Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Abt. Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, GU 120
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Bestand
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(1861-1864), 1867-1925, (1926) und o. J.
Teil von Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Dept. Main State Archives Stuttgart (Archivtektonik)
- biography: Karl Joseph Wilhelm Florestan Gero Crescentius Prince of Urach Count of Württemberg was born on 15 February 1865 in Ulm as the younger son of Wilhelm (I.) Duke of Urach and Florestine Duchess of Urach née Princess of Monaco (1); the prince attended the primary school and the Jesuit grammar school in Monaco (2) together with his older brother Wilhelm (II.) Duke of Urach. In 1877 he moved to the Jesuit educational institution of Our Lady Stella matutina in Feldkirch. After a further change of school in 1881, he graduated from the Karlsgymnasium in Stuttgart in 1883 and studied for two semesters at the University of Munich (3) from 1883 to 1884. There he attended lectures in metaphysics and history of Greek philosophy with the professor of philosophy and later Bavarian Prime Minister and German Chancellor Georg Graf von Hertling (1843-1919) as well as lectures in political science with the journalist and writer Professor Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl (1823-1897). 1883 he was appointed second lieutenant à la suite of the Ulan regiment King Karl (1st Württ.) No. 19 (4). In April 1886 Prince Karl entered the active service of this regiment, but had to leave the active service due to illness. In March 1887, the prince retired as an officer à la suite from the active service of the regiment. In the following years the prince was granted the usual promotions for a member of the House of Württemberg under the position à la suite of the regiment: in 1887 he was appointed prime lieutenant, in 1891 cavalry master, in 1899 cavalry major and in 1906 lieutenant colonel. From 1884, Karl Fürst von Urach travelled extensively (5): from 1884 to 1886 he travelled South America, visiting the Cordilleras and studying the Indian tribes on the upper reaches of the Amazon (6). He later handed over the ethnological collection he acquired during his journey to the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. Also in the time after 1887 he often stayed in Italy, Greece, in the Balkans, in Egypt, where he owned real estate in Heliopolis near Cairo (7), and in the Ottoman Empire. In 1891 he took part in an expedition to Spitsbergen (8), in 1893 the prince travelled to the USA(9). The few documents on the trip to the USA (especially letters of recommendation) (10) that are preserved in the present inventory suggest that this trip was also used for ethnological studies of Indian tribes. So he learned Turkish, Arabic and Persian. Last but not least, between 1893 and 1925 the prince had Arab rooms (11) built into his palace on Neckarstraße in Stuttgart, which he decorated with furniture, carvings, tiles, works made of plaster stucco, carpets and other antiques from the Orient. During the First World War, Prince Karl was finally able to use his language skills and the knowledge he had acquired about this region during his many journeys to the Orient for his work as a German liaison officer in the Ottoman Empire (12). He performed this function between 1916 and 1917, when Prince Karl took over several honorary offices. He was president of the Württemberg group of the German Colonial Society (13) and member of the Württemberg regional association of the German Fleet Association (14). He supported the Society for the Promotion of German Settlements in Palestine (15). He also supported the work of the airship designer Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin by subscribing to shares in the company for the promotion of airship travel (16).Karl Fürst von Urach was awarded numerous orders in the course of his life (17): in 1883 the Prince received the Monegasque Order of Saint Charles, in 1889 the Grand Cross of the Persian Order of the Sun and Lions (18), in 1897 the Ottoman Order of First Class, in 1899 the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Medal. In 1910 he was awarded the Prussian Red Eagle Order. In 1916 he received the Wilhelmskreuz with swords and crown, one year later the royal Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen and the Iron Cross 2nd class. Karl Fürst von Urach died on 5 December 1925 in Stuttgart. He was buried in the Catholic section of the crypt of the castle church Ludwigsburg. 2. to the order and distortion of the stock:: Together with the Archive of the Dukes and Princes of Urach Grafen von Württemberg, the GU 120 collection was deposited in the Main State Archives in 1987. There, the archives of the House of Urach form the GU series of inventories within the inventory classification (tectonics). During the reorganization of the archive by Wolfgang Schmierer, Director of the Archive, the documents on Karl Fürst von Urach were given the signature GU 120, and since the materials were in a poor state of order, the units of registration had to be formed for the most part first. Where it made sense, the existing units were retained. During the indexing work, extensive documents were removed from the GU 120 holdings and assigned in particular to the GU 96 (Miscellaneous and Unclear), GU 100 (Foreign Archives and Other Collections), GU 107 (Florestine Duchess of Urach), GU 117 (Wilhelm (II.) Duke of Urach) and GU 202 (Bertha Freiin von Biegeleben) holdings. Moreover, it cannot be ruled out that further material of the provenance of Karl Fürst von Urach may be found in the as yet unlisted holdings of the House of Urach. by far the largest part of the holdings consists of the extensive correspondence of the Prince (category 2), above all with his mother (category 2.1.1) with his brother Wilhelm and his family (category 2.1.2) as well as with Bertha von Biegeleben (category 2.1.5). The latter was the court lady of his mother Florestine and a close confidante of the prince. In addition, correspondence with representatives of the German and European ruling