Wilhelm von Humboldt
1767 Potsdam
1835 Berlin Tegel
Wilhelm von Humboldt, an abbreviation of Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Carl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt , was born as the son of an officer in Potsdam on 22 June 1767. Wilhelm von Humboldt was one of the greatest scholars in German sciences of culture and was the co-founder of the University in Berlin. He studied natural sciences and languages. Humboldt attended the University of Göttingen and studied classical philology and natural sciences under Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. In company of Campe, Humboldt traveled to the revolutionary Paris in 1789. From 1803 to the end of 1808 Wilhelm von Humboldt was a Prussian Ministerial Resident in the Vatican. The scholar was sent as an envoy to Vienna and made Austria join the coalition against Napoleon. From 1815 to 1819 Humboldt was a Prussian proxy at the Bundestag in Frankfurt am Main, chairman of a tax reformation commission and a Prussian envoy in London. At the end of 1819 Humboldt was empeached of all offices. Wilhelm von Humboldt died in Berlin-Tegel on 8 April 1835.
