Count Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly, graphic from the portrait collection of the Austrian National Library
The life of Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly was fundamentally different from that of other officials. He came from an old aristocratic family, the Pouilly, which left their homeland during the French Revolution. Thus, Alexander’s father Emanuel (1777–1852) had to build a position for himself in a completely different environment. He opted for a military career in the service of the Austrian Emperor and, like his brother, decided to take the name Mensdorff, which was supposed to help him to better adapt in the German-speaking world. His marriage to Princess Sophie of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1778–1835), who was of a substantially higher status, undoubtedly also helped him consolidate his position. Thanks to this marriage, Emmanuel and his descendants became related to a number of European noble families. Perhaps the most famous among his male cousins was Albert (1819–1861), husband of Queen Victoria of Britain (1819–1901), while the most famous female cousin was Queen Victoria herself. The loving union of Emmanuel and Sophie produced five sons, four of whom survived to adulthood – Hugo (1806–1847), Alphonse (1810–1894), Alexander (1813–1871) and Arthur (1817–1904). Their life trajectories show how varied the fates of 19th-century nobility could be.
Coat of arms of the family Mensdorff Pouilly
The eldest of the brothers, Hugo, was born in Coburg on August 24, 1806. Coburg was also the city where he grew up and received a private education. Emanuel wished to make military officers of his sons, and he succeeded. Hugo joined the army and became a cavalry officer. Although he was the eldest son and it was primarily him who was expected to ensure the continuation of the family, Hugo never married. He was no stranger to the company of women, but he did not meet a suitable partner from the upper classes. He preferred to remain alone rather than live in an unhappy marriage. During his military career, he won numerous awards and reached the rank of colonel. In 1847, however, his health began to fail. He was treated at a spa, first in Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) and then in Jeseník (Freiwaldau), where he succumbed to laryngitis at the age of only 41.
The second-born Alphonse was born on 25 January 1810 in Coburg. His father intended a naval career for him. However, Alfonse refused and became an officer in the cavalry, where he attained the rank of colonel. A crucial issue for a man of his position was the choice of a bride. Alphonse seems to have had a lucky hand, since the woman he chose, Therese Dietrichstein (1823–1856), not only came from a good family, but there was also a mutual liking between them. The bride’s father, Franz Xaver of Dietrichstein (1774–1850), was initially not very enthusiastic about the match, hoping for a husband of a higher social position for his daughter. In the end, however, he agreed to their union. After Therese Dietrichstein became the heiress of the Moravian estate of Boskovice (Boskowitz), Alfons abandoned his military career and threw himself into the administration of the estate. For several years, during which they had four children, Alfonse and Therese lived a happy family life in Boskovice In 1856, however, tragedy struck the family – Therese died of scarlet fever. Alfonse resisted remarriage for several years, but the death of his only male heir, Arthur, in 1862, made him reconsider this decision.
His second wife was Marie, Countess of Lamberg (1833–1876), with whom he also had four children. Unfortunately, the second marriage did not last very long either, since Marie died at the age of only 42. But Alfons finally lived to see his longed-for heirs. The elder of them, Alfons Vladimír (1864–1935), later took over Boskovice. Besides taking care of the estate, Adolf also devoted himself to politics. From 1861 he sat in the Moravian Provincial Assembly in Brno and in the following year he also became a life member of the upper chamber of the Austrian Imperial Council. However, he did not see much sense in the exercise of these functions and seems to have been more comfortable with activities at a local level – in 1864–1876 he was mayor of Boskovice and in 1888 he even became its honorary citizen. Alfons died in Boskovice at the ripe age of 84 and was buried in the family tomb in Nečtiny (Preitenstein), which he had built himself.
Alexander was born on August 4, 1813 in Coburg as the third among his siblings. Like his brothers, he grew up in Coburg, where he befriended members of the most prominent European families. From a young age, however, he also felt a sense of belonging to the Austrian state and decided to serve in its army. His military career began in 1829 when he became a cadet in an infantry regiment. Over the next 20 years he rose to the rank of major general. He then entered the diplomatic service and became Austrian ambassador in St. Petersburg. However, he lasted only a year in this position and then returned to the army. At the end of the 1850s it started to become clear that if he really wanted to live up to his family duties, military service alone would not be sufficient. So he began to look around for a suitable bride. According to family correspondence, members of the Mensdorff-Pouilly family considered the mutual affection of both fiancés a necessary condition for marriage. However, Alexander seems to have given up on this requirement.
In 1857 he married Alexandrina of Dietrichstein (1824–1906), the future heiress of the large Mikulov (Nikolsburg) estate in South Moravia. The husband and wife had to find their way to each other, which was difficult at first, as they did not live together. Eventually, however, they became close and their marriage was happy. Four children were born into it, three of whom lived to adulthood – Marie (1858–1889), wife of Count Hugo Kálnoky (1844–1928), Hugo (1858–1920), heir to the estate and husband of the Russian noblewoman Olga Dolgorukova (1873–1946), and Klotylda (1867–1943), wife of Albert Apponyi (1846–1933).
