Ernst von der Malsburg

Who was Ernst von der Malsburg?

Ernst Friedrich Georg Otto Freiherr von der Malsburg was a German statesman, poet, and translator.

Von der Malsburg was born in Hanau. Ernst Friedrich was the younger son of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von der Malsburg by his wife Elizabeth Leigh, daughter of Sir Egerton Leigh, 1st Bart. His father, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Infanterie-Regiment von der Malsburg, commanded his troops as allies of George III in the American War of Independence. His brother-in-law, Nathan Garrick who died in 1780, had married Martha Leigh, was nephew of David Garrick.

From 1817 he was an envoy of the Electorate of Hesse to the Kingdom of Saxony. He wrote Romantic poetry, a collection of which was published as Poetischer Nachlaß in Kassel in 1825. He is probably best known however for his translations of the works of Spanish playwrights Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Lope de Vega into German. He translated a large number of Calderón's works, published in Leipzig in six volumes from 1818 to 1825. Of Lope de Vega, he translated three plays, published as Stern, Zepter und Blume in Dresden in 1824. He died that year at his estate, Schloss Escheberg, near Kassel.