Rudolf Doehn studied philosophy at the University of Halle-Wittenberg and was, from 1841, a member of the Corps Guestphalia Halle.
He belonged to the German volunteers who helped prevent Confederate forces from seizing the government arsenal in St. Louis during the Camp Jackson Affair.
[6] Doehn was a member of the Missouri General Emancipation Society, founded by Benjamin Gratz Brown und Charles D. Drake, who demanded even more consequent measures against slavery as foreseen by Abraham Lincoln in his Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, which excluded border states like Missouri.
He settled in Dresden and wrote many books about the political system of the U.S. and its literature; he also published in Die Gartenlaube, Germany's most successful family magazine.
[7] His daughter Franziska married Ferdinand Avenarius, Doehn's son Bruno, a jurist, became known during the Weimar Republic.