ARNIM, or Arnheim, Johan Georg Baron von, one of the most distinguished men during the period of the Thirty Years’ War, both as a general and as a diplomatist, was born in 1586, at Boitzenburg, in the province of Brandenburg. He entered the Swedish army, and served under Gustavus Adolphus. In 1626 he, though a Protestant, was induced by Wallenstein to join the imperial army. He gained great distinction by his military and diplomatic talents, and became the close friend and faithful ally of Wallenstein. After the dismissal of the latter from his command in 1630, Arnim went over to the elector of Saxony, and, at the battle of Leipsic, led the left wing of the united Saxon and Swedish armies. But he disliked the Swedes, who distrusted him; and it was mainly by his influence that the elector detached his forces from Gustavus Adolphus, and that at the peace of Prague the Saxons seceded from their alliance with Sweden. In 1632 Wallenstein, who had been restored to his command, took the field against his old comrade, but ∏ttle was done by either, and more than a suspicion was roused that they were playing into each other’s hands. In February 1634 Wallenstein was assassinated, and Arnim at once began more active operations. In May he gained a great victory over the imperialists at Liegnitz; but after the conclusion of peace, not thinking himself sufficiently honoured by the elector, he withdrew to his castle of Boitzenburg. Here he was seized by the Swedes, and imprisoned at Stockholm. He escaped, and was engaged in raising an army to revenge himself when he died suddenly in 1641.

ARNIM, Karl Otto Ludwig von, a German writer of travels, was born at Berlin in 1779, travelled from 1835 to 1844 through Turkey and Greece, France, Spain, and Italy, and died in 1861. He was attached for some time to the German embassy at London, and wrote in English Napoleon’s Conduct towards Prussia (1814), and German National Melodies (1816). He also translated some English plays and poems. His reputation rests mainly on his Fluchtige Bemerkungen eines fluchtig Beiseηden (1838-1850), which are highly praised for their lively and graceful style.

ARNIM, Ludwig Achimvon, a distinguished German poet and novelist, was born at Berlin in 1781. He studied at Vienna and Gottingen, and took the degree of M.D., though he never practised as a physician. His attention, however, in his early years seems to have been specially directed towards the natural sciences, and his first literary performance (Theorie der Elektrischen Erscheinungen) was in that department. But even in this essay he showed the fondness for the supernatural and the predilection for romance that appeared so strongly in his next work, Ariel’s Offenbarungen, 1804. In the same year he published Hallin’s Liebesleben, with an appendix containing a biography of Rousseau. He spent some years in travelling through parts of Germany and collecting old popular legends and songs. A selection of these he published at Heidelberg in conjunction with the poet Clemens Brentano, whose sister Bettina (noticed above) he afterwards married. The volumes, entitled Des Knaben Wunderhorn, were received with great favour. In 1809 he published the Wintergarten, a collection of tales; in 1810 an admirable novel, Die Gräfin Dolores; in 1811 a humorous dramatic romance, Halle und Jerusalem, and a novel, Isabelle von Aegypten ; and two years later his Schaubühne or dramatic pieces. His literary activity was for some time interrupted by the war in Germany, but in 1817 he published his last great romance, Die Kronenwachter, the scene of which is laid in the time of the Emperor Maximilian. Arnim died in 1831. His works have been published in a collected form at Berlin, 1839-1846. They manifest great originality of invention, but are for the most part marred by the utter absence of literary form, being vague, incoherent, and whimsical to the last degree. Arnim is the subject of a brilliant but much too favourable criticism in Heine’s De l’Allemagne.