Ernst von Pfuel

Who was Ernst von Pfuel?

Ernst Heinrich Adolf von Pfuel was a Prussian general, as well as Prussian Minister of War and later Prime Minister of Prussia.

Pfuel was born in Jahnsfelde, Brandenburg. He served as commander of Cologne and the Prussian sector of Paris from 1814-1815 during the Napoleonic Wars. Pfuel later served as Governor of Berlin and Governor of the Prussian Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

Pfuel replaced Karl Wilhelm von Willisen as the Royal Special Commissioner of King Frederick William IV of Prussia during the Greater Poland Uprising. He was a member of the Prussian National Assembly of 1848 and later that year, served as Prussian Minister of War from 7 September to 2 November, as well as Prime Minister of Prussia.

Pfuel was a close friend of Heinrich von Kleist. He was also an innovator of the breaststroke swimming technique, and the founder of the world's first military swimming-school, in 1810 in Prague. From 1816 he was a member of the Gesetzlose Gesellschaft zu Berlin. He died in Berlin.