In 1859 Alexander became lieutenant field marshal and two years later Governor in Lvov, where he also served as Commanding General for Galicia and Bukovina. One of the highlights of Alexander’s career was undoubtedly the year 1864, when he was appointed Austrian Foreign Minister. During his tenure, however, Austria lost the Austro-Prussian War, and Alexander was subsequently relieved from his post. At the end of his life, he served as Czech governor in Prague. It was also in Prague that he died on 14 February 1871 and was buried in the family tomb in Mikulov.
The castle in Mikulov today
The youngest Arthur, like his brothers, was born in Coburg, on 19 August 1817. He too became an officer in the army and for many years served the Austrian Emperor. However, when it became clear that he would get no further than the rank of major, he decided to leave active service in 1852. Instead, he turned to business. He tried his luck in coal mining but failed. Unfortunately, the income from his lands did not cover his expenses, so he was forced to borrow frequently from his family, including Queen Victoria. Neither was he very successful in his personal life. In 1853 he married Magdalena Kremz (1835–1899), a low-born circus rider, whom he had fallen in love with. His brothers and other relatives strongly criticized him for this decision and never fully accepted Magdalena in their midst. However, they did not reject Arthur himself and continued to help him. Arthur later came to regret his choice, since Magdalena really was not a good match for him, and in 1882 they divorced. Near the end of his life, Arthur found himself a matching bride – Countess Bianca Adamovich de Csepin (1837–1912). After two years of marriage, Arthur died in Velenje, a town in what is now Slovenia.
Service in the army played an absolutely fundamental role in the lives of the four Mensdorff-Pouilly brothers. Along with their aristocratic origin, it enabled them to establish themselves socially and economically in Austrian society. The family’s marriage policy also helped them on their way to the top. It was thanks to his wife’s inheritance that Alphonse became a landowner. As for Alexander, although he himself did not participate in the running of the Mikulov estate, the profits from it allowed even him to lead an expensive life. His clerical career was rather a side effect of the military one, and his social status, abilities and character, which made him popular among the people, undoubtedly played a role in it.
Bibliography:
Švaříčková-Slabáková, Radmila: Rodinné strategie šlechty. Mensdorffové-Pouilly v 19. století. Praha: Argo, 2007.
Švaříčková-Slabáková, Radmila: Rod Mensdorff-Pouilly a boskovický velkostatek. In: Ott, Matěj, Markéta Malachová, and Roman Malach: Boskovice 1222–2022. Boskovice: město Boskovice ve spolupráci s Muzeem regionu Boskovicka, 2022.
Švaříčková-Slabáková, Radmila: Šlechtic – Příklad Huga Mensdorffa-Pouilly. In: Fasora, Lukáš, Jiří Hanuš, and Jiří Malíř. Člověk na Moravě 19. století. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 2008.
Brichtová, Dobromila: Zámek Mikulov. Mikulov: Regionální muzeum v Mikulově, 2015.
Brichtová, Dobromila: Pod tvými ochrannými křídly. Od loretánského kostela k hrobce Dietrichsteinů v Mikulově. Mikulov: Turistické informační centrum, 2014.
Steiner, Petr: Hrabě Hugo Kálnoky de Köröspatak (1844–1928). Život a osudy šlechtice na konci 19. století. Časopis Matice moravské 141/1, 2022.
Kamila Kaizlová was born in Správčice in eastern Bohemia (today part of Hradec Králové) into the family of an affluent farmer, Adolf Píša (1825–1880).1 Soon after her 20th birthday she moved with her mother Anna (née Böhm) (1829–1896) to what is now the Smetana embankment in Prague.2 Living in Prague allowed her to establish social contacts and even a romantic relationship with Professor Josef Kaizl (1854–1901), 17 years her senior, who was then active as a Young-Czech deputy in the Imperial Council in Vienna. In the 1870s, Josef Kaizl graduated as a lawyer from the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, where he also started to give lectures on economics in 1879. In 1888 he was appointed full professor there, which was an important social position allowing him to consider starting a family. Kaizl and Kamila Píšová had met as early as 1889, but they got engaged only in August 1892 in Gossensaβ in Tyrol3 and eventually married in February 1893, when Josef was 38 and Kamila 21 years old. They had two daughters during their eight-year-long marriage: first-born Kamila (1895–1907) and younger Zdenka (1899–1952). Both their daughters were already born in Vienna, where the family had moved. In Vienna, Josef Kaizl managed to acquire a prominent position on the career ladder when in the spring of 1898 he was rather unexpectedly appointed as Finance Minister in the Cisleithanian government led by Franz Thun-Hohenstein (1847–1916). Kaizl held this position for only a year and half since in autumn 1899 the prime minister resigned. At that time, Josef Kaizl had less than two more years to live. After he suddenly died due to stomach ulcer complications, Kamila Kaizlová became a widow at the age of 30.4
Kamila Preissová-Kaizlová, undated (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, v.v.i., fond Josef Kaizl (unarranged)).
