Joachim, Count of Schönburg-Glauchau

Joachim Graf von Schönburg-Glauchau (4 February 1929 in Glauchau, Saxony – 29 September 1998 in Passau, Bavaria) was the nominal successor head of the former mediatised German Counts of Schönburg-Glauchau until 1945. Dispossessed and expelled from his homeland in 1945, he and his family migrated to the Rhineland, where he was an author and journalist. After the fall of the Berlin wall, he returned to his homeland, represented the district in the Bundestag, and served in local government.

Childhood

He grew up in the idyllic setting of Wechselburg (51°0′11″N 12°46′36″E / 51.00306°N 12.77667°E / 51.00306; 12.77667) in the Zwickauer Mulde river valley, about 25 kilometers north of Chemnitz. The Schönburg family had occupied the Schloss Rochsburg there since 1637. His parents were Graf Friedrich Carl von Schönburg-Glauchau, born 26 July 1899 in Wechselburg and died 12 April 1945 in the defence of Breslau, and Maria Anna Baworowska (1902–1988). He was the second of their eight children.

Expulsion and new life in the west

In 1945, Soviet occupation troops arrested him, expropriated his property, and he and the family were deported, living for a while in Mainz. He supported his family as a journalist and author. In 1965, he accepted an assignment to Somalia, where he established a broadcast station, and served as a foreign correspondent. His family lived with him in the Horn of Africa for five years, and two of his children were born there.

Immediately after the fall of the wall in 1990, he returned to his homeland in Saxony, and from 1990 to 1994, served as a member of the Bundestag for the representative district, which included the communities of Glauchau, Rochlitz, Hohenstein, Ernstthal and Hainichen, in Saxony, for the Christian Democratic Union. In the so-called Berlin debate on 20 June 1991, he spoke against the transfer of the capital city status to Berlin.^[1]

He is known for his stance on the protection of nature, and, as an author, for his books about hunting. One of his most popular books, the humorous Der Jagdgast (The Hunt Guest), tells old hunting stories from his homeland. Der deutsche Jäger (The German Hunter) is a combination of hunting stories and hunting practices.

From 1991 to 1997 he lived in the former family castle of Rochsburg, and served in the city council of Lunzenau. In 1998, he became very sick, and moved to Passau, in Bavaria, where he died. He is buried in the old cloister Basilika in Wechselburg, his boyhood home.

Family

His first wife, Beatrix (born 30 January 1930), is the great granddaughter of the Hungarian social reformer and national hero, Count István Széchényi.^[2] They married 27 October 1957 in Vienna and divorced in Munich, Bavaria, 25 April 1986.^[3] His children are, from his first marriage, Maria Felicitas (b. 1958), Gloria Princess of Thurn and Taxis (b. 1960), Carl-Alban (b. 1966), and the best selling author Alexander, Count of Schönburg-Glauchau (b. 1969); from his second marriage, 18 July 1986, to Ursula Zwicker, there is one child, Anabel Maya-Felicitas.^[4]

Titles

Family members up until 1919 held the title Graf; Following the German Revolution of 1918–19, the German nobility as a legally defined class was abolished on August 11, 1919 with the promulgation of the Weimar Constitution, under which all Germans were made equal before the law, and the legal rights and privileges due to all ranks of nobility ceased. Any title, however, held prior to the Weimar Constitution, were permitted to continue merely as part of the family name and heritage, or erased from future name use.

Publications

• Der Jagdgast, München : BLV-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1986, 2. Aufl.
• Jagen mit dem "Uhu" Mainz : Hoffmann, 1985
• Hohe Jagd in Zentral- und Südeuropa, with Días de los Reyes, Antonio. - Herrsching : Schuler, _381 1983
• Der deutsche Jäger, München, Bern, Wien : BLV-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1979

Citations

External links

• Joachim, Count of Schönburg-Glauchau in the German National Library catalogue