Friedrich Raßmann (3 May 1772 - 9 April 1831) was a prolific German writer, editor and producer of newspapers and journals. He can also plausibly be seen as an anthologist, an encyclopaedist and a bibliographer.
Life
Provenance and early years
(Christian) Friedrich Raßmann was born at Schloss Wernigerode ("Wernigerode Castle" -) subsequently rebuilt and completely changed), roughly equidistant between Hannover and Leipzig. The family were living at the castle because Heinrich Ernst Raßmann, the father of Friedrich, was employed at the time by Count Henry Ernest of Stolberg-Wernigerode who had inherited the services of the castle librarian, along with the family lands in and around Wernigerode on the death of his father the previous year. Sources - including at least one of Friedrich's own later poems - indicate that the librarian's son enjoyed a peaceful and happy childhood living at the castle. His first teacher was his father who before becoming a court librarian had worked as a school master and, at one stage, as a school "Rektor" ("head teacher"). He attended the local school in Wernigerode and then moved on to the "Martinischule" (as it was then known) in nearby Halberstadt. That was followed by three years at the University of Halle where between 1791 and 1794 Friedrich Raßmann studied Theology. He now became a candidate for ordination, and worked for a further three years, till 1797 as a volunteer teacher at his old school in Halberstadt, where he subsequently took a paid teaching post. In 1800, in a move that at least one openly incredulous commentator finds inexplicable, given his economic circumstances, he abandoned his teaching job and resolved to live by writing alone.
Poetry and ambition
Friedrich acquired a love of poetry from his father while still a boy. According to one source by the time he was 18 his own poems were being published. Elsewhere it is recorded that he was writing poems while still at secondary school, periodically gathering his output in a newssheet under the title "Unterhaltende Blätter" ("Entertaining Pages") which he circulated among his fellow pupils. He was 18 in 1790 when a poem of his was first printed. Inspired by the death of a contemporary, it was printed in Halberstadt and entitled "Eine Blume auf das Grab des besten Jünglings" (loosely, "A Flower on the grave of the best young man"). Between 1795 and 1797 a succession of further quite short poems were printed singly. Alongside these, in 1795 a small collection of his poems was printed in Halberstadt. The next year another collection was printed in Braunschweig, then as now a more substantial town, to the north-west. More followed. It was also during this period that he came to know Klamer Schmidt and Ludwig Gleim, two eminent local poets. Gleim, in particular, became briefly a valued mentor: evidence of the friendship survives in the form of the correspondence between them when Raßmann was out of town. In the words of one source, however, neither of these kindly men was able to provide for him the more productive life that he evidently craved. (Gleim was already an old man, and died in 1803).