Kamila Pišová with her mother Anna Pišová in the early 1890s (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, v.v.i., fond Josef Kaizl (unarranged)).
Kamila Kaizlová in a wedding dress in February 1893 (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, v.v.i., fond Josef Kaizl (unarranged)).
Kamila and Josef Kaizl, June 1901 (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, v.v.i., fond Josef Kaizl (unarranged)).
Kamila Kaizlová with her daughters after her husband's death, September 1901 (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, v.v.i., fond Josef Kaizl (unarranged)).
Kamila Kaizlová with her daughters, October 1907 (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, v.v.i., fond Josef Kaizl (unarranged)).
After her husband died Kamila Kaizlová moved from their apartment in the Prague Vinohrady neighbourhood back to Smetana embankment.5 The centrally located flat probably suited her better since one year after her husband’s death she took a rather unorthodox step: she started attending lectures at university. For several reasons, this decision of hers caused a minor sensation in the Prague society. There were not many women in the university lecture halls in the first place, let alone a widow of a distinguished politician looking after two young children. But a more serious reason, causing concern among many an active politician, was the alleged motivation of the ministerial widow. It was rumoured that Kamila Kaizlová was trying to improve her education so that she would be able to sort out and later publish the memoirs of her late husband. It was feared, as the Pilsner Tagblatt newspaper did not hesitate to express, that the “memoirs would contain the actual reasons behind the fall of the Count of Thun and would provide information on the intentions of Kaizl’s politics”.6 Kamila Kaizlová, the newspaper alleged, was to have obtained a special permission from the rector, enabling her to attend lectures on economics, i.e. exactly the same subject that her husband specialized in. In an interview reprinted in the Národní listy, Kaizl’s widow dismissed those speculations: “It is true that I have enrolled as an extraordinary student at the Philosophical Faculty of the Czech university; for instance last year I attended for two hours a week, this year I dedicate eleven hours a week to lectures on art, literature and history. I do not attend any societies, and therefore, this study is my occupation.” As for the publication of the memoirs, she continued: “Such conjectures are ridiculous! You have heard that I do not attend any lectures on political subjects. My husband did leave notes, but no memoirs. To publish them now would be premature since most of the persons mentioned there are still alive. It might perhaps later be possible to publish them as a contribution to recent history. It is not up to me, however, to undertake this task, since I do not have the necessary political knowledge, but up to a professional politician. I did not interfere with politics while my husband was still alive, neither will I do so now, after his death.”7 Even the Plzeňské listy denied the original information brought by the Pilsner Tagblatt.8 It was Zdeněk V. Tobolka (1874–1951) who eventually started to publish Kaizl’s diaries and correspondence in 1908.9
By coincidence, at that time Kamila Kaizlová’s name frequently appeared in articles in both Czech and German newspapers. Given that Kamila became widowed at a young age, it was to be expected that she would not live without a stable relationship forever. In 1908 she got engaged to Fedor Gyrgiewicz, 13 years her junior, lieutenant of the 13th Dragoon Regiment, allegedly an illegitimate son of the late Serbian king Milan I. Obrenovic (1854–1901).10 Accompanied by her fiancé, on Saturday 11 July 1908 Kamila attended the so-called flower parade, with horse-drawn carriages decorated with flowers passing through the streets of Prague. The parade, which attracted around thirty thousand spectators, eventually reached the exhibition area in the Royal enclosure where a tragedy occurred. The horse that was pulling the carriage driven by none other than F. Gyrgiewicz, where his fiancée was also seated, bolted. As a result, the reins got torn, the shaft broke and the whole carriage keeled over. The frightened horse threw itself onto the crowd of onlookers, causing a tragedy with one person dead and 18 gravely injured (Kamila Kaizlová herself got away unscathed). The one victim, moreover, was Jindřiška Slavínská (1843–1908), a popular former actress of the National Theatre.11 The Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung on that occasion could not suppress the fact that both the actress’s father, the writer Ludvík Ritter of Rittersberg (1809–1858), as well as her grandfather, Johann Ritter of Rittersberg (1780–1841), had died in accidents involving horses.12 During the criminal proceedings that followed F. Gyrgiewicz was eventually found not-guilty,13 but several days after the unfortunate incident he cancelled his engagement to Kamila.14
