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Description
On December 24, 1762, King Frederick II of Prussia received the Saxon representative for the impending peace negotiations, Thomas Baron von Fritsch, at his headquarters in Leipzig. This envoy brought him the news that the Austrian peace delegate, Baron von Collenbach, had refused to continue traveling to Leipzig with him. Collenbach remained in Wermsdorf and insisted that the location for the peace treaty negotiations had to be in a neutral venue. Thus, Wermsdorf and the surrounding area were promptly declared a neutral region and cordoned off from the outside by field hunters. Therefore, Hubertusburg, the baroque hunting palace of the Polish kings and Saxon electors, became the negotiation venue. However, the looting of Hubertusburg Palace in January 1761 was so thoroughly carried out that it was a struggle to find rooms for negotiating the end of the Seven Years´ War in 1762/63. The peace negotiations were opened on December 30, 1762, in the apartment of the chamberlain von der Schulenburg, located on the first floor of the southern round wing. On February 15, 1763, the three delegates (Collenbach for Austria, Councilor of Legation von Hertzberg for Prussia, and Fritsch as chief negotiator for Saxony) signed the peace treaties on behalf of their countries. The definitive treaties only needed to be ratified by the sovereigns - King Frederick II of Prussia, Empress Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and King August III of Saxony-Poland. This happened over the course of the following two weeks. Frederick II signed the treaties in Castle Dahlen, not far from Hubertusburg. On March 1, 1763, the ratification documents were exchanged at Hubertusburg. The Seven Years´ War was thereby formally concluded.
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