Ernst von Pfuel
Prussian general (1779–1866)
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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.
Ernst Heinrich Adolf von Pfuel | |
|---|---|
| |
| 4th Minister President of Prussia | |
| In office 21 September 1848 – 1 November 1848 | |
| Monarch | Frederick William IV |
| Preceded by | Rudolf von Auerswald |
| Succeeded by | Friedrich Wilhelm, Count Brandenburg |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 November 1779 Jahnsfelde, Prussia |
| Died | 3 December 1866 (aged 87) Berlin, Prussia |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Prussia |
| Branch/service | Prussian Army |
| Battles/wars | Napoleonic Wars |
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.[citation needed] He died in Berlin on 3 December 1866, aged 87.[1]