Friedrich Wilhelm Menzel

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Friedrich Wilhelm Menzel (* 1724 in Dresden , † in May 1796 in the Königstein Fortress ) was a Saxon civil servant and a betrayer of state secrets .

Life

Menzel, who worked as a secret secretary in the royal Saxon cabinet, was bribed by the Prussian ambassador Hans Dietrich von Maltzahn at the Saxon court . In 1753, after obtaining duplicate keys for the Secret State Archives, he delivered copies of the secret correspondence between the Electorate of Saxony , Austria and Russia about the negotiations against Prussia . The findings from this espionage activity were partly responsible for the decision of Frederick II to attack the Electorate of Saxony from 1756 and thus trigger the Seven Years War . After discovering the treason, Menzel was arrested in Prague . In the subsequent criminal proceedings he received a life sentence in Warsaw in 1757 , which he served first in Brno and later - after the Peace of Hubertusburg  - from 1763 on the Königstein.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard von Poten :  Menzel, Friedrich Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 377.
  2. ^ Friedrich von Bülau: Secret stories and enigmatic people , II. Leipzig 1850.
  3. ↑ Thomas Carlyle : History of Frederick the Second called the Great , Fourth Volume. Salzwasser Verlag, Paderborn 2011, life story of Frederick the Great in six volumes. Reprint of the original from 1928, pp. 349-350, 357-367.
  4. ↑ Uwe Klußmann, Norbert F. Pötzl (ed.): The Hohenzollern: Prussian Kings, German Emperors - A SPIEGEL book . 2011, p. 201.
  5. ↑ Uwe Klußmann: Ahead of its time. In: Spiegel Geschichte 2/2011, pp. 34, 41. Spiegel Online , accessed on May 10, 2015 .
  6. ↑ General German real encyclopedia for the educated classes: Conversations-Lexikon . FA Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1827, Volume VII, p. 292.
  7. ^ Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , Volume 13. Leipzig 1908, p. 622.
personal data
SURNAME Menzel, Friedrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saxon civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH 1724
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH May 1796
Place of death Koenigstein Fortress