The young widow, however, did not remain alone for long. Again, she established a relationship with a man much younger than herself, Richard Preiss (1882–1967), son of the writer Gabriela Preissová (1862–1946). Richard Preiss had just freshly graduated from the Faculty od Law of the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University and worked as a trainee at the Czech Financial Prosecutor’s office.15 Their relationship eventually led to marriage, with the wedding taking place in late June 1910 in Baška on the Croatian island of Krk. However, the more than ten-year age difference between the two spouses probably resulted in a rather tumultuous relationship, and in September 1910, a mere three months after their wedding, newspapers brought the news of Kamila Preissová-Kaizlová applying for divorce “from bed and board”, which was granted by the Prague district court on 28 October 1910.16 The separation between the two spouses, however, was not yet complete since in line with the current law divorce was only the first step needed to dissolve the marriage. Even after they divorced, Richard Preiss occasionally visited Kamila, as transpires from the diaries kept by her younger daughter Zdenka.17 Sadly, not even the birth of their daughter Adriena (1914–2009), not long after World War I broke out, could bring the couple closer together. In the end, after the separation became definitive, Richard Preiss remarried, this time at a civil ceremony, taking for his wife Marie Menčíková-Trnková (1888–after 1952), who was also previously separated. But even this marriage broke up in 1932. Soon after, Richard Preiss, who at that time worked as a lawyer in Strážnice, married for the third time, taking for his wife Věra Ploskalová (1907–1995), 25 years his junior, the daughter of a citizens’ savings bank director in Hodonín. Kamila Preissová-Kaizlová did not live to see that third wedding since in April 1930 she died of chronic nephrosclerosis, making it possible for her ex-husband to have a church wedding.
Kamila Preissová-Kaizlová spent the years after divorcing her second husband in the company of her two daughters, Zdenka and Adriena – the eldest, Kamila, having died already in 1907, not yet twelve years old, of a serious pneumonia. She lived on a pension awarded to her after her first husband’s death, which she was able to keep even after she remarried. Immediately after Kaizl’s death the pension amounted to 6,000 crowns a year, with her children receiving another 1,200 crowns a year. After the birth of Czechoslovakia the amount remained unchanged, despite the war inflation, until 1928, when upon request by President Masaryk it was raised to 18,000 Czech crowns.18 However, since Kamila came from an affluent family, she was also paid interest on her own property, which, based on records from 1926, allowed her to maintain a fully equipped four-room apartment and employ a maid-servant.19
By then Kamila Preissová-Kaizlová lived only with her youngest daughter Adriena. Her daughter Zdenka moved out of the Smíchov apartment late in 1921, when she married Professor Josef Blahož (1888–1934), a consul at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a former officer of the Legion in Russia.20 In 1925–1931 Josef Blahož worked as counsellor at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Berlin, where the spouses maintained a lively social life and established close contact, among others, with the family of the German diplomat Ernst von Weizsäcker (1882–1951), father of the future German President, Richard von Weizsäcker (1920–2015). At one point in time, Kamila herself considered leaving for Berlin and joining her daughter’s family there.21 But in November 1921 she was hospitalized with apoplexy at a sanatorium in Santoška in Prague and spent the last months of her life worrying about the future of her fifteen-year-old daughter Adriena. At that time, Adriena stayed alternately with her father and her grandmother, Gabriela Preissová, and following their mother’s death, Zdena Blahožová also joined in taking care of her half-sister. In 1935 Adriena decided to move permanently to the USA where her father’s sister Gabriela (1892–1981) lived, married to Charles Edward Proshek (1893–1957), medical doctor and Czechoslovak consul in Minneapolis in Minnesota. Adriena never came back to Czechoslovakia.22
Even though Kamila Kaizlová spent only a lesser part of her life beside Josef Kaizl, who undoubtedly belonged among elite Czech politicians, her social position was firmly grounded in her marriage to him and she could draw from it until her last days. She maintained contacts with top Czechoslovak politicians – including Karel Kramář and T.G. Masaryk – and managed to marry her daughter Zdenka into those circles. The press called her Your Excellency and her name was usually followed by the words „widow of the Finance Minister“, even after she remarried and divorced again.
1 State regional archives in Hradec Králové, Collection of registers of the Eastern Bohemian Region, Parish of the Roman-Catholic church in Pouchov, sign. 134-7662, p. 601.
2 They lived in house No. 334 on what then was called Franz embankment (today Smetana embankment, n.334/4): National archives, Police directorate I, residence permit applications, carton 464, picture 885.
3 Zdeněk V. Tobolka (ed.), JUDr. Jos. Kaizl: Z mého života III/1., Praha 1915, p. 56.
4 Kaizl’s illness and death are described in detail by Zdeněk Tobolka: Zdeněk V. Tobolka (ed.), JUDr. Jos. Kaizl: Z mého života III/2., Praha 1915, p. 1180–1181.
