Franz Johann Karl Andreas Kretzschmer (1 November 1775 – 5 March 1839[1][2]) was a German lawyer, secret war councilor, composer, musicologist and folk song researcher.
Nevertheless, at the request of his father, a government councillor, he studied law in Berlin and then became Commissioner of Justice in his home town of Stettin.
[clarification needed] Later, at the request of the Prussian Crown Prince and later King Frederick William IV of Prussia, he was entrusted with the task of "investigating and reporting on the remnants of the Middle Ages still existing in the province of Brandenburg and especially in its spiritual institutions which still exist or have been abolished".
In 1835, he retired after a stroke and from then on devoted himself exclusively to literary and musical works as well as to folk song research.
His plan was to publish a complete collection of German folk songs, but during his lifetime he could only publish the first volume Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren Original-Weisen with 317 folk songs, which appeared in eight issues between 1838 and 1840, with the collaboration of Hans Ferdinand Maßmann, Anton Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio and others.