Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
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(Grand) Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1809–1903) (Groß-)Herzogtum Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach Grand Duchy of Saxony (1903–1918) Großherzogtum Sachsen Free State of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1918–1920) Freistaat Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach | |||||||||||
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1809–1920 | |||||||||||
Anthem: Weimars Volkslied | |||||||||||
Status | State of the Confederation of the Rhine (1809-1813) State of the German Confederation (1815-1866) Federal State of the North German Confederation (1867-1871) Federal State of the German Empire (1871-1918) Federal State of the Weimar Republic (1918-1920) | ||||||||||
Capital | Weimar | ||||||||||
Common languages | German Thuringian dialect | ||||||||||
Government | Absolute monarchy (1809–1816) Constitutional monarchy (1816-1918) Republic (1918–1920) | ||||||||||
Grand Duke | |||||||||||
• 1809–1828 | Karl August (first) | ||||||||||
• 1901–1918 | William Ernest (last) | ||||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||||
1741 | |||||||||||
• Merger of Eisenach and Weimar | September 20, 1809 | ||||||||||
• Raised to grand duchy | 1815 | ||||||||||
• German Revolution | 1918 | ||||||||||
• Joined Thuringia | 1920 | ||||||||||
Currency | German gold mark (1873–1918) | ||||||||||
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Today part of | Germany |
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (
The full grand ducal style was
.The Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach branch has been the most genealogically senior extant branch of the House of Wettin since 1672.
Geography
The Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach consisted of three greater areas, each of which formed a Kreis administratively, plus several
The northern part of the
The main rivers in the country were:
- the Saale flowing through Jena in the east
- the Werra in Vacha and Eisenach, and its tributaries the Felda and Ulster in the west
- the Unstrut in the exclaves Allstedt and Oldisleben in the north
- the White Elster in Berga in the far east
- the Goetheonce described Weimar as "Athens on the Ilm".
The highest elevation in the grand duchy were the
In 1895, the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was administratively divided into three districts Kreise:
District | Area in square kilometers | Residents | Cities | exclaves |
---|---|---|---|---|
District Weimar | 1752.59 | 191,975 | Remda, Kranichfeld and Tannroda
|
Ilmenau, Bösleben, Klein Kröbitz, Allstedt and Oldisleben |
District Eisenach | 1214.03 | 95,226 | Ostheim vor der Rhön and Kaltennordheim
|
Ostheim vor der Rhön and Zillbach
|
District Neustadt | 628.71 | 52,016 | Berga/Elster
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Rußdorf, Teichwolframsdorf and Förthen |
Furthermore, the districts of Weimar and Eisenach were each subdivided into two Bezirke. In the case of Weimar, these were: Weimar and Apolda, in the case of Eisenach they were the Eisenach and Dermbach. In all, there were 31 cities and 594 municipalities in the Grand Duchy. The Grand Dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach granted "city" status to three localities in the state, namely Berka/Werra (Eisenach district, 1847), Ruhla (Eisenach district, 1886, administered jointly with the Duke of Saxe-Gotha) and Münchenbernsdorf (Neustadt district, 1904).
In 1840, there were 13 cities with over 2,000 inhabitants. In the 70 years to 1910, the Grand Duchy industrialized heavily and the population of the largest cities grew, while the medium-sized cities remained constant or even lost population. The population of Stadtlengsfeld shrank dramatically after the Jewish emancipation, when most of the city's Jewish citizens migrated to larger cities.
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In 1910, several other towns had grown past the 2,000 inhabitants mark: Ruhla (Weimar part: 3917 v. 1533: +156%), Blankenhain (3405 v. 1689: +102%), Bad Sulza, (3052 v. 1422: +115%), Auma (2978 v. 1701, +75%), Triptis (2948 v. 1480: +99%), Tiefenort (2539 v. 1237: +105%), Bad Berka (2379 v. 1228: +94%), Oberweimar (2095 v. 621: +237%), Oldisleben (2064 v. 1332: +55) and Mihla (2008 v. 1294: +55%).
