Ernst von Pfuel

Ernst Heinrich Adolf von Pfuel
4th Minister President of Prussia
In office
21 September 1848 – 1 November 1848
MonarchFrederick William IV
Preceded byRudolf von Auerswald
Succeeded byFriedrich Wilhelm, Count Brandenburg
Personal details
Born(1779-11-03)3 November 1779
Jahnsfelde, Prussia
Died3 December 1866(1866-12-03) (aged 87)
Berlin, Prussia
Military service
AllegianceKingdom of Prussia Prussia
Branch/servicePrussian Army
Battles/warsNapoleonic Wars

Ernst Heinrich Adolf von Pfuel (3 November 1779 – 3 December 1866) was a Prussian general who served as Minister of War and later Minister President of Prussia.

Biography

A member of the noble Pfuel family, Ernest Pfuel was born in Jahnsfelde, Prussia (present-day Müncheberg, Germany), the son of General Ludwig von Pfuel and Johanna Christiane Sophie Krantz.[1] He studied at the Prussian War College.[1] Pfuel served as commander of Cologne and the Prussian sector of Allied-occupied Paris in 1814-1815, during the Napoleonic Wars, and was promoted to general major in 1825.[1] In 1831, he was appointed Frederick William III's commissioner to Neuchâtel, a Swiss canton and a principality of the King of Prussia, where he suppressed revolutionary activities.[1] Pfuel served as governor of Neuchâtel from 1832 until 1848, when a republican revolution ended Prussian rule.[1]

After a brief period as governor of Berlin, Pfuel replaced Karl Wilhelm von Willisen as the Royal Special Commissioner of King Frederick William IV during the German Revolution of 1848.[2] He was a member of the Prussian National Assembly of 1848 and later that year served as Prussian Minister of War from 7 September to 2 November, as well as Minister President of Prussia.

Pfuel was a close friend of Heinrich von Kleist. He was also an innovator of the breaststroke swimming technique, and the founder of the world's first military swimming-school, in 1810 in Prague. From 1816 he was a member of the Gesetzlose Gesellschaft zu Berlin. He died in Berlin on 3 December 1866, aged 87.[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Anne-Marie Cruchaud: Ernst von Pfuel in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 18 January 2011.
  2. ^ Alvis, Robert E. (2005). Religion and the Rise of Nationalism - A Profile of an East European City. Syracuse University Press. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-8156-3081-4.