He received the Order Pour le Mérite and is one of the 25 generals depicted on the Equestrian Statue of Frederick the Great.

Such service had been required since the ascension of Frederick William I, and firmly established the participation of the landed aristocracy in the Prussian military.

[2] On 26 August 1756, when the Prussian Army invaded Saxony, the regiment was part of the left column led by the Augustus William, Duke of Brunswick-Bevern.

Instead, it was deployed on the left bank of the Moldau near the Weissenberg as part of Field Marshal James Keith's corps.

The Prussian force, under the overall command of James Keith and locally by Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, managed to retake Erfurt three days later.

[11] In early 1761, Kleist was appointed to lead a Freikorps, or an independent corps,[12] with which he achieved some of his greatest successes.

The Freikorps consisted of 22 squadrons of hussars and dragoons, including the so-called "Croatian Battalion", and a Fußjägerkorps (comparable to light infantry).

At this point in the stalemate, Frederick's brother, Henry, unleashed a portion of Kleist's Freikorps on a Glorious Raid, with instructions to plunder and lay waste to the more affluent states of the Holy Roman Empire.

Kleist was instructed to seize at least a half million thalers from the enemy countryside and towns; Henry planned to break the Imperial resistance.

In late November, Kleist and his hussars were chased out of Imperial territories, back to Leipzig.

In mid-December, the Austrians refused to parlay, leaving the Imperial territories vulnerable to Prussian incursion as long as Austria remained at war with Frederick.

[9] Kleist spent the remaining years of his life between Berlin and his estate near Liegnitz, where he died on 28 August 1768, one day short of his 43rd birthday.