Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer

Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer

Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer (* October 8, 1703 in Versin ; † December 3, 1782 in Stettin ) was a royal Prussian lieutenant general ; he came from the Puttkamer noble family in Rear Pomerania .

family

Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer was the eldest child of the landlord Andreas Joachim von Puttkamer (* 1665 in Versin ; † 1721 in Klein Volz ) and his wife Margarethe Dorothee, born von Below (* 1684 in Klein Machmin ; † 1755 in Versin). The father owned the Versin and Viartlum estates with shares in pure water and Vorwerk Dulzig . Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer had seven sisters and three brothers, of which one brother and four sisters died very young.

He was married twice, first with Crescentia Sibylla Harsdörffer von Bernbach and second with Dorothee Elisabeth von Laurens. From the first marriage, Puttkamer had a daughter who died in 1752.

Life and military background

Puttkamer was first taught by a private tutor and then transferred to the renowned Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin . His father wanted him to be optimally trained for a later civilian career, but he later wrote in a letter: "... the beautiful urge to study died out, the soldier's spirit awoke". At the age of seventeen, Nikolaus Lorenz joined the Prussian army as a flag junior . At the age of twenty, Puttkamer was promoted to lieutenant . In the years from 1733 to 1736 he worked in the rank of staff captain as an advertising officer in the Reich; Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer wrote about this time in old age:

“... I have to say that the above three years have been the most pleasant times in my life, because I was lucky enough to visit all the big cities in the whole empire without visiting the courts in Manheim, Darmstadt, Cassel, Munich, and Stuttgardt , the then Allyrte great Reich Army consisting of Austrians, Hanoverians, Prussians, Saxons, Dähnen, Hesse, Russians and Imperial troops seen on the Rhine, under the command of the Imperial Field Marshal Prinz Eugen, other generals and great people to say nothing whose acquaintance I made outside ... ”.

In the fighting force he took part in the First and Second Silesian Wars . After the battle of Hohenfriedberg in 1745, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite in the rank of chief sergeant major . After the end of the war, he was promoted to colonel in 1752 and Puttkamer was appointed commander of infantry regiment No. 9 (von Bevern) in Stettin. With his regiment he took part in the Seven Years War and remained its commander even after his promotion to major general . On June 15th he was trapped near Gabel by the Austrians under General Macquire . Attempts were made to storm the city which only partially succeeded. The defenders only surrendered when they ran out of ammunition. Due to the five wounds he received during the fighting (especially in the battle of Lobositz ) he had to say goodbye in 1759. In 1762 he was reactivated as Commander of Szczecin and promoted to Lieutenant General in 1767. A final farewell to the active troops never took place; several requests for dismissal from Puttkamer were rejected by the Prussian king.

In the late stages of his life, Puttkamer wrote about his time as a soldier:

"... and apart from that, in the rest of my life I have always shown myself to be extremely respectful of my superiors, and have shown myself to be amicably friendly towards my equal, but I knew my subordinates to be responsible for their duties and to keep them in proper discipline Gentleness, based on sharpness, but without forgiving me anything in respect of the respect and their rights, if one owed my status as something I was always careful and emphatic about. "

On May 2, 1769, Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer was awarded the honorary title of Drosten von Ravensberg ( Westphalia ).

Puttkamer originally owned the Versin estate and shares in the Reinwasser estate together with his three surviving brothers; Nikolaus Lorenz and his brother Georg Ludwig, who was also in military service, left their shares to their middle brother Franz Joachim.

Literature and source

• Ellinor von Puttkamer (editor): History of the sex v. Puttkamer (= German Family Archives, Volume 83–85). 2nd edition, Degener, Neustadt an der Aisch 1984, ISBN 3-7686-5064-2 , pp. 354-358
• Anton Balthasar König : Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer . In: Biographical lexicon of all heroes and military figures who made themselves famous in the Prussian service . tape 3 . Arnold Wever, Berlin 1790, p. 239 ( Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer at Wikisource [PDF]).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

• Nikolaus Lorenz von Puttkamer on the homepage of the Association of the Gender v.Puttkamer eV