Princess Karoline Amalie of Hesse-Kassel
Karoline Amalie ( born July 11, 1771 in Hanau, † February 22, 1848 in Gotha ) was the wife of Duke August Duchess of Saxe -Gotha -Altenburg and enjoyed especially because of its benevolent ministry great respect.
Life
Karoline Amalie was born a Princess of Hesse -Kassel. Her father was the Landgrave and later Elector Wilhelm IX. / I, her mother was Princess Wilhelmina Caroline of Denmark and Norway, daughter of King Frederick V
After Prince Frederick of Hesse -Cassel, the eldest son of her uncle Charles of Hesse -Kassel from his marriage to Louise of Denmark, 1799, the engagement was dissolved with his cousin Karoline Amalie, this pointed in the following year, the Prince Frederick of Hesse- advertising Homburg from. This was due to the unstandesgemäße affair with the Princess of Hesse- Kassel between chamberlain Count Ludwig von Taube, who ended her father Wilhelm with the displacement Taubes and its subsequent dismissal. In the summer of 1801 met Karoline Amalie Prince Augustus of Saxe -Gotha - Altenburg who, as he stayed in Kassel. In January of the following year held August's father, Duke Ernst II, Elector Wilhelm in his son's name at the hand of the princess. On April 24, 1802, the marriage took place, but remained childless. Karoline Amalie, the 1804 Duchess of Saxe -Gotha -Altenburg was after the death of her father, but the daughter was dedicated to devotion of her husband from his first marriage, Princess Louise.
The well-known painter Caroline Louise Seidler, the courtyard of the Gotha was staying in winter 1811 to portray the ducal family, Karoline Amalie described rather unflattering as " good, benevolent, but not just excellent lady ". On the relation of the Duchess to her husband August, she said: " She loved her husband enthusiastically, whose spirit they anstaunte. "
However, " since the mutual views of life by no points of contact offered ," says Karoline Amalie alienated after a few years of marriage by her described as an eccentric, often stressed female occurring and profligate husband August and retired from about 1810 increasingly from the public gaze. One reason was the enthusiasm of her husband Napoleon, the Karoline Amalie did not share, but her parents had, the Elector of Hesse- Kassel pair, to flee into exile after the occupation of Hesse - Kassel by Napoleon in 1806.
Following the expansion of the Gotha Winter Palace as a widow seat (hence the common name widow once Palais ) Karoline Amalie moved into the location next to the Orangerie municipal palace, which had her Herzog August 1821 paid. Here she also attended the Royal British couple Victoria and Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha during their stay in Germany in August 1845. The Privileged Gothaische newspaper wrote on the occasion of this visit: " ... everyone Gothaner rejoiced heart intimately of happiness, which the revered noble princess, the widowed Duchess Carolina Amalia should be partaker of that sublime wife of your beloved grandson, Prince Albert, maternal in their close arms. "
Prince Albert (son of Caroline Amalie Luise stepdaughter ) was life the favorite grandson of the duchess. From 1822 to 1835, he had spent with his brother Ernst several weeks every year in the care of Karoline Amalie in the Winter Palace. Until her death, he was standing with her in active correspondence, which he always with "Beloved Grandmother " and addressed his letters with " Your faithful grandson Albert" drew.
Albert's brother, Duke Ernst II of Saxe -Coburg and Gotha to his step-grandmother remembered with the words. " She had in her long life hardly an enemy and enjoyed until their death [ ... ] a truly rare devotion "
On February 22, 1848 Karoline Amalie died in the Winter Palace, as the Privileged Gothaische newspaper reported on the same day: "When the Dowager Duchess was seized v. S. Gotha and Altenburg from a chest suffering on the 14th of the current month, your Highness, we harbored only a slight apprehension that it would be soon and happy eliminated. The more sensitive the pain, the deeper the grief that so soon, too soon, the late Princess departed from our midst. Her Highness ended her earthly life this afternoon after 2 clock. "
Five days later, on 27 February, the deceased was laid to rest as the last member of the ducal family at the funeral island in the park pond the Gotha Castle Park. Your burial in the tomb, in the already rested her husband Herzog August, took place at their specific request " without pomp ". Like all graves located here the ducal family is also referred to the Karoline Amalie's by no monument. The simple flowers oval, which once made the grave marked, for decades no longer exists, so that the exact place of burial Karoline Amalie is unknown today.
