottfried Herder, he traveled to Darmstadt and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Strasbourg, then (without Herder ) to Paris, Brussels and London.

As a side result of the Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo, he was in 1773 elected by the chapter of the Bishopric of Lübeck instead of Frederick of Denmark coadjutor with right of succession. In December of the same year he took part as the first Duke of Oldenburg in Oldenburg on his father's collection.

However, Peter Friedrich Wilhelm suffered from a "mental illness " whose traces had been found earlier and came to a complete outbreak on a journey that was the intended marriage of the Prince and the Princess Charlotte of Hesse- Darmstadt. Then his resignation was necessary both to succession in the high pin as well as in the government of the Duchy of Oldenburg, he declared on 14 February 1777. Administrator in his place was his cousin Peter, who accepted out of respect for Peter Frederick William the title of Duke until his death in 1823. Peter Friedrich Wilhelm lived first on Good Stendorf and then received by King Christian VII of Denmark Plön Castle as a residence, where he lived until his death. He was buried in the New Princebishop Mausoleum in the Lübeck Cathedral.