Kruse, August Heinrich Ernst Freiherr von

General

born: 05.11.1779 in Wiesbaden

died: 30.01.1848 in Hofgut Hausen near Niederselters

Kruse was the son of Carl Julius Hermann Friedrich Freiherr von Kruse, President of the Government of Nassau-Using, and entered Hanoverian service in 1796, from which he was taken over as Captain of Nassau Weilburg in 1803.

In 1806/07 he commanded a battalion as a major during the war against Prussia, in which Nassau had to join Napoleon as a result of its membership of the Confederation of the Rhine. From 1808-13 he led the 2nd Ducal-Nassau Infantry Regiment as lieutenant colonel in the Spanish theater of war. Kruse became a general in 1814 and took part in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Until his retirement in 1837, he served the Dukes Friedrich August and Wilhelm zu Nassau as Adjutant General and President of the War College (military authority subordinate to the General Command). He was also a member of the Council of State, a chamberlain and a member of the First Chamber of the House of Representatives from 1825-31 and 1832-37.

In recognition of his services, he received the Hausen estate near Niederselters as an endowment, where he also settled. During his retirement, he was president of the agricultural association and as such made himself unpopular with the farmers in his neighborhood because he wanted to ban them from distilling schnapps. He is buried in a small chapel on the estate, which has been preserved.