Karoline Amalie was the last of the Duchess of Ernst I, the Pious, founded the duchy of Saxe -Gotha -Altenburg and recent winner of the title of nobility of Saxe- Gotha -Altenburg. The male line of the house was already extinct in 1825 with the death of her brother, Duke Frederick IV.
Work
Karoline Amalie was known for her great sense of charity. Especially after the wedding of her stepdaughter Princess Louise with Ernst III. of Saxe- Coburg -Saalfeld in 1817 and the death of her husband Duke August in 1822 she became a true " mother of the needy and the poor ," which enjoyed the highest reputation among the population.
1824 they founded in the residence city of Gotha who were trained in 1828 named after her Karoline School, teaches in the mind daughters of low income parents after confirmation and servants. The also brought to life by her Karoline Foundation paid the interest on the bequest annually 438 marks for poor purposes and 300 marks as scholarships for high school students.
The Gotha superintendent and honorary citizen Otto Dreyer attested Karoline Amalie " flowing from a heart truly landesmütterlichem self-sacrifice, where it was necessary to relieve distress and to dry tears, to help a non- declining even under the most difficult circumstances willingness ".
Karoline Amalie was also a passionate music lover, the ideal conditions for the emerging composer and virtuoso violinist Louis Spohr created in Gotha. Also on her instigation Spohr received in 1805 the appointment as concertmaster at Gotha court, which he held until 1813.
Honors
The veneration especially given was Karoline Amalie in Gotha, was expressed, among other things of that has already been named in her lifetime the square next to the Winter Palace after her as Karolinenplace. The road from the castle Friedensstein down to the Winter Palace was named in her honor as Karolinenstraße. After her death, however, Karoline Amalie fell quickly into oblivion. 1858, the Caroline Street in Frederick Jacobs Street was renamed, the tradition of Karoline school ended in the first half of the 20th century and 1950, the Karolinenplace in Lenin Square (now Ekhofplatz ) renamed. The city remembered in 2010 as part of preparations for the German - English year in Gotha again the last Duchess of Saxe -Gotha -Altenburg. 5 September 2011 Karoline Amalie was thought " The Last of a great name " with a lecture under the theme, which was held at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new building of the Winter Palace in port. In June 2013, the city council to appoint the courtyard of the Winter Palace in honor of the Duchess Karolinenhof decided.
In Altenburg, the second major city of the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha -Altenburg, the 1810 -founded private high school for girls was named in 1819 by the Duchess, who in his will left by the educational institution and a high sum. In 2000 was the school that allowed hot GDR times no longer Karolinum, its old name back and is now called officially State Primary School Karolinum.
Others
2009 Gotha authors Andreas M. Cramer and Ralph -Uwe Heinz neunzschsde in their New Year's Eve Sketch Dar Gebordsdaach or Dinner for One on Goth'sch could resurrect the person Karoline Amalie for the theater. In the vernacular adaptation of the cult classic celebrates as Duchess Sophie Caroline Amalie ( short Duchess Sophie ) in the Winter Palace her 90th birthday surrounded by her four long-dead, famous friends. In addition, it is claimed in the preface to the piece and in the novel Dinner for One on Goth'sch that the Dowager Duchess and her servant Schluder were the actual models for the figures of Miss Sophie and James Butler. The anecdote of the strange birthday ritual of the Duchess was only in 1845 came after the Gotha visit of Prince Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha, the favorite grandson of the Duchess, to Britain, where they playwright Lauri Wylie in the 1930s accidentally rediscovered and first time as a dinner for One -adapted for the stage. The mixture of real names and events with fictional events can explore the historic person Karoline Amalie's almost become the " inventor " of the dinner.