Jacob Chrysostom Praetorius

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Jakob Chrysostomus Praetorius (born January 9, 1730 in Uckermark , † after 1797 in Portugal ) was a lieutenant in the schaumburg-Lippe artillery corps, a military school teacher and engineer.

Praetorius was born in 1730 as the son of a pastor in the Uckermark and entered the service of Wilhelm Graf zu Schaumburg-Lippe in 1759 as an "engineer- geographer " . He accompanied the count in 1762/63 on the Portuguese campaign against Spain and became a lieutenant in the artillery corps and informator at the Wilhelmstein military school in the Steinhuder Meer . In 1761, he presented Count Wilhelm with the idea of ​​building a submarine in two drawings , for which he himself suggested the name Steinhuder Hecht . He also designed the Hippopotame amphibious vehicle .

Besides being an engineer, Praetorius also made a name for himself as a cartographer . Numerous maps originate from him , which are characterized by an extraordinary dimensional accuracy for the time. The most famous maps for the Steinhuder Meer region are

• “Plan of the area around Steinhude and Grossen Heidorn” from 1768
• "General chart of the Steinhuder Meer and the surrounding areas. Specialized in the associated plans" from 1769, scale approx. 1: 28000
• "The Steinhuder Meer with the surrounding areas, to the knowledge of the true position of the fortress the Wilhelms Insuln" from 1770, which was taken to Kassel in 1787 as spoils of war from the Hessians who invaded Schaumburg-Lippe and is now in the Hessian State Archives in Marburg.

The first two cards were discovered by chance in 1995 in the Princely Court Chamber in Bückeburg behind old tomes .

Praetorius was on leave on October 12, 1776 to enter the service of Portugal, in 1777 became captain of the artillery , (presumably by marriage) director of the Alcantara powder factory and member of the Academy of Sciences in Lisbon . 1797 then also major in engineers. Sometime after 1797 Praetorius died in Portugal.

literature

• Timm Weski: Hippopotame and Schaumburger or Steinhuder Hecht. An Amphibious Craft and a Submarine from the 18th century. The Mariner's Mirror 88, 2002, 271-284.