Leopold Wilhelm von Dobschütz

Leopold Wilhelm von Dobschütz (1 January 1763 in Brieg, Niederschlesien – 3 February 1836 at Gut Zölling, Kreis Freystadt, prev. Kreis Sagan, Niederschlesien) was a Prussian "general of cavalry", the "hero of Dennewitz" and "liberator of Wittenberg", military governor of the Rhine province and of Breslau. He was Gutsherr of Zölling, which his wife had inherited, and the Gütern Ober- and Nieder-Briesnitz as well as Schönbrunn, all in the district Sagan.

As to the year of his birth, there are different statements: The year 1763 is belied by his gravestone inscription and the "Seniority List of the royal Prussian army for the year 1801"; in his marriage certificate of 1787, his age is indicated as 28 years, according to which he would have been born in 1759. In other sources, one finds the years 1761 and 1764, though 1763 is more likely to be correct.

Though nothing certain is known as to his parents, his mother was an only daughter from the old Silesian noble family of Dobschütz. His father is thought to have been a civil servant in Brzeg. Since almost every detail of his military career is known yet there is not a single reference to his parents or birthplace in the official documents, he may have been illegitimate or descended from an illegitimate branch of the family.

On 27 November 1787, as a 22-year-old second lieutenant, he married the 17-year-old Henriette von Braun (1770, probably at Gut Zölling - April 5, 1854, Glogau, Lower Silesia) at Gut Zölling. She was the eldest daughter of Hans Carl Christoph von Braun and Maria Sophia von Lehwald. The marriage remained childless, though they adopted Friedrich Heinrich Konrad Viktor von Lützow (1818–1831), a nephew of Henriette.

After attending Gymnasium in Brieg (before 1776), Dobschütz had begun his military career at 14 by entering the 11th Dragoon Regiment as a junker (v. Mitzladd, v. Bosse, v. Voss), rising to ensign on 26 December 1778 and serving in the garrison at Sagan the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778-79. On 24 August 1785 he rose to second lieutenant in his dragoon regiment.

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