Ehrenfried von Willich

Ehrenfried von Willich (5 September 1777[1]– 2 February 1807) complete name: Johann Ehrenfried Theodor von Willich) was an evangelical preacher by the Swedish regiment of the queen in Stralsund.

Life

Ehrenfried von Willich came from the theological family Willich from the Margraviate of Brandenburg. He was born in Sagard on the island of Rügen as the son of the priest Philipp Philipp von Willich (1720-1787) and half-brother of the country doctor Moritz von Willich (1750-1810), the first country physician in Swedish Pomerania.[2]

Willich was first educator and partner of Wilhelm Graf von Schwerin-Putzar in Prenzlau. Since the spring of 1803 he was a field preacher in the regiment of the Queen of Stralsund, which at that time belonged to Swedish Pomerania.[3]

In 1803 Willich became engaged with the two-year orphaned, just 15 year-old Henriette von Mühlenfels (1788-1840), daughter of the royal Prussian lieutenant colonel Friedrich Gottlieb von Mühlenfels[4] († 1801), Squire on Sissow (today part of Gustow, island of Rügen), and Pauline of Campagne.[5] On 5 September 1804 he married the then 17-year-old. From this marriage came two children: Henriette (1805-1886) and Ehrenfried von Willich (1807-1880). Willich was since May 1801 a close friend and correspondent of the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, who married in 1809, two years after his death, Willich's now 21-year-old widow Henriette.[6]

Almost two months before the birth of his eponymous son, Willich died during the siege of Stralsund by Napoleonic troops (see Coalition Wars) of nerve fever (typhus), which at that time was rampant in the city.

Further reading
  • Rainer Schmitz: Bis nächstes Jahr auf Rügen. Briefe von Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher und Henriette Herz an Ehrenfried von Willich 1801-1807.[7] Evangelische Verlagsanstalt publisher, 1984

References
  1. According to other sources: 1773.
  2. Some sources, even Schleiermacher experts, falsely call 'Ehrenfried' a much younger brother of the pastor Heinrich Christoph von Willich, but this was actually Ehrenfried's uncle (the 39 years younger brother of Ehrenfried's father).
  3. Friedrich Schleiermacher. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Briefwechsel und biographische Dokumente, part 5, volume 6 (correspondence 1802–1803), page XLVIII (Nr. 30), Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin 2005 (Ehrenfried von Willich at Google Books)
  4. Mühlenfels, Friedrich Gottlieb von on Deutsche Biographie
  5. Friedrich Schleiermacher. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Briefwechsel und biographische Dokumente, part 5, volume 7 (Correspondence 1803–1804), page XXXVI (Nr. 21), Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin 2005 (Ehrenfried von Willich at Google Books)
  6. Note at Gunter Scholtz (2007), "Schleiermacher, Friedrich", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 23, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 54–57; (full text online)
  7. Bis nächstes Jahr auf Rügen. Briefe von Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher und Henriette Herz an Ehrenfried von Willich 1801-1807 on Worldcat
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