The Pyramids of the Green Prince in Cottbus

The focal point of the beautiful Branitz Park near Cottbus consists of two pyramids: the Land Pyramid, modeled after the stepped shape of the Pyramids of Saqqara, and the Lake Pyramid or “Tumulus”—the burial pyramid. In front of the latter lies a tiny island featuring the gravestone of Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and his wife, Lucie.

Hermann von Pückler-Muskau commands respect as one of the most multifaceted and dazzling personalities of his era. He was also quite an “odd bird.” Born on October 30, 1785, as the eldest son of a mother who was only 15 years old, he grew up with his grandfather. After his grandfather’s death, the education of the nine-year-old was entrusted to the Moravian Church (Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde). The pietism of this “Moravian hypocrisy-institute” (as Pückler called it) triggered early religious skepticism, rebellion, liberalism and a commitment to pantheism—the equation of God with nature.

After dropping out of law school, he began a military career in 1802. From 1806 onwards, he undertook extensive travels to Provence and Italy. During the Wars of Liberation starting in 1813, he enjoyed a rapid military rise, briefly serving as the military governor of Bruges. After leaving military service, he traveled to England, where he found his calling as a landscape gardener. He began creating an “ideal park” in the Neisse floodplains in Muskau, which is today a cross-border UNESCO World Heritage site shared by Germany and Poland.

Biographical details of his life paint the picture of a restless adventurer and multi-talent. He went on a hot-air balloon flight, married the divorced Lucie von Hardenberg (who was nine years his senior), and later divorced her at her own suggestion—though not before transferring assets to her to protect them from seizure.In Lucie, he found his lifelong intellectual counterpart; both shared a ‘parkomania’—a fanatical passion for landscape gardening.

The underlying purpose of the divorce was to acquire a dowry through a new marriage in England, as an extravagant lifestyle and the landscaping of Muskau Park had left him and Lucie in financial distress. However, the English nobility locked away their daughters—Pückler’s charm and charisma were well known—and so the lucrative marriage never materialized. Recognizing the literary potential of Pückler’s humorous letters to her, Lucie published them to great success. In an age before the “yellow press” existed to hawk high-society gossip, Pückler provided an insider’s look at the lives of the rich and noble, reporting with wit and irony. Furthermore, he criticized the displacement of the Irish rural population by the English nobility. Politically, he held liberal and left-leaning positions, advocating for the abolition of slavery, freedom of the press, and the separation of church and state.

After missing his departure to North America due to a duel, he traveled to Egypt and up the Nile to Sudan in 1837. In a slave market in Khartoum, he bought the freedom of four slaves and made the underage Ethiopian girl Machbuba (Arabic for “beloved”) his foster child, but also his mistress. Travels to Turkey and Greece followed. In 1845, having overextended himself financially, he sold his estates in Muskau and began designing Branitz Park near Cottbus. Lucie von Hardenberg continued to take the lead in implementing his plans. Even in old age, he pushed his military career, rising to Lieutenant General in 1863. In 1866, at the age of 80, he famously overslept the Battle of Königgrätz; he was nevertheless honored after the victory. However, his participation in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 was denied, even though he had volunteered at the age of 86.

Princess Lucie remained devoted to him until the end of her life, overseeing the garden designs during his escapades. Inspired by his travels to the Orient, he designed his own grave in the form of the Tumulus. His instructions regarding his mortal remains testify to his skepticism toward religion and his free-spirited nature: since cremation was not permitted by the church, he decreed that his heart be dissolved in sulfuric acid and his body be bedded in quicklime.

The only thing he did not come up with himself was the “Fürst-Pückler-Eis” (Neapolitan ice cream)—the combination of vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate popular in Germany. It was a clever marketing idea by the confectioner Schulz from Cottbus (or Berlin), who likely served it to the Prince only once so that some of the nobleman’s fame might rub off on him.