Karl Ludwig Wilhelm Oppermann (12 November 1766,

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

- 2 July 1831,

Vyborg Vyborg (; rus, Вы́борг, links=1, r=Výborg, p=ˈvɨbərk; fi, Viipuri ; sv, Viborg ; german: Wiborg ) is a town in, and the administrative center of, Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus n ...

) was a German-born engineer, surveyor, army officer and fortification builder in the service of the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, Romanization of Russian, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the earl ...

. He fought in the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

and was a member of the State Council, Director of the Engineering and Building Department, Head of the Engineering and Artillery School and the school guard sub-ensigns and cavalry cadets, director of the maps and the hydrographic depot and an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

Life

From a middle-class family in the

Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt (german: Landgrafschaft Hessen-Darmstadt) was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a younger branch of the House of Hesse. It was formed in 1567 following the division of the Landgraviate of Hesse betwe ...

, his father was a privy councilor and a major dignitary at the court whilst research suggests his mother was a half-sister of

Ludwig Heinrich von Nicolay Ludwig Heinrich Freiherr von Nicolay (russian: Андре́й Льво́вич Никола́и, translit=Andréj L'vovič Nikolái; 25 December 1737, in Strasbourg, in Monrepos north of Vyborg) was a German poet of the Enlightenment. He serve ...

(1737-1820). He was educated in engineering and mathematics and initially joined the Hessian army in 1779, in which he was promoted to engineer-captain in 1783. He also decided to move to Russia in 1783 - Nicolay was already there, occupying high posts in the court of the future

Paul I of Russia Paul I (russian: Па́вел I Петро́вич ; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination. Officially, he was the only son of Peter III and Catherine the Great, although Catherine hinted that he was fathered by her l ...

and a confidant of both him and his wife Maria Feodorovna.

External links

*http://aalto.vbgcity.ru/node/526 German emigrants to the Russian Empire 1766 births 1831 deaths Military personnel from Darmstadt German military engineers {{Russia-mil-bio-stub