| The connection between the Eltz family and Croatia stretches back several hundred years. Philipp Karl zu Eltz (1665-1743), Archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire and Prince Elector of Mainz, bought the Lordship of Vukovar on the Danube in Croatian East-Slavonia in 1736 for 175,000 Gulden (about DM 50 million today). | |
This extremely large property was, for a long time, only barely profitable. Continually threatened by the Turks, marauding troops of soldiers, robbers and, above all, the expense of the landowners’ administrative obligations (the judicial system, schools, the health system, bridge and street building and public safety), all combined to cost more than the tithes brought in (i.e. money collected).
Finally the freeing of the serfs in 1848 offered an opportunity to improve the property. The size of the property was reduced by two-thirds but, at the same time, the financial duties were assumed by the government.
Through large scale irrigation, animal breeding programmes and new building work Graf Karl zu Eltz was finally able to convert the estate into a model farm.
Up until the violent expulsion in 1944, Vukovar was the main residence of the Eltz vom Goldenen Löwen (Lion Or) branch of the Eltz family. In this year the communist regime seized, without compensation, the entire property with all grounds, buildings and possessions. Only a few small remembrances could be saved. Since then the family has lived at Eltzerhof in Eltville/Rhine.
With the independence of Croatia in 1990/91 the head of this branch, Jakob Graf zu Eltz, moved back to his native country and became a member of the Croatian Parliament in Zagreb. The castle in Vukovar and the city with hundreds of 18th century houses was reduced to rubble by the Serbians in 1991.