At the age of two he lost his father who died from wounds he received in the battle of Kundersdorf.

He joined the Prussian Army in 1777 upon the request of King Frederick the Great.

By 1781 he was a staff officer in the Regiment von Schlieben and by 1787 he commanded a grenadier battalion based in Königsberg.

He retired from Prussian service as a lieutenant general in 1797 and spent the rest of his life improving agriculture in Holstein.

She was the second and youngest daughter of Count Karl Leopold of Schlieben and his wife, Countess Marie Eleonore von Lehndorff.