Background
He grew up in the idyllic setting of Wechselburg (51°0′11″North 12°46′36″East) in the Zwickauer Mulde river valley, about 25 kilometers north of Chemnitz.
He grew up in the idyllic setting of Wechselburg (51°0′11″North 12°46′36″East) in the Zwickauer Mulde river valley, about 25 kilometers north of Chemnitz.
Dispossessed and expelled from his homeland in 1945, he and his family migrated to the Rhineland, where he was an author and journalist. After the fall of the Berlin wall, he returned to his homeland, represented the district in the Bundestag, and served in local government. The Schönburg family had occupied the Schloss Rochsburg there since 1637.
In 1945, Soviet occupation troops arrested him, expropriated his property, and he and the family were deported, living for a while in Mainz.
He supported his family as a journalist and author In 1965, he accepted an assignment to Somalia, where he established a broadcast station, and served as a foreign correspondent.
In the so-called Berlin debate on 20 June 1991, he spoke against the transfer of the capital city status to Berlin. He is known for his stance on the protection of nature, and, as an author, for his books about hunting.
One of his most popular books, the humorous Der Jagdgast (The Hunt Guest), tells old hunting stories from his homeland.
Der deutsche Jäger (The German Hunter) is a combination of hunting stories and hunting practices. From 1991 to 1997 he lived in the former family castle of Rochsburg, and served in the city council of Lunzenau. In 1998, he became very sick, and moved to Passau, in Bavaria, where he died.
He is buried in the old cloister Basilika in Wechselburg, his boyhood home.
Immediately after the fall of the wall in 1990, he returned to his homeland in Saxony, and from 1990 to 1994, served as a member of the Bundestag for the representative district, which included the communities of Glauchau, Rochlitz, Hohenstein, Ernstthal and Hainichen, in Saxony, for the Christian Democratic Union.