Joachim Bernhard von Prittwitz

Joachim Bernhardt von Prittwitz and Gaffron (1726–1793) was a Prussian officer credited with saving the life of Frederick the Great at the Battle of Kunersdorf. At the time, he was a cavalry captain in Hans Joachim von Zieten's Hussar regiment. He became the head of gendarmes regiment, and inspector general of the cavalry of Brandenburg March and Magdeburg in 1775. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1785 and general of cavalry in 1788. Frederick awarded him the Order Pour le Mérite and the Order of the Black Eagle. In 1851, Prittwitz was included on the panels of the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great as one of the key figures in the establishment of the Prussia state. Family Prittwitz was born in Groß Läswitz. He came from the old and established Silesian nobility of Prittwitz, and was the son of the Prussian military captain and landowner Joachim Wilhelm von Prittwitz (13 March 1693–5 June 1758), master of Groß Läswitz, and Sophie Wilhelmine Gottesliebe von Domnig (9 February 1698–28 October 1752). He was born on 3 February 1726, on his father's estate. As a 36-year-old on 16 December 1762 in Berlin, he married the widowed Eleanor of Paczensky and Tenczin, born Freiin von Seherr-Thoß (12 January 1739 on the estate at Schönfeld, Kr. Schweidnitz, Lower Silesia, died 23 February 1799 in Berlin), the daughter of the Junker Karl Heinrich von Seherr-Thoss, lord on the estates Schönfeld and Ludwigsdorf, and the Anna Elisabeth von Zedlitz and Leipe. Eleonore, a wealthy heiress, brought to the marriage fourteen properties in Lower Silesia near Breslau and Hirschberg. Military career Prittwitz first attended a village school, later to the Oelser Gymnasium. In August 1741, he entered the Prussian cadet corps in Berlin, and in November of that same year was accepted as a Fahnenjunker (cadet) in Dragoon Regiment Nr. 1 (von Posadowski). From here, Prittwitz's military career modeled that of other Junker sons.