Georg Dietrich von der Groeben

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Georg Dietrich von der Groeben (born October 22, 1725 in Prussia , † July 9, 1794 in Berlin ) was a Prussian lieutenant general , military writer and head of the military department at the General Directorate .

Life and military career

Adolph Menzel: Corpse of an Officer , 1873; Pencil, 23.8 × 33.3 cm. Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett

Groeben came from an originally Brandenburg aristocratic family von der Groeben , which produced a large number of high military personnel. His father was a Prussian court judge of the same name. After he was educated in the Groebenschen Scholarship House in Königsberg ( East Prussia ) in the 1730s , he began his military career. In September 1745 he was awarded the order of Pour le Mérite by King Frederick II with the rank of major in the Roeder Regiment . In 1780 he rose to lieutenant colonel and was promoted to colonel in 1782 . In May 1787 he became a major general appointed and assumed the same year the Cuirassier - Regiment "von Bohlen". At the same time he was appointed inspector general of the Lower Silesian cavalry by King Friedrich Wilhelm II .

In September 1788 he became head of the military department at the Prussian General Directorate, where he was a renewer of the Prussian cavalry, following the example of his teachers Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz and Wilhelm Dietrich von Buddenbrock . Shortly before his death in July 1794, he was promoted to lieutenant general.

On July 11, 1794, he was buried in the crypt of the Berlin garrison church. Almost 80 years after his death, his mummified corpse was one of the corpse portraits drawn by Adolph von Menzel . The drawing of an officer's corpse could be identified by Menzel's notes on the sheet as a picture of von der Groebens' mummy.

family

Groeben was married to Johanna Antoinette Charlotte von Koppy, with whom he had two daughters:

  • Bernhardine Friederike Sophie Charlotte (* 1777)
  • Wilhelmine Charlotte Luise Karoline Friederike (born November 29, 1788; † January 21, 1865) ⚭ 1805 Baron Karl Lebrecht Friedrich von Krafft (1784–1857), Prussian lieutenant general

Author and military scientist

At the age of 23, Groeben began translating French literature on military science topics. He wrote, mostly anonymously, his own articles on war studies, which he published in the series Trial of a War Library (10 volumes to 1772) and New War Library (8 volumes 1774 to 1780) , which he founded in 1754 . With these series he published the first war science journal in Europe. His explanations of the understanding of shipping and naval war in alphabetical order from 1774 were published in reprint more than 200 years later .

Works

  • Explanations for understanding shipping , digitized
  • Proposal and draft of a general book manufacture in and before Germany , digitalization
  • Treatise on the tournaments , digitized
  • New war library , digitized
  • Greece and the Greeks, digitized edition from 1821

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gustav Lehmann: The Knights of the Order Pour le Mérite, Vol. I, Mittler, Berlin, 1913, p. 124, No. 708
personal data
SURNAME Groeben, Georg Dietrich from the
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian lieutenant general
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1725
PLACE OF BIRTH Prussia
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 1794
Place of death Berlin