Georg Friedrich von Tempelhoff

File:GeorgFriedrichTempelhoff.jpg

Portrait of Georg Friedrich von Tempelhoff (1790), after Heinecke

Georg Friedrich Ludwig von Tempelhoff (19 March 1737 – 13 July 1807) was a German mathematician, military scientist and musical writer, Royal Prussian Lieutenant General, member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Prussian Academy of Arts. From 1805, he was Inspector General of all military educational institutions of the Prussian state.

Biography

His Prussian civil servant family originally came from Mühlenbeck near Bernau (Mark Brandenburg). He was the son of the Royal Prussian Amtsrat Georg Samuel Tempelhoff (1711–1775), tenant of the state domains Trampe near Eberswalde and Kossenblatt, and his first wife, Marie Margarethe Thieme (1717–1751).

He graduated at Alma Mater Viadrina in Frankfurt and the Martin Luther University in Halle, joined the Prussian army of King Frederick II in 1756, took part in the important battles of the Seven Years' War as a simple artilleryman, became an officer in 1759, and immediately after the war began to study military history, mathematics, and astronomy.

In 1775 he completed his first book on the tactics of artillery, which was to the satisfaction of King Frederick II, but was immediately forbidden to be published for reasons of military secrecy. Georg Friedrich was, however, able to teach mathematics and ballistics to the officers of the Berlin garrison, and reached the rank of captain through his participation in the campaign of 1778/1779.

After returning to the capital Berlin, von Tempelhoff lectured on military theory to the officers of the Residenz. His second book Le Bombardier Prussien (1781), also remained military classified information. In 1783, as a major, he became a teacher at the Berlin Inspection School and was considered Prussia's best artilleryman. King Frederick II raised Tempelhoff to hereditary nobility in 1784, but refused him admission to the Academy of Sciences. Because of his mathematical and astronomical studies, he was considered one of the most notable scholars of the army.

Under Frederick William II, Tempelhoff received an artillery regiment, the rank of general, and now finally the longed-for admission to both Prussian academies in Berlin, that of the sciences and that of the arts. At the same time, in 1787, the King entrusted him with the education of the Crown Prince Frederick William (1770–1840) and his brother Louis (1773–1796) in mathematical and military sciences. On June 20, 1789, Frederick William II awarded him the Order Pour le Mérite.

In 1791, von Tempelhoff was appointed director of the newly established Artillery Academy in Berlin, devoted most of his time to military science research, and between 1783 and 1801 published his magnum opus, the History of the Seven Years' War in six volumes. Tempelhoff took part in the campaign against France from 1792 to 1794 as chief of an artillery regiment. He was forced to resign his command on the orders of King Frederick William II because of open disputes with superiors, but was later rehabilitated by King Frederick William III, promoted to lieutenant general in 1802, and awarded the Order of the Black and Red Eagle. The King also entrusted him with the training of his brothers, Princes Heinrich (1781–1846) and Wilhelm (1783–1851), in fortification and artillery.

One of von Tempelhoff's historical achievements was his efforts to secure Gerhard von Scharnhorst's acceptance into the ranks of the Prussian army and his support as his regimental commander in the years beginning in 1801. As a musician, he owned numerous manuscripts by Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, which were returned to the Berlin State Library by the Kiev Conservatory in 1999.

His grave in the Old Garrison Cemetery in Berlin-Mitte no longer exists.

Family

Tempelhoff married Louisa Friederike Charlotte Grunow (1759–1820), the daughter of the mayor and district collector of Königsberg Christian Gottlieb Grunow and Charlotte Louisa Ringmuth, on 10 June 1780 in Berlin.

Works

• Anfangs-Gründe der Analysis endlicher Grössen (1769)
• Anfangs-Gründe der Analysis des Unendlichen: welcher die Differential-Rechnung enthält (1769)
• Genaue Berechnung der Sonnenfinsternisse und Bedeckung der Fixsterne vom Monde (1772)
• Vollständige Anleitung zur Algebra (1773)
• Gedanken über die Temperatur des Herrn Kirnberger, nebst einer Anweisung, Orgeln, Claviere, Flügel (etc.) auf eine leichte Art zu stimmen (1775)
• Le Bombardier Prussien , ou du Mouvement des Projettiles (1781)
• Geschichte des siebenjaehrigen Krieges in Deutschland zwischen dem könige von Preussen und der Kaisereim Koenigin mit ihrer Alhürten (1783-1781; 6 volumes)
• Geometrie für Soldaten und die es nicht sind (1790)
• Die Kriegskunst: durch Beispiele erläutert (1808)

References

• Brose, Eric Dorn (2001). The Kaiser's Army: The Politics of Military Technology in Germany During the Machine Age, 1870-1918. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Herrmann, Otto (1885). Über die Quellen der Geschichte des siebenjährigen Krieges von Tempelhof. Berlin: Buchdruck von Gustav Schade.
• Jessen, Olaf (2007). „Preußens Napoleon“? Ernst von Rüchel (1754-1823). Krieg im Zeitalter der Vernunft. Schöningh: Paderborn.
• Paret, Peter (1986), ed. Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Speelman, Patrick J. (2002). Henry Lloyd and the Military Enlightenment of Eighteenth-Century Europe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
• Wawro, Geoffrey (2000). Warfare and Society in Europe, 1792-1914. London and New York: Routledge.

External links

• Works by Georg Friedrich von Tempelhoff at Hathi Trust