Albrecht Theodor Emil, count von Roon  Albrecht Theodor Emil,
count von RoonPrussian minister of war  April 30, 1803
Pleushagen, Poland   February 23, 1879  Berlin, Germany
Albrecht Theodor Emil, count von Roon,  (born April 30,
1803, Pleushagen, near Kolberg, Pomerania [now Kołobrzeg,
Pol.]—died Feb. 23, 1879Berlin), Prussian army officer who, with
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and General Helmuth von Moltke,
brought the German Empire into being and made Germany the
leading power on the continent of Europe.  After his father, a
Prussian army officer, died during the French occupation
following Prussia’s disastrous war with France in 1806, Roon was
reared mainly by his maternal grandmother. He received a
commission in 1821 and served at the Berlin War Academy from
1824 to 1827. In 1832, after joining the headquarters of the
army corps at Krefeld, Roon became aware of the inefficiency of
the Prussian army and of the need for reorganization. He
published his three-volume Grundzüge der Erd-, Völker- und
Staaten