FREIHERR VON KARL

LUDWIG

See also:

• FREIHERR VON KARL LUDWIG POLLNITZ (1692-1775)

POLLNITZ (1692-1775)  , German adventurer and writer, was born at Issum on the 25th of February 1692 . His father, Wilhelm Ludwig von Pollnitz (d . 1693), was in the military service of the elector of Brandenburg, and much of his son's youth was passed at the electoral court in Berlin . He was a man of restless and adventurous disposition, unscrupulous even for the age in which he lived, visited many of the European courts, and served as a soldier in Austria, Italy and Spain . Returning to Berlin in 1735 he obtained a position in the household of King Frederick William I. and afterwards in that of Frederick the Great, with whom he appears to have been a great favourite; and he died in Berlin on the 23rd of June 1775 . Pollnitz's Memoires (Liege, 1734), which were translated into German (Frankfort, 1735), give interesting glimpses of his life and the people whom he met, but they are very untrustworthy . He also wrote Nouveaux mmoires (Amsterdam, 1737) ; Etat abrege de is tour de Saxe sous le regne d'Auguste III . (Frankfort, 1734; Ger. trans., Breslau, 1736) ; and Memoires pour servir a l'histoire des quatres derniers souverains de la maison de Brandenbourg, published by F . L . Brunn (Berlin, 1791; Ger. trans., Berlin, 1791) . Perhaps his most popular works are La Saxe galante (Amsterdam, 1734), an account of the private life of Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland; and Histoire secrete de la duchesse d'Hanovre, epouse de Georges I . (London, 1732) .

There is an

English translation of the Memoires (London, 1738-1739) . See P. von Pollnitz, Stammtafeln der Familie von Pollnitz (Berlin, 1894) ; and J . G . Droysen, Geschichte der preussischen Politik, pt. iv . (Leipzig, 1870) .