Anton Freiherr von Cetto is not only a robust Lower Bavarian, but also a passionate European. But when, as recently when the Elector Karl Theodor Prize was awarded, the talk turns to the Palatinate, then his heart really swells. “One of my ancestors was a diplomat in the service of the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken,” he explained to the reporter, visibly proud. In fact, his ancestor of the same name, Anton Freiherr von Cetto (1756-1847), worked as an envoy in Paris for years. So that the reporter didn’t even have the idea of dismissing this information as irrelevant, Cetto played another trump card. His ancestor, he said, was the first German diplomat to sign the Rhine Confederation Act in 1806. Truly, that is remarkable.
Also noteworthy is the achievement of the Munich historian Stefan Schnupp, who received the aforementioned Elector Karl Theodor Prize in the reading room of the Maximilianeum. For years he researched the Palatinate and Bavarian embassies under Elector Karl Theodor (1777-1799) for his dissertation at the Chair of Bavarian History at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. The topic may sound a bit special, but the result is “very deserving basic research par excellence,” as Schnupp’s doctoral supervisor Ferdinand Kramer and jury member Daniela Neri-Ultsch (historian at the University of Regensburg) emphasized at the ceremony.
Schnupp’s work takes us right into the turbulence of the late 18th century, which not only kept the old Cetto on his toes, but also brought Bavaria and the Palatinate together. After the Bavarian Elector Max III. Joseph was taken away by smallpox in 1777 and the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach family was extinguished. The Palatine Elector Karl Theodor (1724-1799) moved to the head of the Electorate of Bavaria. Palatinate Bavaria emerged from the unification of the two Wittelsbach territories.
In general, the close ties between Bavaria and the Palatinate have been somewhat lost sight of. Even the lion in the Bavarian coat of arms comes from the Palatinate. In the 13th century, the Hohenstaufen king Friedrich II enfeoffed the Bavarian Duke Ludwig with the county palatinate near the Rhine and thus put the Palatinate lion on the coat of arms.
The fact that the Palatinate is far away from Bavaria didn’t make it easy to live together. Nevertheless, after the victorious powers separated the Palatinate from Bavaria in 1946, the Free State did everything it could to bind the region, which was under French occupation, back to itself. After all, the economic power of large corporations was attractive to the Rhine.
The fact that Bavarian state parliament members founded the Association of Friends of the Palatinate in Bavaria in 1950 – all in vain. The people of Palatinate didn’t want to go back. In a referendum in 1956, only 7.6 percent of those eligible to vote voted for reincorporation into Bavaria.
Nevertheless, the connections have not been broken. The close relationship was maintained on many levels. There is still a Palatinate representative on the staff of the state government, and since 1949 the regional association of the Palatinate people in Bavaria has been trying to ensure a successful coexistence. The similar-sounding Association of Friends of the Palatinate in Bavaria also promotes historically grown relationships in a variety of ways. Among other things, he supports young artists, and a few days ago he awarded the Elector Karl Theodor Prize for an outstanding academic work on the subject of Bavaria and the Palatinate for the third time.
Since the chairwoman of the Association of Friends of the Palatinate, President of the State Parliament Ilse Aigner, was unable to attend, the honorable task of awarding the prize fell to her deputy, Anton Freiherr von Cetto. He recognized Schnupp as the ideal winner because his work brought the namesake Karl Theodor directly into focus.
At the moment, attention is increasingly focused on this elector, as his 300th birthday is coming up in December. Karl Theodor was a supporter of learning and the natural sciences and a man who, as historian Frank Matthias Kammel explained at the event, did much to promote walking.
There may also have been walkers in the extensive network of legations that the Palatinate and Bavaria maintained throughout Europe. With 30 of his own embassies and up to nine permanent representations at the Munich court, the elector had a large communications network. Beyond politics, Schnupp’s work also reveals some gossip, for example that a number of diplomats had leisure stress and had their own boats on Lake Starnberg. About Philipp Nerius Graf von Lerchenfeld, the envoy to the Reichstag, his father-in-law, the Jülich-Bergian Chancellor Nesselrode, wrote: “Therese marries Count L., not exactly a luminary, but the best that can be found in that country.”
The work also shows that Mozart himself came into contact with Wittelsbach diplomats in Paris and London. During their stay in Paris in 1763/64, for example, the Mozarts stayed overnight at the residence of the Bavarian envoy Maximilian van Eyck.
Despite all the departure for Europe, it is also clear that Karl Theodor was extremely unpopular in Bavaria. The country remained foreign to him; he even considered swapping it for the Austrian Netherlands. His death in February 1799 is said to have caused more joy than sadness in Munich. “The people’s shouts of joy and vivat pierced the clouds,” noted the enlightener Lorenz Westenrieder.