Wilhelm von Schröder

Baron Johann Wilhelm von Schröder , also Wilhelm von Schroeder , Wilhelm von Schröter and Wilhelm von Schrötter (born November 15, 1640 in Koenigsberg in Bavaria , † October 1688 in Eperies , Hungary ) was a German mercantilist and camera operator at the court of Emperor Leopold I in Vienna.

Life

Wilhelm von Schröder was born as the son of Wilhelm Schrötter and Anna Katharina. Löw 1640 in Königsberg i. Bay. born. From 1640 to 1645 his father was the princely Saxon bailiff of the little town that was then part of the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha; later, from 1660 to 1663, chancellor of Duke Ernst the Pious in Gotha.

Schröder attended the Ducal Gymnasium in Gotha and began legal studies at the University of Jena in 1659 , which he broke off in 1660 in order to acquire a comprehensive education by visiting the science and business centers in Holland and England. His main interest was the blossoming political and economic sciences, but also the natural sciences and especially alchemy. He became a member of the Royal Society in 1662 .

In 1663 his attempt to complete his studies at the University of Jena failed because his dissertation , in which he dealt with state philosophy, was not approved.

There is no further information about his biography until he entered the Austrian civil service.

After converting to Catholicism, he offered his services to Emperor Leopold I in 1673, for whom he sent reports from London from 1675 to 1677 on the economic innovations in England and their possible transfer to the Habsburg Empire to the imperial court in Vienna (have not been preserved).

In 1677 he was asked to take over the Wiener Kunst- und Werkhaus am Tabor , a state model company for the introduction of wool and silk processing, a glassworks and a training workshop for tradespeople, a project by Johann Joachim Becher . After initial successes, the Kunst- und Werkhaus was closed for legal reasons in 1681, and in 1683 it burned down during the Turkish siege .

From 1687 until the end of his life in 1688 he was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Pressburg .

Services

Wilhelm von Schröder's merits lie in his attempt to further promote the mercantilistic and cameralistic ideas that were represented at the Viennese court by Philipp von Hörnigk and Johann Joachim Becher .

In his writings he represented the position of the state and the head of state, which should lead the state to economic prosperity, which is why he was also judged as an absolutist and a fiscalist ( Heinrich von Srbik ).

His main work Princely Treasury and Rentkammer was moved in eight editions until 1835 and was one of the classics of political economy of his time.

Works

• Wilhelm von Schröder: Discursus iuris publici de potestate circa sacra in Imperio Romano-Germanico . Jena 1660.
• Wilhelm von Schröder: Dissertatio accademica cuius prima pars De ratione status, secunda De nobilitate, tertia De ministrissimo, quam pro more consueto praeside… Jena 1663 ( unapproved dissertation).
• Wilhelm von Schröder: Necessary instruction in gold making, which Buccinatoribus or foederatis hermeticis calling themselves in their three epistles as a kind message . 1684.
• Wilhelm von Schröder: Princely treasury and rent chamber . Leipzig 1686.

literature

• Winfrid Halder:  Schröder, Johann Wilhelm Freiherr von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 577 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Marchet .:  Schröder, Wilhelm Freiherr von (cameralist) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 32, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, pp. 530-533.
• Heinrich von Srbik: Wilhelm von Schröder. A contribution to the history of political science . In: Meeting reports of the quays. Academy of Sciences in Vienna, philosophical-historical class . Volume 164, first treatise. Vienna 1910.