The rise and fall of Georg Ludwig von Sinzendorf

"Baroque" has become linguistically established today as an epochal term for the period from around 1600 to around the middle of the 18th century. This development was also initiated by the art historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), who retrospectively transferred the word to the manifestation of an art style. When Burckhardt included the term in his considerations, he first used it in such a way that the original meaning of the word (probably originating from Portugal) resonated: Something crooked, bizarre, strange - even "(be)deceptive" is said to have partly been resonated.

We encounter a baroque life in the Inn-Salzach-Donau area with the Viennese Georg Ludwig Count of Sinzendorf (1616-1680). At the court of Emperor Ferdinand III he made a career from chamberlain to treasurer and president of the court chamber. In this function, the by no means rich count had the Austrian financial system under his control. And here it happened: He "filled all positions with his creatures, booked only part of the money he had received, and knew how to thwart every revision by bribing. (35 Biographical encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire - Fürnfunddreißigster Teil - Sincacher - Sonnenthal, 1877). But that was not all - an investigative commission brought the count to court in 1680, with the prosecution "referring to the following punctilious acts: abuse of official authority, perjury, theft, signature and blackmail".

The count had been arrested "in the midst of a feast which he (had) scented in a fairylike way with the sums ordered and misappropriated for the army of Prince Eugene of Savoy". Sinzendorf now had to "restitute 1,970,000 guilders" and was relieved of all offices, a little later he died at the age of 64. His second wife, Dorothea Elisabeth Princess of Holstein - "a pompous, extravagant lady who, by her waste, might have a not inconsiderable salvation in the Count's crime" - received some goods back for herself and her children "by the oversized mercy of the Emperor".

The widow was not allowed to keep the county of Neuburg am Inn. This was sold by the state to a Scottish count in 1698. Sinzendorf had acquired the county in 1654 and redesigned Neuburg am Inn Castle in the style of the time. He also had plans which today would probably be called a founding investment: Sinzendorf wanted to invest into minting coins, producing gold and silver wires, extracting and processing raw materials (saltpetre; lime- and brick burning), tobacco cultivation and brewing. In the 1670s he developed the settlement of Dommelstadl, today a district of the municipality of Neuburg am Inn, for the settlement of workers at horse stables ("Tummelstadl") near the castle.