Ferdinand von Schill

Schill was born at Wilmsdorf (now a part of Bannewitz, Saxony) and entered the Prussian Army's cavalry at the age of twelve or fourteen (sources differ).[1] His father, Johann-Georg Schill, had been an ambitious commoner from Bohemia, who attained the aristocratic "von" for his services to Austria and Saxony during the Seven Years' War. J.-G. von Schill had raised a "Freikorps", a small raiding party of cavalry and mounted infantry, operating behind enemy lines, and acquired some measure of fame and success. Many of Ferdinand von Schill's later biographers assumed that his father's example was an important influence on his subsequent career.

Ferdinand von Schill was a second-lieutenant of dragoons when he was wounded at the battle of Auerstadt. From that field he escaped to Kolberg, where he played a very prominent part in the celebrated siege of 1806–07, as the commander of a Freikorps, raiding behind the French lines. After the Treaty of Tilsit, he was promoted to major, awarded the Pour le Mérite,[2] and given the command of a hussar regiment formed primarily from his Kolberg men.

In 1809 the political situation in Europe appeared to Schill to favor an attempt to liberate Germany from the French domination of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was an active member of the Tugendbund, the quasi-Masonic "League of Virtue" founded in June 1808, and including many notable Prussian reformers such as Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. It was banned in 1809.[3] Many Tugendbund leaders believed that the new Kingdom of Westphalia, created by Napoleon from many smaller German states, and ruled by Napoleon's youngest brother Jérôme Bonaparte, was ripe for revolution. Schill planned to create an uprising in Westphalia that would topple the Bonaparte regime there, and – coupled with the efforts of Austria, Spain, and Britain – would bring about the fall of Napoleonic dominance in Germany.

Leading out his regiment from Berlin under pretext of manoeuvres, he raised the standard of revolt, and, joined by many officers and a company of light infantry, marched first south through Saxony, and then north-west into Westphalia. At the village of Dodendorf on May 5, 1809, he had a brush with the Magdeburg garrison and won a small victory. Schill had no difficulty defeating, or even recruiting, the unreliable Westphalian troops sent against him, and his rebellion swelled to over 2,000 men.

He had less success, however, with the gathering Danish and Dutch forces, which gradually drove him in a north-east direction toward the Baltic Sea. His most serious difficulty was the condemnation of Prussia's king Frederick William III, who feared that the revolt would drag a weakened and unprepared Prussia into another disastrous war against Napoleon. By the end of May, although he had left garrisons and raiding parties in various places, Schill's main force was trapped at Stralsund. He had between 1,500–2,000 men, against a force of 8,000 Danish and Dutch troops under French command.[1]

Ferdinand von Schill's death mask, Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin

Ferdinand von Schill – Monument in Stralsund

By the 1830s Schill was widely considered a hero throughout Germany. Monuments and historical markers to him or to his rebels have been erected in towns and cities: Wesel, Stralsund, Braunschweig, Wilmersdorf, Potsdam, Ohlau, Cottbus, Anklam, Geldern, and Wittenberg.

Military units were named after him (most notably the last division fielded by the Wehrmacht during World War II, the Infantry Division Ferdinand von Schill of late April 1945), streets and plazas bear his name to this day. Over 400 biographies, novels, plays, operas, and collections of poetry have been published about him in German, and he is featured in over a dozen German films including Rudolf Meinert's 1926 silent film The Eleven Schill Officers and his 1932 sound remake.