5 In the last years of Kaizl’s life the family lived in Italská street, No 1219/2. After becoming a widow Kamila moved to Smetana embankment No 1012/2: National Archives, Police directorate I, residence permit applications, carton 247, picture 59; National Archives, Police directorate I, residence permit applications, carton 247, picture 58.
6 „Die Memoaren werden auch die wahren Ursachen für den Sturz des Grafen Thun enthalten und ebenso Aufschlüsse über die Intentionen der Politik Kaizls geben.“ In: Pilsner Tagblatt III/304, 12. 11. 1902, p. 4.The same news item was also reprinted by, among others Innsbrucker Nachrichten 250, 12.11.1902, p. 5.
7 Národní listy 42/312, 13.11.1902, p. 3.
8 Plzeňské listy 38/261, 14.11.1902, p. 2.
9 Zdeněk V. Tobolka (ed.), JUDr. Jos. Kaizl: Z mého života I.-III., Praha 1908–1915.
10 Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung 3067, 14.7.1908, p. 2.
11 Našinec 44, 15.7.1908, p. 3.
12 Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung 3072, 19.7.1908, p. 6 . In reality, however, Ludvík Ritter of Rittersberg died ten years later than reported by the newspaper. – 6. 6. 1858.
13 Národní listy 48/287, 18. 10. 1908, p. 5.
14 Plzeňské listy 44/164, 21.7.1908, p. 4.
16 Mährisches Tagblatt 31/217, 24.9.1910, p. 7.; Leitmeritzer Zeitung 40/86, 1.11.1910, p. 13.
17 Dagmar Hájková – Helena Kokešová (eds.), Dívčí deníky Zdenky Kaizlové z let 1909–1919. Praha 2016.
18 Ibidem, p. 10.
19 Ibidem, note 14, p. 125.
20 Before she got married she lived at what is today Nad Mlynářkou street, No 447/4. Archives of the capital city of Prague, Collection of registers, Roman-Catholic parish of St. Wenceslas in Smíchov, SM O25, fol. 3.
21 Dagmar Hájková – Helena Kokešová (eds.), Dívčí deníky Zdenky Kaizlové z let 1909–1919. Praha 2016, p. 11.
22 Ibidem.
In the second half of the 19th century, Georg Adolf Streer von Streeruwitz, the postmaster of the town of Stříbro (Mies) in West Bohemia, became one of the longest serving members of the Bohemian Diet. Although he boasted a knighthood, he did not belong among the many representatives of the newly ennobled clerical or military nobility; the Streeruwitzs traced their origins to the descendants of one of the participants in the crusade against the Hussites, dispersed during the Battle of Tachov. Their ancestral seat was at the fortress, and later castle, of Kopetzen, near Prostiboř in the Tachov region. The line from which Georg Adolf descended was linked to the nearby mining town of Stříbro. The deputy’s grandfather ended his successful career in the civil service as a court counsellor at the unified Czech-Austrian Chancellery in Vienna. As for his father Anton (1787–1855), he spent his youth in the early 19th century as an officer in various armies fighting against Napoleon, later took part in the fighting in Latin America under the leadership of Simon Bolívar and even joined the Greek uprising against the Ottoman Empire. In his old age he returned to his home town of Stříbro, where he took over the local hereditary post office.
Picture from Wikipedia.
Postmasters belonged among traditional local notables. Although their profession was slowly dying out since, as the postal network developed, hereditary or contract postmasters in smaller settlements were replaced by state post offices, including postal employees at the level of civil servants, this was a relatively slow-going process, which affected Stříbro only at the very end of the 19th century. Until then, the local post office had been run by the Streeruwitz family as local burghers who received an exactly agreed amount from the state as remuneration for providing their neighbours with a connection to the world. After he returned from his journeys around the world, Anton married in 1815, but given his other adventures it seems likely that the first child that can be traced in the Stříbro parish registers was indeed the first child of that marriage, even though it was born only in 1820, five years after the wedding. After his first wife died in 1826, Anton married three more times; his son Georg Adolf, the future deputy, was born into his third marriage in 1828.
Eventually, children from three different marriages grew up side by side, since Anton’s second marriage lasted only a short time and the only son born into it died soon after birth. At least two of Anton’s sons followed in his footsteps and chose a military career: Johann Karl (1831–1903) embarked on the career of an artillery officer, reached the rank of colonel and in the end died unmarried in his hometown. Anton Emil’s (b. 1837) career was much more tortuous and he can safely be described as the black sheep of the family: after he was convicted of embezzling military funds, he was demoted and dismissed from the army. He wandered around Lower Austria as a beggar and appeared several times before the Vienna Regional Court accused of various thefts, which the newspapers did not fail to point out in connection with his publicly known brother, the deputy.