History
The duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach had been ruled in personal union by the same branch of the House of Wettin since 1741, after the Eisenach line had died out upon the death of Duke Wilhelm Heinrich. The first Duke of the personal union was Ernest Augustus I, who built the Belvedere Palace in Weimar. His son Ernest Augustus II reigned for only three years, and died at the age of 20. At the age of 18, he married the Brunswick Princess Anna Amalia, one year his junior and a niece of King Frederick the Great of Prussia. A year later she gave birth to her son, Charles Augustus and after another year, when she was already a widow, to her son Constantine.
As Dowager Duchess Anna Amalia actively took up the regency, with the approval of the Empress Maria Theresa and the support of her ethical Minister Baron von Fritsch. As educator for her sons, she employed the poet Christoph Martin Wieland, who was a professor at the University of Erfurt.
At 18 years of age, Charles Augustus married Princess
In 1804 Duke Charles Augustus' eldest son and heir
After the official merger in 1809, the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach consisted of the separate districts around the capital Weimar in the north and Eisenach in the west. Thanks to their Russian connection, the duchy gained substantially from the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the east, it gained most of the Neustädter Kreis (Neustadt district; 629 km2, 243 sq mi) from the Kingdom of Saxony. It also received most of the Principality of Erfurt, which had been an exclave of Mainz before the war and a directly administered French fief under occupation. It further gained smaller possessions, such as Blankenhain and Kranichfeld. In the Rhön area, the Eisenacher Oberland was created from adjacent former parts of Hesse-Kassel and territories held by the secularized Princely Abbey of Fulda. Finally, the country was raised to a grand duchy.
The cosmopolitan Grand Duke Charles Augustus gave his grand duchy the first liberal constitution in Germany, on 5 May 1816. Students of the University of Jena organized themselves as Germany's first fraternity, the Urburschenschaft and celebrated Wartburg Festival at the Wartburg in October 1817. Many liberal-minded people participated and the speakers, most of them students, must be regarded as having been among the earliest democrats in Germany.
A member of the German Confederation from 1815, the grand duchy was not seriously affected by the German revolutions of 1848 and remained neutral during the growing friction between Austria and Prussia over the following two decades. After the Austro-Prussian War the grand duchy became a member of the North German Confederation and in 1871 joined the new German Empire as a constituent state.
In 1901 Charles Alexander was succeeded by his grandson William Ernest, who was married to Caroline Reuss of Greiz and later to Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen. In 1903, the grand duchy officially changed its name to Grand Duchy of Saxony. However, many people continued to call it Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, to avoid confusion with the neighbouring Kingdom of Saxony.
William Ernest abdicated the throne on 9 November 1918, thereby ending the monarchy in the state. It continued as the Free State of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, until 1920, when it merged with most of its neighbours to form Thuringia, with Weimar as the state capital.
Religion
In the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, as in all the Thuringian states, the Lutheran faith was the most prevalent. Specifically, in 1895, the reported religious affiliations of the 339,217 were:
- Evangelical: 325,315 (95.9%)
- Catholic: 12,112 (3.6%)
- Jewish: 1,290 (0.4%)
- Other / Non-denominational: 500 (0.1%)
In the district of Eisenach, the distribution was slightly different. Of the 95,226 inhabitants were:
- Evangelical: 85,319 (89.6%)
- Catholic: 8,809 (9.3%)
- Jewish: 979 (1.0%)
- Other / Non-denominational: 119 (0.1%)
The Catholic and Jewish minorities in the district Eisenach lived mainly in the Rhön. The area around the town of
Constitution and administration
Under the Constitution of 5 May 1816 (revised 15 October 1850), Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was a constitutional monarchy, hereditary in the male line. Under the Electoral Act of 1852, the Landtag had 31 members, of whom 21 were elected in general elections. One member was elected by the landed former Imperial Knights, four were elected by other wealthy landowners, and five by voters who had an annual income exceeding 1000 Thaler from other sources. The latter group of voters were popularly called "thousand thaler men". The Electoral Act of 17 April 1896 enlarged the parliament to 33 members. The grand duchy had one vote in the Imperial Bundesrat and three members in the Reichstag.
In 1909, general suffrage was introduced, under the auspices of Alfred Appelius, the later Speaker of the Landtag. The large landowners and the "thousand thaler men" retained their extra votes, and five new special members were added to the parliament, representing the University of Jena, the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Trade, the Chamber of Agriculture and the Chamber of Labour[1]
The highest court in the land was the Court of Appeals in Jena, which dealt with appeals from all Thuringian states. There were Regional Courts in Weimar and Eisenach.
