August Friedrich Wilhelm Crome
His father Johann Friedrich Crome (1724-1802) was first headmaster in Stadthagen, then pastor, and later superintendent and official in the village of Sengwarden (allegedly he had two legendary encounters with the devil).
Thanks to the financial help of his uncle, the geographer, historian, educator and theologian Anton Friedrich Büsching in Berlin, the Count of Bentinck, and the church of his father, Crome was able to study in theology from 1772 to 1774 at the University of Halle.
He didn't accept a position offered as a pastor, but remained a private tutor instead, as of May 1775, at the home of Baron von Bismarck in Schönhausen.
Crome's uncle Büsching introduced him to the Berlin Enlightenment circle around Moses Mendelssohn and Christoph Friedrich Nicolai.
Crome later reported anecdotally, that one day he had been invited by his uncle in Berlin to present an afternoon trial sermon on the "value of suffering" in the presence of several civil servants.
In the foregoing of lunch it however turned into a dispute about the recent published epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, on which Büsching sharply disapproved, but was defended by Crome.
Instead of the priest profession, Crome choose a teacher career and taught from 1779 at the Philanthropinum in Dessau, especially in the fields of geography and history.
Here he also wrote his first publication, entitled "Über das Verhältnis des Erziehers zu seinen Zöglingen" (On the relationship of the teacher to his pupils).
The honors he received included membership in the Imperial Free Economic Society to St. Petersburg and the Academy of Public Sciences to Erfurt, as well as the philosophical honorary doctorate from the University of Göttingen.
[1] This map was another example of a new representations in political economy, and would inspire a new generation of cartographers, such as Alexander von Humboldt in Germany,[6][7] and Charles Dupin in France.
His scientific achievements as reformer in the field of mercantilism were less driven by theoretical originality, but rather through practical usefulness, educational preparation and thoroughness.
The Emperor, to that date, Grand Duke of Tuscany, commissioned him after a lively conversation to translate and annotate his work "Governo della Toscana".
As a member of a so-called "War on Land Commission", which had to mediate between the people and the occupiers, Crome, among other things prevented the looting of the University Library in 1799.
On the advice of Crome the French changed their plans and chose instead of Darmstadt, at that time only weakly occupied by the Austrians, Mannheim as their headquarters.
He saw France as the protective power for Germany against the East, promised peace to the continent, and foresaw the flourishing of the continental economy and culture with a Napoleonic victory against Great Britain.
On charges of treason Fatherland, among others by August von Kotzebue, even a death threat followed, and finally the burning on Crome's writings by radical nationalist students at the Wartburg Festival in 1817.