Two other sons of Anton’s were involved in mining, which had a long tradition in their native region, and, incidentally, one of their father’s wives was the daughter of a local mining official. Robert (b. 1835) is listed in the Prague police application register as a mine administrator and editor of a specialist mining newspaper, while his brother Wilhelm Heinrich (1833–1916) seems to have inherited his father’s adventurous nature and decided to move to the United States after studying at the technical university in Prague. He first worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania and in 1876 moved to Texas. Although he became a respected geologist and a member of numerous professional societies, he died in Houston in 1916 without funds and probably without descendants.
As for the other brothers, we have no documents about their fates, and it is therefore possible that the only successor of the family, who also took over the hereditary postmaster’s office, was Georg Adolf. The fact that he was respected and recognized in the town and its surroundings is evidenced not only by his repeated election as a member of the provincial assembly and later also of the Imperial Council, but also by the fact that for many years he held the office of mayor of the town of Stříbro as well as that of the district mayor of the entire self-governing district. Within a few decades, Adolf Streer von Streeruwitz had thus concentrated in his hands all the key administrative and representative offices in the city and the district. He had considerable influence on local affairs and through this combination of offices and functions he was clearly able to gain numerous advantages for his town, including the establishment of a state grammar school.
The father’s influence was also reflected in the careers and destinies of his children. Adolf’s eldest son Johann Alfred (b. 1856) took over the hereditary post office and became the mayor of Stříbro at the beginning of the 20th century, while his daughter Zdenka married a local politician and medical doctor Viktor Michl (1865–1927), who after the introduction of universal suffrage became member of the Austrian Imperial Council as a deputy for the German-speaking districts of West Bohemia. Adolf’s other sons, Ottokar Johann (1859–1927) and Ernest Joseph (1874–1952), chose a military career. Both became officers in the Austro-Hungarian army, but Ernest had to leave his promising military career due to a serious illness. It was only with the outbreak of the First World War that he voluntarily returned to the army and worked as a clerk at the Ministry of War. After the world conflict ended, he opted for (German)Austrian citizenship and remained in Vienna. Thanks to his involvement in industrial organisations, he was elected a member of the Austrian National Council for the Christian Social Party and in 1929 for a few months he even became Federal Chancellor of the interwar Austrian Republic.
The name Streeruwitz was associated with Stříbro until the end of the Second World War, when the memory of the former local elite vanished with the population that left. Today, only a grave by the wall of the cemetery in Stříbro commemorates them.
Lothar HÖBELT, Ernst von Streeruwitz 1874–1952. Ein österreichischer Bundeskanzler aus (West-)Böhmen, in: Bohemia Occidentalis Historica 3, 2017, 15–29. (https://dspace5.zcu.cz/bitstream/11025/34424/1/Hobelt.pdf)
Ernst von STREERUWITZ, Wie es war. Erinnerungen und Erlebnisse eines alten Österreichers, Wien 1934.
https://www.muzeum-stribro.cz/stare-stribro/rodaci-a-obcane-/streer-adolf-von-streeruwitz-134cs.html (accessed on 18 November 2022)
In the second half of the 19th century, Georg Adolf Streer von Streeruwitz, the postmaster of the town of Stříbro (Mies) in West Bohemia, became one of the longest serving members of the Bohemian Diet. Although he boasted a knighthood, he did not belong among the many representatives of the newly ennobled clerical or military nobility; the Streeruwitzs traced their origins to the descendants of one of the participants in the crusade against the Hussites, dispersed during the Battle of Tachov. Their ancestral seat was at the fortress, and later castle, of Kopetzen, near Prostiboř in the Tachov region. The line from which Georg Adolf descended was linked to the nearby mining town of Stříbro. The deputy’s grandfather ended his successful career in the civil service as a court counsellor at the unified Czech-Austrian Chancellery in Vienna. As for his father Anton (1787–1855), he spent his youth in the early 19th century as an officer in various armies fighting against Napoleon, later took part in the fighting in Latin America under the leadership of Simon Bolívar and even joined the Greek uprising against the Ottoman Empire. In his old age he returned to his home town of Stříbro, where he took over the local hereditary post office.
Picture from Wikipedia.
Postmasters belonged among traditional local notables. Although their profession was slowly dying out since, as the postal network developed, hereditary or contract postmasters in smaller settlements were replaced by state post offices, including postal employees at the level of civil servants, this was a relatively slow-going process, which affected Stříbro only at the very end of the 19th century. Until then, the local post office had been run by the Streeruwitz family as local burghers who received an exactly agreed amount from the state as remuneration for providing their neighbours with a connection to the world. After he returned from his journeys around the world, Anton married in 1815, but given his other adventures it seems likely that the first child that can be traced in the Stříbro parish registers was indeed the first child of that marriage, even though it was born only in 1820, five years after the wedding. After his first wife died in 1826, Anton married three more times; his son Georg Adolf, the future deputy, was born into his third marriage in 1828.