and former ruling princely houses can be found in the holdings (Section 2.5). Karl Fürst von Urach also corresponded with numerous public figures (section 2.7), including scholars. Almost all correspondence is so-called unilateral correspondence, that is, only the letters of the correspondence partner are found in the existing stock. If there are isolated letters or drafts of letters from the Reigning Prince to the respective addressee, this is expressly mentioned in the title recording. Usually these are letters of the prince returned to the prince or his family afterwards. It should also be noted that Prince Karl did not make any copies of his correspondence. The correspondences can be regarded as an interesting source for the history of everyday life and mentality of the nobility. They show the manifold contacts which the prince maintained with members of other noble families. They also certainly offer details of the Prince's numerous journeys. However, it was not possible to index the contents of the correspondence due to the time and effort involved. Unfortunately, the correspondences and correspondence series contained in this collection sometimes have smaller gaps. It is not possible at the present time to answer the question of whether the previously unlisted holdings of the archives of the House of Urach still contain correspondence of the prince. Besides the correspondence, the extensive collections of photos and photographs (category 10) form the second largest part of the holdings in terms of the number of title recordings. Of particular interest are the photos and photo albums with photos from the Prince's numerous travels to South America, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans (Section 10.2.2). There are also photos taken during the aforementioned activity of the prince as a liaison officer in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War (section 10.2.4). Prince Karl's interest in Islamic (Arabic) art is also reflected in the numerous photographs of buildings and artworks of Islamic art, which are combined in section 10.3. Of the other materials preserved in the present collection, the Prince's manuscripts with literary and art-historical texts and a memorandum on the political reorganization of Europe by Germany in the First World War should also be mentioned, as well as interesting documents on the associations and societies in which the Prince was active and in which he was active. In an appendix (column 16) photos, an album and seal from the possession of the Wera Duchess of Württemberg née Grand Duchess of Russia are united, which after the death of the Duchess were handed over by her daughter Olga Prinzessin zu Schaumburg-Lippe to Karl Fürst von Urach.In addition, correspondences of the brother of Karl Fürst von Urach, Wilhelm (II.) Duke of Urach, to Charlemagne's estate, to the Arab rooms and to a newspaper article about the princes were added to the collection (19). Since these materials refer to Karl Fürst von Urach, the classification into the present holdings seemed to be reasonable. As expected, documents on Karl Fürst von Urach are also available in other holdings of the archives of the House of Urach. In particular the holdings GU 99 (photo albums and collections), GU 107 (Florestine Herzogin von Urach née Prinzessin von Monaco), GU 117 (Wilhelm (II.) Herzog von Urach) and GU 202 (Bertha von Biegeleben) are to be mentioned here. the archives of the holdings may only be inspected with the prior permission of the chief of the House of Urach. the holdings GU 120 were catalogued by the undersigned from autumn 2004 to April 2005. It comprises 4.6 running meters with 318 numbers.Stuttgart, in April 2005Eberhard Merk footnotes: (1) For Karl Fürst von Urach see above: Article by Wolfgang Schmierer in: The House of Württemberg. A biographical encyclopedia. Edited by Sönke Lorenz, Dieter Mertens, Volker Press. Stuttgart 1997. p. 390. Heinrich Fischer: Prince Karl von Urach as a research traveller. In: Swabian Mercury of 11 December 1926 pp. 17f. (Sunday supplement to the Swabian Mercury No. 580). Newspaper articles and obituaries in M 743/2 Bü 542.(2) See also Bü 1 (serial number 1) in this inventory. Schmierer does not mention attending school in Monaco. The data on the school attendance of Karl Fürst von Urach were taken from the short curriculum vitae written by Wilhelm (II.) Duke of Urach in Bü 21 (Ordnungsnummer 11).(3) See Bü 11 (Ordnungsnummer 2).(4) On military careers see the personal file of Fürst Karls in: M 430/1 Bü 2797, also Bü 7 (serial number 3), 121 (serial number 98).(5) A list of the Prince's travels, prepared by Karl's brother Duke Wilhelm (II.), is kept in Bü 21 (serial number 11). This list also served Heinrich Fischer as the basis for his article (loc. cit.)(6) See the manuscript of the prince in Bü 269 (Ordnungsnummer 145). A detailed description of the itinerary of the South American trip can be found in the article by Heinrich Fischer (loc. cit.)(7) Bü 297, 298 (serial number 208, 211)(8) Cf. the correspondence of Max Graf von Zeppelin in Bü 161 (serial number 118) and the manuscript of the prince in Bü 273 (serial number 146). Photos of Spitzbergen and Norway can be found in Bü 59 (serial number 247).(9) There are no photos of this trip in this collection.(10) Bü 177 (serial number 138)(11) See Bü 20 (serial number 217), Bü 80 (serial number 288), Bü 83 (serial number 202), Bü 316 (serial number 198). An impressive description of the Arabic spaces provides: Claus Mohr: Arab Art in Stuttgart. In: Deutsches Volksblatt 1926 No. 170 of 28 July 1926(12) See also Bü 108, 293 (serial numbers 5 and 6). Photos from this period have been preserved in Bü 42 (serial number 264).(13) There are no materials on the prince's work in the D e u t s c h e K o l o n i a l g e s c h e l l l s c h a f t in this collection.(14) Bü 285 (serial number 193)(15) Bü 294 (serial number 191)(16) Bü 296 (serial number 189)(17) See also Bü 6, 101 (serial numbers 7 and 8)(18) The award was made on the occasion of the state visit of Schah Nasir-el-din in 1889 in Stuttgart(19) Bü 10 (serial number 9), Bü 21 (serial number 11), Bü 23 (serial number 216)