Royal Engineering Academy (Potsdam)

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At Neuer Markt 1 in Potsdam,
1788–1806 seat of the academy

The Royal Engineering Academy in Potsdam was a training center for military engineers.

The academy was founded in 1788 by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II about two years after he took office. It was  housed in the building on Am Neuen Markt 1, later called the Cabinet House, which had served the future king as the royal residence from 1765 to 1786. The first director was the artillery officer Heinrich Otto von Scheel .

In the course of the political and organizational changes caused by the Napoleonic Wars , the institution was dissolved again in 1806. So the Royal Academy only existed for 18 years. Major General Bonaventura von Rauch was its director for the last eight of them .

According to the rules of the time for the composition of the Prussian officer corps, only aristocrats were accepted as students.

The first teaching staff was:

  • Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Otto von Scheel (1745–1808), director
  • Major Karl Gustav von Winanko (1729–1790), Vice Director, Fortification
  • Major Joseph von Borghesi (1733; † after 1796), actually bourgeois, from Sardinia, drawing
    Major General Bonaventura von Rauch, director of the royal engineering academy in Potsdam from 1796 to 1806
  • Major Bonaventura von Rauch (1740-1814), artillery, geometry and topography (lived with his family in the academy building)
  • Captain Christian Freiherr von Massenbach (1758–1827), mathematics, physics, tactics
  • Captain Robert Bourdet (1719–1799), civil water engineering
  • Engineer-captain Jean d'Obreuil (from 1794 von Budbach), civil hydraulic engineering
  • Engineer lieutenant Ludwig Philipp von Engelbrecht (1758–1818), assistant to the director
  • Professor Charles Dantal (D'Antal) (1759–1799), German and French (reader of King Friedrich II. )
  • Garrison building inspector Richter, drawing

literature

  • Communications from the Association for the History of Potsdam , Volume 1, p. 6
  • Bernhard von Poten : History of military education and training in the lands of the German tongue , Volume 17, p. 103f
  • Brandenburg Chamber of Engineers (ed.): Establishment of the Royal Prussian Engineering Academy in Potsdam donated on April 15, 1788. Transcript of the deed of foundation in the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage and commemorative publication on the occasion of the 225th anniversary of its foundation. Potsdam 2013.

Individual evidence

  1. Tinkering for victory. Retrieved May 27, 2020 .
  2. ^ Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch : New Preussisches Adels-Lexicon , Volume 3, p. 339
  3. New General German Adels Lexicon: Ossa - Ryssel . Voigt, 1867 ( google.de [accessed on May 27, 2020]).
  4. ^ Bartholomé Robert Bourdet. In: arch INFORM .
  5. ^ Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch : New Preussisches Adels-Lexicon , Volume 3, p. 4
  6. Guide for foreigners and locals through the Königl. Residence cities , p. 208

Coordinates: 52 ° 23 '44.7 "  N , 13 ° 3' 28.3"  E