Gustav Adolph, Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken

Who is Gustav Adolph, Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken?

Gustav Adolf of Nassau-Saarbrücken was Count of Saarbrücken and Major General at the Rhine of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation.

He was the second son of Count William Louis of Nassau-Saarbrücken and Countess Anna Amalia of Baden-Durlach, who named him after king Gustav II Adolf of Sweden, who was still alive at the time.

During the Thirty Years' War, the family fled to Metz, where his father died in 1640. In 1643 his mother returned to Saarbrücken with the children.

From 1645 to 1649 he studied in Basel.

He then fought on the French side against Spain. In 1658 he fought against Denmark in the service of the Swedish king Charles X Gustav, who was a duke of the house Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Later, he served in the imperial army, possibly until 1659.

Until 1651 his mother had been Regent of his behalf; from 1651 to 1659, his older brother John Louis had been regent. In 1660, Gustav Adolf and his brothers John Louis and Walrad divided the territory and Gustav Adolf took up the reign of the counties of Saarbrücken and Saarwerden.

He set about rebuilding the war-ravaged country, brought back refugees and recruited settlers for agriculture and skilled workers for the glass industry in Klarenthal.