Frederik Gottschalk von Haxthausen (14 July 1750 – 6 July 1825) was a Danish- Norwegian army officer, councillor of state, cabinet member and Norway's first minister of finance.

Biography

Haxthausen was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. His father was major-general Frederik Gottschalck Haxthausen (1705–1770) and Juliane Dorothea von Haxthausen (1719–1790). He enrolled at the Army Cadet Academy ast the age of six. He became ''fændrik'' im Prince Frederik's Regiment at the age of 11, became a junior lieutenant in 1763 and a senior lieutenant in 1881. He was sent to Norway in 1773 as a first lieutenant of Søndenfjeldske regiment, and rose to the rank of captain and company commander in 1779 and major in 1788. In 1789 he was appointed ''generalkrigskommissær'', the officer in charge of national conscription, and in 1802 became the director of the War Academy (''Krigsskolen''). In 1806 he became the commanding officer of

Akershus fortress Akershus Fortress (, ) or Akershus Castle ( ) is a medieval castle in the Norwegian capital Oslo that was built to protect and provide a royal residence for the city. Since the Middle Ages the fortress has been the namesake and centre of the ...

, a charge he held until 1814. He spent the years 1808–1810 in Denmark as head of the war commissariate, but retained nonetheless all of his Norwegian posts. Haxthausen had a major influence on Prince Christian Frederick as

viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the Anglo-Norman ''roy'' (Old Frenc ...

(''stattholder'') of Norway from 1813, joined the interim government of Christian Frederick in March 1814, and on 19 May 1814 he became Minister of Finance in the first cabinet of independent Norway. During the Swedish campaign against Norway in 1814 he served as a lieutenant general, but was wrongly accused of being a traitor, and on 19 August, 5 days after the Convention of Moss, his house and garden was attacked by a mob. Haxthausen had to flee the town and withdrew from all his positions. In 1816 an

impeachment Impeachment is a process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In Eur ...

process cleared him. After 1814, the Akershus fortress went out of operative military use, so that Haxthausen was the last operative commander of the fortress. He died in Christiania, 6 July 1825. In 1879, a street of

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

in the Frogner area close to his home was named after Haxthausen.

References

Sources

* ''Aschehougs konversasjonsleksikon'', Vol. 9, Oslo (1957), H.Aschehoug & co. * ''Oslo byleksikon''

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haxthausen, Frederik Gottschalk von Government ministers of Norway 1750 births 1825 deaths 18th-century Danish military personnel Military personnel from Copenhagen Politicians from Copenhagen 19th-century Norwegian politicians Ministers of finance of Norway Norwegian Army generals Norwegian military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Impeached Norwegian officials