Eventually, children from three different marriages grew up side by side, since Anton’s second marriage lasted only a short time and the only son born into it died soon after birth. At least two of Anton’s sons followed in his footsteps and chose a military career: Johann Karl (1831–1903) embarked on the career of an artillery officer, reached the rank of colonel and in the end died unmarried in his hometown. Anton Emil’s (b. 1837) career was much more tortuous and he can safely be described as the black sheep of the family: after he was convicted of embezzling military funds, he was demoted and dismissed from the army. He wandered around Lower Austria as a beggar and appeared several times before the Vienna Regional Court accused of various thefts, which the newspapers did not fail to point out in connection with his publicly known brother, the deputy.
Two other sons of Anton’s were involved in mining, which had a long tradition in their native region, and, incidentally, one of their father’s wives was the daughter of a local mining official. Robert (b. 1835) is listed in the Prague police application register as a mine administrator and editor of a specialist mining newspaper, while his brother Wilhelm Heinrich (1833–1916) seems to have inherited his father’s adventurous nature and decided to move to the United States after studying at the technical university in Prague. He first worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania and in 1876 moved to Texas. Although he became a respected geologist and a member of numerous professional societies, he died in Houston in 1916 without funds and probably without descendants.
As for the other brothers, we have no documents about their fates, and it is therefore possible that the only successor of the family, who also took over the hereditary postmaster’s office, was Georg Adolf. The fact that he was respected and recognized in the town and its surroundings is evidenced not only by his repeated election as a member of the provincial assembly and later also of the Imperial Council, but also by the fact that for many years he held the office of mayor of the town of Stříbro as well as that of the district mayor of the entire self-governing district. Within a few decades, Adolf Streer von Streeruwitz had thus concentrated in his hands all the key administrative and representative offices in the city and the district. He had considerable influence on local affairs and through this combination of offices and functions he was clearly able to gain numerous advantages for his town, including the establishment of a state grammar school.
The father’s influence was also reflected in the careers and destinies of his children. Adolf’s eldest son Johann Alfred (b. 1856) took over the hereditary post office and became the mayor of Stříbro at the beginning of the 20th century, while his daughter Zdenka married a local politician and medical doctor Viktor Michl (1865–1927), who after the introduction of universal suffrage became member of the Austrian Imperial Council as a deputy for the German-speaking districts of West Bohemia. Adolf’s other sons, Ottokar Johann (1859–1927) and Ernest Joseph (1874–1952), chose a military career. Both became officers in the Austro-Hungarian army, but Ernest had to leave his promising military career due to a serious illness. It was only with the outbreak of the First World War that he voluntarily returned to the army and worked as a clerk at the Ministry of War. After the world conflict ended, he opted for (German)Austrian citizenship and remained in Vienna. Thanks to his involvement in industrial organisations, he was elected a member of the Austrian National Council for the Christian Social Party and in 1929 for a few months he even became Federal Chancellor of the interwar Austrian Republic.
The name Streeruwitz was associated with Stříbro until the end of the Second World War, when the memory of the former local elite vanished with the population that left. Today, only a grave by the wall of the cemetery in Stříbro commemorates them.
Lothar HÖBELT, Ernst von Streeruwitz 1874–1952. Ein österreichischer Bundeskanzler aus (West-)Böhmen, in: Bohemia Occidentalis Historica 3, 2017, 15–29. (https://dspace5.zcu.cz/bitstream/11025/34424/1/Hobelt.pdf)
Ernst von STREERUWITZ, Wie es war. Erinnerungen und Erlebnisse eines alten Österreichers, Wien 1934.
https://www.muzeum-stribro.cz/stare-stribro/rodaci-a-obcane-/streer-adolf-von-streeruwitz-134cs.html (accessed on 18 November 2022)
In the second half of the 19th century, Georg Adolf Streer von Streeruwitz, the postmaster of the town of Stříbro (Mies) in West Bohemia, became one of the longest serving members of the Bohemian Diet. Although he boasted a knighthood, he did not belong among the many representatives of the newly ennobled clerical or military nobility; the Streeruwitzs traced their origins to the descendants of one of the participants in the crusade against the Hussites, dispersed during the Battle of Tachov. Their ancestral seat was at the fortress, and later castle, of Kopetzen, near Prostiboř in the Tachov region. The line from which Georg Adolf descended was linked to the nearby mining town of Stříbro. The deputy’s grandfather ended his successful career in the civil service as a court counsellor at the unified Czech-Austrian Chancellery in Vienna. As for his father Anton (1787–1855), he spent his youth in the early 19th century as an officer in various armies fighting against Napoleon, later took part in the fighting in Latin America under the leadership of Simon Bolívar and even joined the Greek uprising against the Ottoman Empire. In his old age he returned to his home town of Stříbro, where he took over the local hereditary post office.