The grand duchy had one infantry regiment, which after 1871 was part of the Imperial German Army's 11th Army Corps.
Rulers of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Dukes of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach, 1741–1809
- Ernest Augustus I, 1741–1748; Duke of Saxe-Weimar since 1707
- Ernest Augustus II, 1748–1758
- Charles Augustus, 1758–1809, until 1775 under the regency of his mother Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
Dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, 1809–1815
- Charles Augustus, 1809–1815; Duke of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach since 1758
Grand Dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, 1815–1918
- Charles Augustus, 1815–1828
- Charles Frederick, 1828–1853
- Charles Alexander, 1853–1901
- William Ernest, 1901–1918
Economy
Agriculture
In 1895, 37.9% of the workforce were employed in the
Until 1900, agriculture was the most important branch in the economy of the grand duchy. A total of 56% of the duchy's territory was used for agriculture, mainly in the districts Weimar and Neustadt and the exclaves Allstedt and Oldisleben in the Goldene Aue area.
The harvest of 1895 consisted of:
Crop | Area (km2) | Yield (metric tons) |
---|---|---|
Wheat | 216 | 27,100 |
Rye | 295 | 33,300 |
Barley | 276 | 41,900 |
Oats
|
334 | 39,600 |
Potatoes
|
225 | 232,200 |
Hay | 574 | 192,717 |
Fodder | 92 | 152,400 |
Fruit was mainly grown in the Saale valley, around Jena and Bürgel. There was some viticulture north of Jena, between Dornburg and Camburg.
Manufacturing Industries
A versatile array of manufacturing industries developed in the grand duchy. For example, in Bürgel and Ilmenau, there were porcelain factories (in all, there were 39 such factories in the country).
In Ilmenau and Jena, glass was made (in particular, in the Schott factories). The glass industry was specialized in industrial glass (for example measuring devices such as thermometers in the area around Ilmenau) and optical products, around Jena. In 1846, Carl Zeiss found a precision engineering and optical company that quickly developed into a world leader. In 1917, the company had 10000 employees. In 1889, Ernst Abbe founded the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung, which became the sole share holder of the companies Carl Zeiss AG and Schott AG.
The textile industry was also important. It was concentrated in
Mining industry
Ilmenau and Ruhla were important mining centers in the Thuringian Forest. Around 1900, potash industry began to develop in the Werra valley, around Vacha and Berka/Werra. There were salt works in Creuzburg and Bad Sulza.
Trade
The major transport centers were Weimar and Eisenach. Many banks opened branch offices here. In 1895, there were 23 branch offices of savings banks in the grand duchy, and they were managing deposits totalling approximately 40 million Reichsmark.
The grand duchy was part of the Thuringian Toll Union, except for the exclaves Ostheim, Oldisleben, and Allstedt.
Education
There was one state university in the grand duchy, the
See also
Notes
- ^ The new Electoral Act, in: Berliner Tageblatt, morning edition of 5 March 1909, p. 2
References
- Carl Ferdinand Weiland: General Charte von dem Großherzogthume Weimar-Eisenach nach den besten vorhandenen Hülfsmitteln entworfen und gezeichnet von C. F. Weiland, ISBN 978-3-86777-136-8, (in German)
- Karl Helmrich: Geschichte des Großherzogthums Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach für Schule und Haus, Albrecht, Weimar, 1852, (in German)
- Constantin Kronfeld (1878), Geschichte des Landes, Landeskunde des Großherzogthums Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (in German), vol. 1, Weimar: Hermann Böhlau
- Constantin Kronfeld (1879), Topographie des Landes, Landeskunde des Großherzogthums Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (in German), vol. 2, Weimar: Hermann Böhlau
- Detlef Ignasiak (1996), Regenten-Tafeln Thüringischer Fürstenhäuser. Mit einer Einführung in die Geschichte der Dynastien in Thüringen (in German), Jena: Quartus, ISBN 3-931505-20-0
External links
- "Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach genealogy". Archived from the original on 2012-06-30.
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.