Christian Karl August Ludwig von Massenbach (16 April 1758 – 21 November 1827), Prussian soldier, was born at Schmalkalden, and educated at Heilbronn and Stuttgart, devoting himself chiefly to mathematics.

[1] On returning to Prussia Massenbach became mathematical instructor at the school of military engineering, leaving this post in 1792 to take part as a general staff officer in the war against France.

He was awarded a prebend (sic) at Minden for his services as a topographical engineer at the Battle of Valmy, and after serving through the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 he published a number of memoirs on the military history of these years.

Bronsart von Schellendorf, in his Duties of the General Staff, says of Massenbach's work in this connection, that the organization which he proposed and in the main carried out survived even the catastrophes of 1806-1807, and exists even now in its original outline.

But the actual doctrine taught by Massenbach, who was now a colonel, may be summarized as the doctrine of positions carried to a ludicrous excess; the claims put forward for the general staff, that it was to prepare cut-and-dried plans of operations in peace which were to be imposed on the troop leaders in war, were derided by the responsible generals; and the memoirs on proposed plans of campaign to suit certain political combinations were worked out in quite unnecessary detail.

After the fall of Napoleon he took part in Württemberg politics, was expelled from Stuttgart and Heidelberg, and soon afterwards arrested at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, delivered over to the Prussian authorities and condemned to fourteen years fortress imprisonment for his alleged publication of state secrets in his memoirs.