Johanna Sophia Herre (8 July 1706 – 5 June 1796), was the morganatic wife of William Gustav, Hereditary Prince of Dessau, and later Imperial Countess () of Anhalt.
Life
Origins
On her mother's side, Johanna Sophia Herre comes from a long-established and wealthy family of merchants and pharmacists. Her mother, Katharina Dorothea Starke (died 1767), was the daughter of the respected Rector of the Dessau Latin school. Her father, Christian Herre (1646–1720), formerly Mayor of Jeßnitz —he had acquired his fortune as a merchant and heir from a previous marriage– continued his successful business after his second marriage with Katharina Dorothea Starke in 1691.
Johanna Sophia Herre had four siblings, one younger sister and three older brothers, of whom two were officers in Prussian service and the youngest was Provost in Wörlitz.
Marriage and issue
How and where Johanna Sophia Herre and William Gustav, Hereditary Prince of Anhalt-Dessau met is unknown; however, the two were distantly related: they shared a common great-grandmother, Eleonora Blandina Schulze (1621–1696), who was married successively to the pharmacists Dominicus Starke (Johanna Sophia Herre's great-grandfather) and Christoph Föhse (William Gustav's great-grandfather). The mother of the Hereditary Prince was a Dessau pharmacist's daughter, Anna Louise Föhse, firstly morganatic wife of Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau and later ennobled as Imperial Princess (). Although Dessau was the main residence of the princely family, only a few thousand people lived there at the beginning of the 18th century. In this small town, their parents' homes were only 300 meters apart.
William Gustav and Johanna Sophia Herre were married on 14 March 1726. The secret wedding took place at night in Dessau with only the couple, the Pastor Hoffmeister from Raguhn (who performed the ceremony) and Johanna Sophia Herre's grandmother, Anna Elisabeth Starke, were present. The young couple kept the wedding secret. Nevertheless, Johanna Sophia Herre moved into an apartment in Hornburg, near the place of employment of her husband, who served as an officer in the Prussian army.
In the summer of 1727, shortly after the birth of their first child, William, the small family moved to Gut Kleckewitz, where Johanna Sophia Herre spent the next two decades in virtual seclusion. The Hereditary Prince, to whom Gut Kleckewitz had been given to use by his father, visited her regularly, but continued to live in the court of Dessau or its garrison. Johanna Sophia Herre and her children had no official contact with the Dessau court or the princely family during these years. In the course of eleven years of marriage, they had nine children:
William (Hornburg, 15 March 1727 – killed in action at Torgau, 3 November 1760), a Prussian lieutenant-colonel. Leopold Louis (b. Kleckewitz, 28 February 1729 – Liegnitz, 28 April 1795), a Prussian general and bearer of the Order of the Black Eagle; married on 1 November 1763 to Karoline Elisabeth Antoinette von Printzen. Gustav (Kleckewitz, 26 May 1730 – killed in action at Breslau, 22 November 1757), a grenadier captain. Johanna Sophia (Kleckewitz, 9 July 1731 – Dessau, 15 July 1786), Abbess of Mosigkau. Frederick (Kleckewitz, 21 May 1732 – St. Petersburg, 2 June 1794), General Adjutant of the Empress Catherine II the Great of Russia. Wilhelmine (Kleckewitz, 12 February 1734 – Bosfeld, 4 June 1781), married on 8 April 1772 to August Wolfrath von Campen, illegitimate son of Albert Wolfgang, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe. Albert (Kleckewitz, 24 June 1735 – Dessau, 26 April 1802), a Prussian major-general; married on 24 June 1764 to Sophie Luise Henriette von Wedel. Henry (Kleckewitz, 4 September 1736 – Dresden, 14 September 1758), a Prussian captain. Leopoldine Anna (posthumously, Kleckewitz, 26 January 1738 – Berlin, 26 September 1808), married on 10 November 1773 to George Dietrich von Pfuhl.
The constantly growing family made their living from the private fortune of William Gustav and the income from Gut Kleckewitz as well as his position as a Prussian officer. All nine children from this marriage were identified in the baptismal registers as legitimate children of the Hereditary Prince and his wife. Although William Gustav had already committed himself to his wife and children in a will in 1734 and appointed the latter as his heirs, this will was also kept secret. Despite his apparent happy married life, the Hereditary Prince sired two sons in 1732 and 1734 from his relationship with Henriette Marianne Schardius, daughter of the Superintendent of Dessau.