Peter Friedrich Arpe (10 May 1682, Kiel - 4 November 1740, Schwerin) was a German lawyer, historian and legal writer.
After some time in Copenhagen, he accompanied a young Danish count to the Rudolph-Antoniana academy in Wolfenbüttel.
Initially only handwritten, anonymous and available in the library of Kiel University as "Das verwirrte Cimbrien, in der merkwürdigen Lebensbeschreibung Herr Henning Friedrich Grafen von Bassewitz...", his masterwork was published in 1774 as "Geschichte des Herzoglich Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorfischen Hofes und dessen vornehmster Staatsbedienten".
[1] It is notable as the only comprehensive contemporary source on the history of Schleswig-Holstein and its connections to Russia at the time of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.
[4]: 10 [5] Due to Arpe's dismissal, he held a great personal enmity against the then-president of the privy council at Gottorf, Henning Friedrich, count von Bassewitz, and thus the work contains several polemics against him.