Picture from Wikipedia.
Postmasters belonged among traditional local notables. Although their profession was slowly dying out since, as the postal network developed, hereditary or contract postmasters in smaller settlements were replaced by state post offices, including postal employees at the level of civil servants, this was a relatively slow-going process, which affected Stříbro only at the very end of the 19th century. Until then, the local post office had been run by the Streeruwitz family as local burghers who received an exactly agreed amount from the state as remuneration for providing their neighbours with a connection to the world. After he returned from his journeys around the world, Anton married in 1815, but given his other adventures it seems likely that the first child that can be traced in the Stříbro parish registers was indeed the first child of that marriage, even though it was born only in 1820, five years after the wedding. After his first wife died in 1826, Anton married three more times; his son Georg Adolf, the future deputy, was born into his third marriage in 1828.
Eventually, children from three different marriages grew up side by side, since Anton’s second marriage lasted only a short time and the only son born into it died soon after birth. At least two of Anton’s sons followed in his footsteps and chose a military career: Johann Karl (1831–1903) embarked on the career of an artillery officer, reached the rank of colonel and in the end died unmarried in his hometown. Anton Emil’s (b. 1837) career was much more tortuous and he can safely be described as the black sheep of the family: after he was convicted of embezzling military funds, he was demoted and dismissed from the army. He wandered around Lower Austria as a beggar and appeared several times before the Vienna Regional Court accused of various thefts, which the newspapers did not fail to point out in connection with his publicly known brother, the deputy.
Two other sons of Anton’s were involved in mining, which had a long tradition in their native region, and, incidentally, one of their father’s wives was the daughter of a local mining official. Robert (b. 1835) is listed in the Prague police application register as a mine administrator and editor of a specialist mining newspaper, while his brother Wilhelm Heinrich (1833–1916) seems to have inherited his father’s adventurous nature and decided to move to the United States after studying at the technical university in Prague. He first worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania and in 1876 moved to Texas. Although he became a respected geologist and a member of numerous professional societies, he died in Houston in 1916 without funds and probably without descendants.
As for the other brothers, we have no documents about their fates, and it is therefore possible that the only successor of the family, who also took over the hereditary postmaster’s office, was Georg Adolf. The fact that he was respected and recognized in the town and its surroundings is evidenced not only by his repeated election as a member of the provincial assembly and later also of the Imperial Council, but also by the fact that for many years he held the office of mayor of the town of Stříbro as well as that of the district mayor of the entire self-governing district. Within a few decades, Adolf Streer von Streeruwitz had thus concentrated in his hands all the key administrative and representative offices in the city and the district. He had considerable influence on local affairs and through this combination of offices and functions he was clearly able to gain numerous advantages for his town, including the establishment of a state grammar school.
The father’s influence was also reflected in the careers and destinies of his children. Adolf’s eldest son Johann Alfred (b. 1856) took over the hereditary post office and became the mayor of Stříbro at the beginning of the 20th century, while his daughter Zdenka married a local politician and medical doctor Viktor Michl (1865–1927), who after the introduction of universal suffrage became member of the Austrian Imperial Council as a deputy for the German-speaking districts of West Bohemia. Adolf’s other sons, Ottokar Johann (1859–1927) and Ernest Joseph (1874–1952), chose a military career. Both became officers in the Austro-Hungarian army, but Ernest had to leave his promising military career due to a serious illness. It was only with the outbreak of the First World War that he voluntarily returned to the army and worked as a clerk at the Ministry of War. After the world conflict ended, he opted for (German)Austrian citizenship and remained in Vienna. Thanks to his involvement in industrial organisations, he was elected a member of the Austrian National Council for the Christian Social Party and in 1929 for a few months he even became Federal Chancellor of the interwar Austrian Republic.
The name Streeruwitz was associated with Stříbro until the end of the Second World War, when the memory of the former local elite vanished with the population that left. Today, only a grave by the wall of the cemetery in Stříbro commemorates them.
Lothar HÖBELT, Ernst von Streeruwitz 1874–1952. Ein österreichischer Bundeskanzler aus (West-)Böhmen, in: Bohemia Occidentalis Historica 3, 2017, 15–29. (https://dspace5.zcu.cz/bitstream/11025/34424/1/Hobelt.pdf)
Ernst von STREERUWITZ, Wie es war. Erinnerungen und Erlebnisse eines alten Österreichers, Wien 1934.
https://www.muzeum-stribro.cz/stare-stribro/rodaci-a-obcane-/streer-adolf-von-streeruwitz-134cs.html (accessed on 18 November 2022)