Leopold Wilhelm von Dobschütz

Leopold Wilhelm von Dobschütz (1 January 1763 in Brieg, Niederschlesien – 3 February 1836 at Gut Zölling, Kreis Freystadt, prev.

Kreis Sagan, Niederschlesien) was a Prussian "general of cavalry", the "hero of Dennewitz" and "liberator of Wittenberg", military governor of the Rhine province and of Breslau.

The marriage remained childless, though they adopted Friedrich Heinrich Konrad Viktor von Lützow (1818–1831), a nephew of Henriette.

After attending Gymnasium in Brieg (before 1776), Dobschütz had begun his military career at 14 by entering the 11th Dragoon Regiment as a junker (v. Mitzladd, v. Bosse, v. Voss), rising to ensign on 26 December 1778 and serving in the garrison at Sagan the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778-79.

In 1795 he served in the garrison at Grünberg, where in 1798 his commander major-general von Voss remarked he was "a good staff officer, who was not lacking in military skills, and endeavours to gain more, brave before the enemy, who recommended himself".

The "Schlesischen Provinzialblätter " wrote on 18 February 1804 "Herr Major von Dobschütz ...always worthy of the most notable awards, has become the first free-willing member of this institution.

Already on 24 July 1798 he qualified for a rise to the canonicate at St Nikolai zu Magdeburg, awarded him by Frederick William III of Prussia.

On 13 March 1807 he had already been listed by the king for "replacement" (i.e. release from active service), but after the Peace of Tilsit (9 July 1807) he was still part of a prisoner exchange.

On 1 November 1812 he was the temporary head of the Amt of the Landrat for Landkreis Sagan, his birthplace, all the while making repeated rejected requests to re-enlist.

On 27 May he claimed a transition at Crossen - one for the Silesian Army and the important Berlin posts - against the French superiority under marshal Claude Victor-Perrin.

Dobschütz deceived his opponent into thinking he had a military force that did not in fact exist - of 4.5 battalions and 5 squadrons the infantry was defective and the cavalry and artillery lacked munitions.

After a short command at Berlin, on 22 October 1813 he began the siege of Wittenberg, held by the French under general Jean François Cornu de Lapoype.

[2] On 19 October 1814 Dobschütz was made military commandant of the Prussian occupying forces in Dresden in the Kingdom of Saxony, and in this post he set up a smoking ban in the city.